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Designed to provide information about people's listening and reading skills, this battery of tests provides information about how well an individual or group listens or reads in comparison to the young adult population used as a norm for this assessment battery. The battery was developed for use with youth and adult populations at or above 10 years of age (grade five or above) and consists of three subtests: a paragraph test, a vocabulary test, and a decoding test. Research indicates that the LAB may be particularly useful in middle and secondary school remedial literacy programs and in developmental studies programs. It has also been developed to assess the likelihood that a population of unskilled readers will be able to learn and perform military jobs. (This document is one of those reviewed in The Research Instruments Project (TRIP) monograph "Measures for Research and Evaluation in the English Language Arts, Volume 2," published by the Committee on Research of the National Council of Teachers of English in cooperation with the ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading and Communication Skills. The TRIP review, included here as an introduction to the instrument, describes the instrument's category (reading), title, author, date, age range (intermediate through postsecondary and adult), purpose, and physical characteristics.) (HTH)

Research conducted to determine the effect of certain measurable characteristics of written material upon speed of memorization is presented. The characteristics studied fall into four classes: (1) Load measures reflecting informational density, (2) Length measures based upon number of syllables, words, kernel sentences, clauses, or sentences in a passage, (3) Packaging measures based on alternative, gramatically equivalent ways for dealing with the same semantic material, and (4) Word frequency measures. Six studies comprising 14 experiments were conducted. Experimental materials consisted of paragraphs, lists of sentences, single sentences, and lists of words. In all but one of the six studies, the primary measure of learning was cumulative presentation time to a criterion of one perfect rote recall of the experimental material, where presentation time during each exposure of the material was under the subject's control. Results include: (1) Paragraphs with a very high ratio between content words and total words in the paragraph required more time to learn than those with a lower content load; and (2) The time required to learn a set of sentences increased as the mean number of syllables per content word increased. Conclusions include: (1) Of the four types of stimulus characteristics studied, length has the most potent effects upon rote memorization; and (2) A number of relationships between independent and dependent variables were found to yield good fits to linear, power, or exponential equations. (Author/CK)

A guide for a quinmester course designed to help students identify how various types of paragraphs are developed and to provide experience in composing a variety of both oral and written paragraphs is provided. The guide presents performance objectives, course content, teaching strategies, and lists of student and teacher resources. (DB)

This study investigated subjects' ability to combine and organize information from different sentences, as well as their ability to retain that information. Ninety-six college undergraduates were given three trials to learn the characteristics of ships from a text. Attributes of each ship were clustered together (name organization), or sentences describing one attribute for all ships (e.g., their speeds) were clustered together (attribute organization). It was found that organization affected (1) level of recall, (2) subjective organization of recall, and (3) apprehension of certain relationships. Subjects tested for attribute organization, who had errorless recall, had difficulty answering questions that required combining information about each ship. Attribute organization produced the lowest free recall and caused subjects to impose a new order on sentences within clusters. The position of names and attributes was varied in the text sentences and learning objectives given to subjects. It was also found that the number of sentences incorrectly recalled increased if position was in some way incompatible with text organization. (Author/DI)

Reported were two studies designed to clarify the effects of verbal elaboration on children's learning. Study I was undertaken to replicate, with controlled training times, an earlier investigation of the effects of three types of extended verbal elaboration (sentences, semantic paragraphs, and syntactic paragraphs). Trials to criterion analyses of data from 42 children (aged 5 to 7) replicated previous studies: Ss in both paragraph groups performed significantly better than sentence condition Ss. Analyses of first trial errors, however, failed to find significant differences between the sentence and syntactic paragraph groups. Study II was designed to confirm earlier findings regarding the relative effects of labels and paragraphs on learning in very young children when training times were strictly controlled. Eight nursery school children (40 to 45 months old) were tested in labeling and paragraph conditions in a repeated measures design. The very poor performance of Ss in the labeling condition and their almost perfect performance in the paragraph condition was thought to suggest that they were not able to produce mediators on their own, but that they were able to use mediators supplied to them to facilitate paired associate learning. Both studies were found to support previous conclusions that extended verbal elaborations facilitate children's learning more than nonelaboration (labels) or simple sentences. (Author)

Two studies investigated characteristics of verbal elaborations (length and number of relations provided by the syntactic construction) to determine what makes them effective mediators for young children. Study I treated the role of an elaboration's length in facilitating paired associate learning in 22 nursery school children. Data indicated that longer paragraphs (three sentences) might be more effective than shorter paragraphs (two sentences), and that factors other than length might be important as well. Study II demonstrated that when 17 five year old children were given elaborations containing three relations (either sentences or paragraphs), they made fewer errors than those given one-relation sentences. Results indicated that within grammatically appropriate constructions, relational characteristics were more important than either the specific structures studied or physical length of an elaboration in facilitating paired associate performance. Similarities in the performance trends of normal and retarded children across levels of task difficulty were examined. (Author/GW)

The relative effectiveness of three types of elaboration (sentences, semantic paragraphs, and syntactic paragraphs) on paired associate learning in 75 educable mentally retarded Ss was tested under list lengths of eight, 12, 16 and 24 pairs. For all lists except the eight pair list, the elaborators were found to be equally and highly effective as mediators for paired associate learning, with Ss responding correctly to an average of at least 60% of the items on the first trial in all treatment conditions. At the eight pair level, the semantic paragraph group was found to be superior in learning to the sentence group. Following their performance on the paired associate task, Ss were asked to recall the original form of the elaborators given during training. Data indicated that the large percentage of pairs correctly recalled during the first acquisition trial at all list lengths was related to the ability of the S to store the meaning of the elaborators rather than the ability to recall the exact form of the elaborator. Reviewed was literature on verbal mediation in the mentally retarded, verbal elaboration and paired associate learning, and extensions of verbal elaboration research. Stimulus response pairs and their verbal elaborators were presented in an appendix. (Author/GW)

This report presents a summary of the research designed to develop a psycholinguistics of comprehension and memory for meaningful written prose paragraphs. The approach departs from most previous ones by seeking to formulate an explicit theory, instead of relying on informal qualitative judgments as to paragraph structure, the scoring of data, and the processes of comprehension and memory. The paper discusses overall methodological principles and assumptions designed to yeild as results the specific representations of paragraphs and presents a means for psycholinguistic structural analysis of the paragraph. Experiments intended to aid in perfecting the methodology are described along with results which provide an objective and complete method for scoring recall protocols. A bibliography is included. (Author/VM)

The purposes of this study were to replicate the effects of question placement, either before or after, on the acquisition of critical and incidental material with grade school subjects and to determine the effects of paragraph length on learning with children. Two variables, question placement (BA) and pacing (PL), were combined in a 2 x 4 factorial design. Within each factorial cell, type of item (CI), form of item (VP), and time of test (ID) were treated as repeated measures. The final design was a 2 BA x 4 PL x 2 CI x 2 VP x 2 ID with repeated measures on the CI, VP, and ID variables. In addition to the eight experimental groups, two control groups were included. The subjects were 126 students from two fifth-sixth and one sixth grade classroom. A 1,320 word passage constituted the experimental text. The passage was divided into 20 paragraphs, each 66 words in length. For each paragraph, two unrelated questions were constructed. Then a lexical paraphrase was generated for each of the original questions so there was a total of four questions per paragraph. The results indicated that a 2 BA x 4 PL x 2 CI x 2 ID analysis of variance yielded significant results for the BA, CI, and ID main effects and the PL x ID interaction. This study suggested that adjunct questions have different effects as age decreases. (WR)

This volume, the first in a series of four on the languages of Nepal, contains the following papers: "Toward the Systematization of Display Grammar,""Clause Patterns in Kham,""Tentative Systemic Organization of Nepali Sentences,""Maithili Sentences,""Notation for Simultaneous Representation of Grammatical and Sememic Components in Connected Discourse,""Paired-Sentence Reversals in the Discovery of Underlying and Surface Structures in Sherpa Discourse,""Contra-Expectancy Particles in Tharu Bhojpuri,""Chaining and Spotlighting: Two types of Paragraph Boundaries in Sunwar," and "An Approach to Discourse in Sunwar." For other volumes in the series, see FL 004 895, FL 004 897, and FL 004 898. (DD)

Twenty-five Philippine languages and dialects were studied to determine the manner in which words, clauses, sounds, and sentences group together to make up units larger than the sentence. Data obtained were analyzed according to tagmemic theory. The introduction to this volume (see also AL 002 032 and AL 002 033) gives a brief orientation to the concepts and terminology of tagmemics. Four points are emphasized: (1) trimodal structuring, (2) pattern and function, (3) hierarchy, and (4) system. Three parts comprise the majority of the document. Part 1 discusses discourse structure; Part 2 deals with paragraph structure. The third part presents the grammar and lexicon in Dibabawon procedural narrative discourse. Illustrative data are given mostly in the form of summary and sampling in English translation. (DO)

An analysis of the kinds of sentences used by students in sample ETS English Composition Test essays, and a survey of some of the actual weaknesses of these papers (e.g., shifting subjects, use of incorrect idiom, and inaccurate or incorrect word choices or usages) point to real gaps in student writing skills. Elements found in good papers (e.g., effective paragraphing, use of quotation to support a point, use of rhetorical questions, use of illustrations, and effective parallel structures) should provide both goals and methods for strengthening writing proficiency. Some specific teaching techniques for improving composition quality include (1) greater emphasis on the improvement of simple sentences before attempting a mastery of compound or complex forms (2) adoption of the methods of the Christensen Rhetoric Program ("generative rhetoric"), and (3) relating oral usage and the oral approach to writing. (MF)

This course is designed to help students improve their oral and written expression as well as their ability to summarize. Stories by Spanish and Spanish American writers are used. Students also have the opportunity to reinforce skills in recognizing the importance of writing as an efficient means of communication, and experience is provided in paragraph building. Educational objectives, learning activities, and resources are included in the course description. (Author/VM)

This report contains an extensive discussion of an approach to the study of discourse. Initial remarks concern arguments for studying discourse and approaches for discourse study that have been used; the author then discusses the relationship of discourse analysis and generative semantics. Language is considered on two issues: the decisions that a speaker can make regarding what and what not to say, and the mechanisms and patterns that are available to him for implementing the results of those decisions in a way that communicates with another person. The remainder of the report discusses relevant issues in this approach to the study of discourse. (VM)

Experiments were carried out to determine (1) the degree of agreement with which subjects identify paragraph boundaries in unindented prose passages, (2) if a significant proportion of cues to paragraph structure are formal in nature, (3) if the identification of paragraphs in different kinds of prose differentially depends on semantic (as distinct from formal) cues, and (4) to study developmental changes in paragraphing ability. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs in ten English prose passages were replaced by nonsense paralogs. The subjects identified paragraph boundaries in both English and nonsense versions. The median reliability for paragraphing English passages was .86; for nonsense, .75. The median correlation between paragraphing of English and nonsense versions of the same passage was .71. In the light of inter-judge reliabilities, it seems clear that the paragraph is a psychological unit. It also seems possible to infer for each passage the relative saliency of the classes of semantic and formal cues, the nature of their interaction, and the univocality of each class. It is suggested that a paragraph is a unit composed of many "structural constituents," each constituent consisting of a string dominated by a common marker--sentence subject (lexical system), verb tense (grammatical system), or generalized statement of a topic (rhetorical system). See ED 016 961 and ED 016 976. (Author/AMM)