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The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of two different school language programs at the end of third grade, Follow Through (FT) and Non Follow Through (NFT), on the development of children's oral and written language on measures of complexity of structure and diversity of meaning. Linguistic complexity was studied by use of the T-unit and percentage of complex T-unit measures, while linguistic complexity was examined through use of the type-token ratio. The two language programs studied were FT, the Tucson Early Education Model (TEEM), an innovative language experience program, and NFT, a traditional approach. Subjects used for the study were 70 children continuously enrolled in FT (n = 34) and NFT (n = 36) classrooms since kindergarten or first grade, allowing for examination of program effects at the end of the third grade. One oral and two written language samples were obtained for each of the 70 subjects. Collection of the language took place within the classroom context, emphasizing sampling of children's natural language abilities. Instruments used for the collection, coding, and scoring of oral and written variables were the Children's Language Assessment-Situation Tasks (CLA-ST), developed by TEEM at the University of Arizona, and the Productive Language Assessment Tasks (PLAT), developed at the High Scope Education Research Foundation in Ypsilanti, Michigan. Using a posttest only control group design, two separate analysis procedures were performed. A two-way analysis of variance with repeated measures were used to determine the program impact on the linguistic complexity and diversity measures in the oral and written language of FT and NFT children. A correlational analysis was also performed to determine the relationship between the oral and written language patterns for both the control and experimental groups. Study results indicated no significant differences between the two groups, FT and NFT, on the measures of linguistic complexity, T-units, and percentage of T-units. On the type-token ratio measure, the differences between the FT and NFT groups were not significant, but greater differences were shown than between the two groups on the complexity measures. When examining the mean scores for the type-token ratio, the FT children consistently scored higher. These differences indicate a trend toward higher scores on this measure for the FT group even though the differences were not significant. Significant differences were found, however, between oral and written language for the subjects of both groups. Correlational procedures used to examine the relationship between oral and written language resulted in low to insignificant relationships. This is consistent with the analysis of variance finding of significant differences between oral and written language. Linguistic measures in oral language were found to be relatively independent of the same measures in written language. Competencies in oral language did not predict competence in use of written language for this age and group of children. Results indicate that children at this age are aware of the different functions and use of oral and written language. Trends found favoring the FT group indicate possible program effects. Further longitudinal investigations of the complexities and interrelationships of children's developing productive language abilities within the context of different classroom language programs are recommended.

The purpose of this study was to determine the degree of sensitivity of preservice elementary teachers to the language differences of Mexican American children in an oral reading task. The review of related research dealing with language attitudes toward nonstandard speech revealed that te

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No description available.

Three studies were conducted in which Quebec French, first grade children's ability to categorize vowels was examined. The children were tested on several aspects of vowel phoneme representation before they had any literacy skills, at the beginning of the school year, and again sis months later, after they had learned all of the spelling-sound correspondences for vowels. In Study 1, the focus was on children's phonemic and orthographic representation of nasal vowels. Performance on an AXB categorization task revealed that six-year-olds have considerable difficulty in discriminating the nasal feature on minimal and near-minimal oral-nasal vowel pairs. This ability did not improve after six months of schooling. In contrast to their performance on AXB, these same children performed very well on nasal vowel spellings. These results suggest that perceptually-based categorization ability and the ability to represent nasal vowels in spelling develop independently of each other. Study 2 examined children's categorization of self-generated productions of front-unrounded, nasal, and, back-nonhigh vowels. The influence of a number of variables on vocalic representation, such as articulatory complexity, spectral proximity, and syllable structure, was also examined. The children's performance on this explicit task varied as a function of the vowel set. Specifically, whereas articulatory complexity did not have a negative effect on categorization ability, spectral proximity of vowels did appear to hinder performance; syllable structure negatively affected oral but not nasal vowel categorization performance. Schooling, and exposure to literacy evidently had a strong impact on this type of phoneme categorization/representation ability as children's overall performance improved significantly from the first to the second testing period. In Study 3, children's ability to categorize vowel allophones which were spoken in two dialects was examined. Again, performance varied by the typ

In this research project, the speech which four mothers used to address their language-learning infants was examined. Part 1. A Descriptive analysis of mother's speech to infants led to the conclusion that this speech is both simple and redundant in nature, as measured by the language classification tools used. However, the four mothers used in this study differed from each other, in their speech to their infants. Part 11. A Trend analysis of measures of mother's speech to infants was used, to note how this speech changed over time. Little change was observed within each mother's speech to her infant, over the following periods of time: Oliver's and Julie's mothers, 24 weeks (each), Sarah's mother, 42 weeks and Kerryn's mother, 56 weeks. Part 111. A Functional analysis of mother's speech to infants suggests that speech varies in function as the child develops. This is particularly seen in the inclusion of the world about the child by the mother in her speech. The content of the mother's messages also varies over time. Finally an example of trends in 'conversation between mothers and their infants is presented as another useful approach. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, 1977.

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No description available.

The purpose of this study was to examine children's play and language when a variety of unfamiliar multicultural pretend foods and cooking utensils not typically found in dramatic play centers were introduced. The study was conducted in a laboratory preschool setting with three multiage heterogeneous groups of children over a period of 7 weeks.Three methods of data collection were employed: (a) videotapes of children in the dramatic play center, (b) a notebook of observations made by the teachers when the researcher was not present, and (c) interviews with 18 children. The children who chose to play in the dramatic play center were videotaped daily during indoor play time for 1 week prior to the introduction of new materials. The new multicultural pretend foods and cooking utensils were introduced during the second week of the study. The children were then videotaped daily for 2 more weeks and then once each week for the next 4 weeks.The data collected from the videotapes and teacher notes were used to develop coding categories. Categories of children's play were: (a) time spent playing with unfamiliar materials, (b) conventional use of materials, and (c) unconventional use of materials. Categories of children's language were: (a) labeling, (b) other conversation in dramatic play, (c) questions, and (d) conversation about the materials outside of the dramatic play center.The data were interpreted to discover how children interacted with and talked about the multicultural pretend foods and cooking utensils. It was concluded that children interacted with the unfamiliar multicultural pretend foods and cooking utensils in much the same manner as familiar materials. Labeling items or being able to put words with the foods and cooking utensils appeared to be important to the children. Children used unfamiliar materials unconventionally more often than they used familiar materials unconventionally. Furthermore, children did not see a relationship between the items in the dramatic play center and materials in other parts of the preschool. / Department of Elementary Education