Research in the Teaching of English

TLDR

Recent language and reading research has expanded, highlighted by Loban's 13‑year longitudinal study of 211 children from kindergarten to grade 12 that amassed extensive linguistic data. The study tests whether children’s language growth follows a predictable sequence and whether its velocity and relative growth can be precisely predicted. Data were gathered through oral interviews, written compositions, reading, intelligence, and listening tests, teacher ratings, book lists, and other sources, and analyses examined the relationship between verbal associative learning and seven indices of verbal ability among 32 third‑grade and 34 fifth‑grade students from six Las Cruces schools. Data were sourced from multiple assessments and teacher reports.

Abstract

A number of research studies in language and reading have been reported recently with a significant increase in the amount of research in language. Loban's thirteen-year study of language development, the only extensive longitudinal study that has been conducted during recent years, accumulated a mass of data on the linguistic behavior of 211 subjects from Kindergarten through Grade 12. Hypotheses tested included determining whether the growth in children's language follows a predictable sequence, and whether the velocity and relative growth in language ability can be ascertained and precisely predicted. The data were obtained from oral interviews, written compositions, reading tests, intelligence tests, listening tests, tests in the use of subordinating connectives, teachers' ratings, lists of books read, and miscellaneous other sources (12). Greathouse investigated the extent to which the relationships exist between children's verbal associative learning ability and seven indices of student ability to verbalize. Thirty-two students in third grade and thirty-four in fifth grade were randomly selected from six schools in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Sources of data included