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In a verbal memory study of language development, third- through sixth-grade children read and orally recalled short, expository passages which were presented in three syntactic paraphrase forms: (1) complex sentences with preverbal elaboration such as complex subject nominalizations and relative clauses, (2) complex sentences with postverbal elaboration, and (3) simple sentences. Syntactic analysis of the children's best recall samples (those showing high semantic recall) revealed that third through fifth graders tended to paraphrase the target information in simple sentences, regardless of the complexity of the material they had read. Sixth graders, however, maintained the original syntax more often than younger subjects, suggesting a better recall memory for syntactically complex features of discourse. The results corroborate previous findings showing that children's speech in the upper elementary grades shifts towards greater structural complexity. As suggested by Ingram (1975), such a shift may reflect important developmental changes in the linguistic strategies children use during this age range for producing complex sentences in connected discourse. (Author)

Noting that the lack of prosodic information in printed text may be a source of difficulty for children who are learning to read, this paper explores the features of language underlying the acoustic and perceptual segmentation of sentences into meaningful units. Using evidence from studies in speech production and perception, the paper addresses two issues: (1) What principles of sentence organization should guide the physical segmentation of text as an aid for poor readers? and (2) What intrasentence units, if made explicit, would best facilitate children's induction of effective reading comprehension strategies? Throughout this inquiry, two types of sentence organization are discussed--syntactic organization, and information processing organization. The first part of the paper examines the nature of speech units by looking at sentence perception, and describes some assumptions of comprehension processes that serve as a conceptual framework for later discussion of several psycholinguistic approaches to the study of immediate processing units in speech perception. The second part considers studies of speech production and describes the prosodic features of spoken sentences and their complex relationship to syntactic organization and information "packaging." (HOD)

This system for describing teaching events is intended to facilitate the analysis of classroom observations for purposes of comparing, documenting, or evaluating different instructional techniques. The typology is designed to describe a wide range of settings and teaching styles. The descriptors are organized into two groups that simultaneously depict two levels of events. Higher order events, such as tasks and lessons, are characterized in terms of the language content targeted for instruction, the language skill involved, and several features of language tasks. These tasks include an analysis of question types, response modes, and the role of cues. Communication events, such as turn-taking, depict the communication of an integral segment of information in classroom exchanges. The typology describes these events by their source, medium, purpose, and by a special group of descriptors for communication strategies and affective aspects of classroom interactions. The system will be useful to teacher educators, evaluators, and researchers interested in observing and analyzing language instruction. (Author/RW)

This report examines taxonomies of reading comprehension subskills in light of a process-oriented model of text comprehension. Part One presents an outline of reading comprehension subskills in the context of a simple conceptual framework, summarizes the conclusions of several reading specialists and researchers as to what comprehension consists of, and draws an idealized picture of the instructional goals that should be addressed in classroom practice. Part Two discusses studies that investigated what skills are actually taught in the classroom, how the skills are sequenced, and the instructional methods typically used in classroom settings. The report concludes that although none of the techniques reviewed were particularly startling or novel, observational evidence suggests that they are too seldom used and that the systematic use of direct interactive strategies appears to offer the most immediate promise for bringing about significant improvements in reading comprehension instruction. (AEA)