San Fernando Valley State College
A COMPARISON OF SELECTED SYNTACTIC STRUCTURES
The Oral Language
The Written Language
o~
o~
First-Grade Children
State Adopted Reading Textbooks
A project submitted in partial satisfaction of the
requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in
Education
by
Patricia Knotts Sladek
May, 1972
_j
The project or Patricia Knotts Sladek is approved:
Committee Chairman
San Fernando Valley State College
May, 1972
ii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
LIST OF TABLES
ABSTRACT
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Chapter
I.
INTRODUCTION
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Introduction
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Purpose of the Project
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REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
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The Young Child and Language
The School and Language
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The Reading Process and Language
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The Analysis of Oral and Written Language
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PROCEDURE
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The Population Sample
The Oral Language
S~aple
The Written Language Sample
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MAJOR FINDINGS
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Mazes in the Oral Language Sample
Structural Patterns in the Oral
Language Sample
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Partials in the Oral Language Saraple
T-Unit Length in the Oral Lsnguage
Sample
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page
Chapter
Coordination in the Oral Language
Sample
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Dependent Clauses in the Oral Language
Sample
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Noun Phrases in the Oral Language
Sample
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Comparison of the Written Language
Sample with the Oral Language
Sample
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SU1fll11ary of Major Findings
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CONCLUSIONS
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Suggestions for Further Study
Recommendations for an Improved
Reading Program
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Concluding Statement
BIBLIOGRAPHY
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APPENDIX
The Selected Reading Textbooks and the
Location of the Samples of Written
Language
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Analysis Worksheet
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Examples of Sentence Patterns
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LIST OF TABLES
Tables
Page
1.
Distribution of Pupils According to
Occupational Status of Parents ••••••••••• l5
2.
Distribution of Pupils According to
Sex, Chronological Age and Reading
Level-~Part
1 ••.......•••••.•••.•.•.•••.. 17
Distribution of Pupils According to
Sex and Chronological Age--Part I I ••••..• 17
Frequency of Mazes According to
Reading Level and Sex •••••••••••••••••••• 23
Range and Mean Number of Words Per Maze
According to Reading Level and Sex ••••••• 25
Percent of Maze Words in Total Words
According to Reading Level and Sex ••••••• 26
6 ..
Frequency of Type of Maze and Position
of Maze According to Sex ••••••••••••••••• 28
Frequency of Structural Patterns Used
by 18 Children According to Sex and
Reading Level ............................. 29
8.
Frequency of Types of Partials Used by
18 First-Grade Children According to
Sex and Reading Leve1 •••••••••••••••••••• 32
Mean Length of T-Unit According to
Reading Level and Sex •••••••••••••••••••• 33
10.
Frequency of Types of Coordination Used
by 18 First-Grade Children According
to Reading Level and Sex ••••••••••••••••• 35
11.
Range and Mean Number of T-Units Per
20 Consecutive Sentences of Oral
Language from 18 First-Grade Children
According to Reading Level and Sex ••••••• 36
12.
Frequency of Types of Dependent Clauses
Used by 18 First-Grade Children
According to Reading Level and Sex ••••••• 38
v
LIST OF TABLES
Page
Tables
13.
Frequency or Elements in Noun Phrases
Used by 18 First-Grade Children. According to Reading Leve1 ••••••••••••••••••••• 40
Rank Order or Structural Patterns
Used by 18 First-Grad.e Children
and the Frequency or the Patterns
in Samples from Selec.ted Readers
~or Grade 1.0~9••••••••••••••••••••••••••41
Rank Order of Types of !Partials
Used by 18 First-Grade Children
and the Frequency or Partials in
Samples from Selected Readers for
Grade 1., •••...•• .....••••• a- • • •
16 ..
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Mean Length or T-Unit Used by 18
First-Grade Children and Appearing
in Selected Readers for First Grade
According to Reading Leve1 ••••••••••••••• 45
Rank Order of Types of Coordination
Used by 18 First-Grade Children
and the Frequency of Coordination in
Samples from Selected Readers for
Grade 1 .......... o • • • • • • • • • • . • • • • • • • • • • • • o47
18.
Rank Order of Types of Dependent Clauses
Used by 18 First-Grade Children and the
Frequency of Clauses in Samples from
Selected Readers for Grade 1 ••••••••••••• 48
19.
Rank Order of Elements in Noun Phrases
Used by 18 First-Grade Children and the
Frequency of Elements in Smaples from
Selected Readers for Grade 1 ••••••••••••• 49
vi
ABSTRACT
A COMPARISON OF SELECTED
ST~TACTIC
STRUCTURES
The Oral Language of First-Grade Children
and
The Written Language of State Adopted Reading Textbooks
by
Patricia Knotts Sladek
Master of Arts in Education
May, 1970
This descriptive study was centered around t-unit
analysis of the oral language of 18 first-grade children
and representative samples of written language from selected state adopted reading textbooks.
The syntactic patterns
studied were the structural patterns of t-units, the types
of elements which were coordinated, the elements which were
replaced with dependent clauses, and the structures used in
noun phrases.
The procedure was to record the oral language of the
children as they retold a story,
~ Thr~
Bears.
Twenty
consecutive sentences from each child were analyzed.
Twen•
ty sentences from each book from five predesignated pages
were analyzed.
There were totals of 360 sentences of oral
language and 260 sentences of written
vii
l~nguage.
The fre-
quencies of the selected syntactic structures were reporte
in tables to show relationships between the oral language
o~
the children and the written language
o~
the reading
textbooks.
This study indicated that children have acquired a
wide variety of structural patterns but some of the more
complex patterns were not frequently produced by the young
children.
It was suggested by the mismatch found in the
frequencies of subordination, coordination, and infinitive
that the usage
o~
syntactic structures in reading textbook
may not parallel the language development of children.
viii
CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
Children are required to develop reading competence
in our culture.
The pub lie in general 1 as 1.vell as par-
ents, are concerned about the rate at which children learn
to read and the level of skill they acquire.
Furthermore~
cultural expectations have assumeq that children will begin to read upon entrance into first grade.
In general, the teaching of reading is carried on
through the use of specially prepared reading textbooks
and most reading programs have depended upon state-adopted
textbooks.
Some children have participated in the programs
successfully, while other children have encountered
diff~­
culties.
11\1 though textbooks have used .dif.feren·jj approaches to
beginning reading instruction, Anastasiow (1971) noted
that most children would do as well in either a phonics
or a look-say method.
When children have not performed
successfully, the alternative for the teacher is another
set of materials which may appear to be different but whic
may have the same expectations about children's aequisitio
of perceptual and cognitive abilities.
1
2
Hatch (1969) indicated that learning word attack
skills proceeds slowly over a period o£
In the early
t~e.
stages of' reading these skills must f'ai.l children frequently, and guessing, dependent upon their
forms must be expected.
O'W'XJ.
oral language
If' the syn·tax is a pattern that
causes the children to misinterpret sentence meaning, it
seems reasonable to assume that it will not be easy for
them to read.
There is a need to analyze the medium of' instruction
to see if' textbooks may be a source o£ di.ff'iculty :for some
children in beginning reading programs.
Marascuilo's (1969
research suggested that when children begin to
read~
they
should see reading--and writing--as the reproduction of'
spoken language.
This implied that beginning reading mat-
erials should match the level of' the children's language
development.
Purpose of the Project
This project was designed to analyze the structure of'
the oral language of' 18 first-grade children at Conejo
School and to compare their language w·ith the language im
the books in which
they are taught to read.
The sample
is small, but it may set light on the problems some childre
encounter with one approach to beginning reading.
The questions the research was designed to answer were
the f'ollowing:
3
1.
What sequential patterns of structure appear in
the oral language or the children?
What sequential patterns or structure appear in
the written language or the textbooks?
2.
What elements in the patterns are replaced with
dependent clauses in the oral language of the
children?
What elements in the patterns are replaced with
dependent clauses in the written language of
the textbooks?
What patterns of coordination are used in the
oral language of the children?
What patterns of coordination are used in the
written language of the textbooks?
What syntactic structures are used to replace
noun elements in the oral language of the
children!
What syntactic structures are used to replace
noun elements in the written language of the
textbooks?
5.
Are the syntactic structures used by the Conejo
first-grade children found in their reading
textbooks?
3a
Definitions of Key Terms
A t-unit (minimal terminal unit) is a main clause plus
any subordinate clause or nonclausal structure attached to
or embedded within it.
T-unit analysis is the recording
patterns and/or elements found in
Mazes
o~
the structural
t-~tnits.
are sounds or words which are not pertinent to
the structure or meaning of an utterance.
Mazes occur as
hesitations, false starts and repetitions in spoken language.
Types
o~
mazes are noises, holders, repeats and
edits.
Noises, as a type of maze, are unintelligible sounds
such as "ah,u "a-a-a,n and
11
er,n occurring during speech.
Holders, as a type of maze, are such expressions as
"'then ••• then,u "you
know~
and "well" that are used to hold
attention.
Repeats, as a type of maze, are repetitions of words
already spoken.
Edits, as a type of maze, are similar to repeats but
indicate a correction in an utterance.
Structural
~tterns
or sentence patterns are symbols
indicating the elements which for.m a sentence.
(See
Sentence Patterns, Appendix, P• 64)
Partials may be a word or a group of words that carry
meaning within_ their _ context but are structurally inc om-
3b
plete.
Types or partials are ellipsis, counting, saluta-
tion, interjection and onomatopoeia.
Ellipsis is a type of partial in which an essential
part of the sentence structure is omitted.
Countinz
~rtials
are the number words spoken with a
falling intonation and carrying meaning within the context.
Salutations are a type of partial used with a falling
intonation in spoken language and oral reading of stories
ror the purpose of extending a greeting.
Interjections, as a type of partial, include ejaculatory words (beautiful, great) and inarticulate utterances
(ouch) expressing an emotiono
Onomatopoeia is a type of partial that names a thing
or action by a vocal imitation of the sound associated with
it (buzz, hiss).
Coordination £[ independent clauses is the joining of
two sentences with a coordinator (and, but, or) to form a
compound sentence.
Since a compound sentence is composed
of two independent clauses, it contains two t-units.
Coordination of verb phrases and coordination of
~
phrases occur when repetitions are deleted in compound
sentences and one or the predications is reduced.
Dependent clauses in this study are subordinate
clauses and relative
clauses.
~ubordinate
clauses are one
means or expanding verb phrases. An independent sentence
can be reduced to a subordinate clause by putting a sub-
3c
ordinator (because, so, as, if) in. front o.f
ding in a second independent sentence.
are means of expanding noun phrases.
it and embed-
Relative clauses
An independent sen-
tence may be reduced to a relative clause by substituting
a relative pronoun for the noun phrase and embedding in a
second independent sentence . which shares the same noun
phrase.
Limitations of Project
The oral language situation structured:the responses
made by the children.
Thre~
Bears.
Thus only
They were' retelling a story, The
respons~s
appropriate to the story,
and not a complete range of possible responses, were recor ed ..
Although all the children had heard the story in the
first-grade language program, out-of-school experiences
could vary individual familiarity with the story.
This project merely counts the occurrence of: syntactic
structures and attempts no stati.stical tx•eatment.
All children acquire language.
The intellectual,
cultural and economic factors that may influence the acquisition of language are not controlled in this project.
The
selected reading textbooks in this project are adopted in
the state of California for specific children:
for the
fast, culturally-advantaged children (lh& Macmillan
~­
ing Progr8p!); for the average and slow culturally-advantage
children (.!.4-El !far:ger & Row Basic ~~-di1:!B, Program); .for the
culturally disadvantaged (The Bank Street Readers).
CHAPTER II
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
The Young Child and Language
For the young child, language learning proceeds in a
rapid, orderly, systematic sequence.
To begin with, his
biological inheritance equips him with an innate power to
acquire language.
He does not need to learn what language
is as much as he needs to learn the idiosyncratic aspects
o:f the language spoken around him.
His speech development
proceeds :from a globally undifferentiated state o:f babbling
to finer and :finer discriminations o:f significant elements
and elimination o:f insignificant ones..
and over he practices, intonations and
He practices, over
al~ticulations
of
sounds until he :finds those that bring responses f'rom the
people around hira.
Although Lenneberg (1964) noted that there are culturally determined :features in language, he indicated that
language was a biologically determined activity in man.
He
argued that phonematization and concatenation marked language as a behavior specific to man.
Chomsky (1966) noted
that grammatical capacity is the mechanisms for acquisition
of symbol systems without directed instruction and the
4
5
procedures for hypothesis formation which can be applied in
deriving the rttles of grammar.
What these mechanisms are
or how they operate in the nervous system is not understood.
Menyuk (1969) and Hutson (1971) noted that recent research
on children's comprehension of syntax has found that some
aspects may develop in stages similar to those noted in
cognitive development.
McCarthy (1954)
~~d
Menyuk (1969)
have described the product of language capacity at various
stages of development.
The sequence in which the child developed his language
was closely related to the physical and motor aspects
his development.
o~
He babbled in his crib; he could say his
first word when he sat up; he could say a phrase when he
began to walk.
His first words were nouns, then verbs,
later adjectives and adverbs;
still later, pronouns fol-
lowed by prepositions, conjunctions and articles appeared
in his repertoire of words.
telegraphic speech.
He employed holophrastic and
Syntactical production began about two
years of age with the first two-word sentences and much of
the syntax was in the child's repertoire before he was five
years of age..
The child's language was not a miniature cop
of the language he heard; rather, he tested out the ways
of combining sounds or words and
he could say things he
had never heard his family say.
Chomsky (1966) maintained that adults understand the
linguistic conventions by which the underlying meaning of
.a-....s.en.t.e~~~exp.r~s..e.d_in___tb.e_au.clac..e_s_tructure and_~
6
alternative surface structures--or sentence forms--may express the same underlying_ meaning..
M~;7n-yuk ( 1969)
noted
that recent research on children's comprehension of syntax
has found that children come into this understanding over
an extended period.
Menyuk (1969) and Lee (1970) indicated
that young children would make errors with elements of the
sentence beyond their stage of language. development.
The child used his language and he went to school
quite sophisticated in his ways with words.
The School and Language
Although the major part of language acquisition
occurred in early childhood, children who enter school do
not have the linguistic abilities of adults.
The full
development of native language skills requires the whole
period of childhood and adolescence.
Significant language
development can occur throughout a lifetime (Wardhaugh 6
1971; Hodges, 1970).
Loban (1965), Bernstein (1960) and Marascuilo (1969}
indicated that language acquisition is closely tied to environmental and experiential background.
Language is the
vehicle by which experiences may be refuLed, enriched, expanded and controlled.
ences in the memory.
It is language that fixes experiThe stimulation of children to
perceive aspects of the world about them must be followed
by the use of a system of' spoken symbols to f'ix the~~-~~j
7
aspects in the child's memory.
The adult must give infor-
mation to the child in the for.m of descriptions and labels
for objects and actions; perception is dependent on the
speech symbols the comraunity uses to describe reality.
Through interaction with others the child learns to react
visually and auditorily only to
features of objects
t~e
significant contrastive
and sounds in his environraent.
General observation will confirm that there is a di.fference in what young children say and how they say it.
In
the past, teachers have said that the sentences of young
children were simple while those of older children were
more complex.
defined.
Simple and complex were never specifically
Lists of frequently used words were compiled,
sentence length was observed and subordination indexes were
computed.
But vocabulary may change, s.hoi•t sentences may
be complex, and even young children may utilize subordinmtion.
The studies of Strickland (1962) and Loban (1963,
1965) demonstrated that mature and
immatu~e
users of lang-
uage are distinguished by the ways in which they add and
rearrange syntactic elements in sentences.
Additions and
rearrangements of elements increased the information bearing content of the sentence; this increased the complexity.
Usage is the established oral language habits of an
individual.
Grammar is the description of the underlying
knowledge a speaker draws on either in making or understan~I
-~ng utterances.
Speakers -an~_d_w_r_i_t_e_r_s_p_o_s__s_e_s_s_t_h_i_s_ knowledgJ
8
though they cannot verbalize it.
is competence.
rormance.
This underlying knowledg
What the child actually says is his per-
Linguists perceive the
deep~
underlying struc-
ture (or competence) through studying the surrace structur
(or performance).
Informed teachers also describe the
utterances of children to assess their levels of performance.
Although teachers deal with the same surface ele-
ments of grammar as the linguist, education is concerned
with perrormance, not competence.
Teachers deal with stat -
ments about specific instances (performance) and the linguist speaks about the underlying system behind those instances (competence).
In different situations the child
alters the utilization of his underlying knowledge;
thus
actual perforn1ance will vary considerably.
The Reading Process and Language
Recent studies have provided information on language
and its relationship to the reading process.
Anastasiow {1971), Smith (1971) and Wardhaugh (1969)
described listening and reading as complex operations in
which the listener or reader must reconstruct the input
within his underlying system of knowledge in order to
understand the utterance or the sentence.
Listening and
reading are not simple recognition and matching operations.
It is at the deep level of structure that sentences are
actually interpreted, not at the sul"f'ace level of structure.
9
A sentence may be short and contain highly frequent words
and be grammatically difficult.
Although reading and writing have domains apart from
oral language, convention has assumed that they cannot be
successfully mastered without a base in oral language.
Loban (1963) concluded from his longitudinal study of language that competence in oral language appeared to be a necessary base for competence in writing and reading.
Strick-
land (1962) found that children who ranked high on silent
reading comprehension and listening comprehension were
found to make greater use of movables and subordination
in their oral language than did children who ranked low on
these variables.
This suggested that elaboration of sen-
tences is related to listening and reading comprehension.
If this interrelatedness is close, then the relationship
of children's oral language development to reading deserves consideration.
Although Loban (1963) and Strickland (1962) found that
children did not vary in their use of the basic structural
patterns of English, they both noted that those high in
language ability showed much greater dexterity in varying
the elements within the patterns._ The elaborations occurred in the noun positions;
Loban 1 s longitudinal study
did not observe growth in verb density.
Loban noted that
the high group exceeded the low group in using any form
of nominal
e~cept
the single noun or pronmxn.
10
Loban (1970) and Marascuilo (1969) indicated that lev 1
of linguistic skill may be independent of potential
inte~­
ligence and that different environments affect language
structure.
Bernstein (1960) stressed that linguistic dif-
ferences among social classes represented different forms
of the English language;
these forms orientated children
to differing relationships with people and the world about
them.
When linguistic expectations
differed from the ac-
quired skills, the learner was at a disadvantage.
In avoid
ing uncomfortable situations the learner's performance was
affected.
Strickland's (1962) study revealed that children's
oral language structures and the language structures of the
reading textbooks differed.
Strickland reported that no
scheme was evident for the development of control over sentence structure paralleling that of vocabulary development.
Hatch (1969) concurred with Strickland.
Ruddell (1964)
demonstrated that under certain conditions there is a relationship between similarity of oral and written language
patterns and reading comprehension among fourth grade students.
Braun (1971) found substantial evidence from his
study of monolingual and bilingual children to indicate
~
positive relationship betv.reen linguistic competence and
reading perfor.raance.
Smith (1971) found indications that
the productive level (writing) may determine the best receptive level (reading).
L--~- R€H~..ent---~e.s.e.~ch-On-.the---deJLel.o.praen_t.aL~_af'__s.t.u... --~-~--._
11
dents' written compositions has provided the basis for a
technique which facilitates the investigation of reading
Loban {1963) and Hunt (1965) independently devel-
skills.
oped the concept of t-unit analysis as the basis for the
descriptive investigation of both written and spoken language.
Hunt (1965), O'Donnell (1967), Braun (1971) and
Smith (1971) have demonstrated the usefulness of t-unit
analysis.
CHAPTER III
PROCEDURE
This descriptive study was centered
a2~ound
t-unit an-
alysis of 18 first-grade children's oral language and representative samples selected from their reading textbooka.
The sample is limited but it may reveal problems to children with one approach to beginning reading.
The syntactic
patterns studied are the sequential arrangements of element
in t-units, the type of elements which are coordinated, the
elements replaced with dependent clauses, and the structure.
used to replace noun elements.
The procedure for the study included the following
phases:
1.
Recording the spoken language of 18 first-grade
children.
2.
Selecting representative samples from textbooks
in a systematic manner.
3.
Analyzing the oral language and the sentences
from the book samples.
4.
Summarizing findings, including the utilization
of tables for showing relationships between orali
language of children and written language of reading textbooks.
12
13
5.
Noting implications for teaching and formulating
recommendations.
The Population Sample
The first grade children at Conejo School were placed
in three groups on the basis of their classroom teachers'
assignments to reading textbooks.
The three groups that
evolved were reading from various books at these three
reading levels:
preprimer, primer and first reader.
The
groups were divided into subgroups of boys and girls at
the three reading levels.
Three children were selected
from each subgroup using a table of random numbers.
This
resulted in the selection of the srune nu.mber of boys and
girls for a group of six children at each of the three
reading levels.
Since both Loban (1963) and Strickland (1962) observed
in their studies of children's language that boys in the
high group are superior while boys in the low group are inferior when compared to girls in their respective groups,
it seemed desirable to control numbers of boys and girls
at each reading level.
Since the population at Conejo School was small, further restrictions on selection of the smnple would have
prevented an equal number of both sexes at all three reading levels.
For this reason, no attempt was made to con-
trol factors of socio-economic background, age and intel-
14
ligence.
1.
However, these factors were considered:
Marascuilo (1969), Loban (1963) and Strodtbeck
(1965) pointed out some syntactic differences tha
separate middle class members
members in language usage.
o~
~rom
lower class
Conejo School is part
a community that is predominately (but not
totally) middle class.
It would be appropriate
to recognize the possibility that socio-economic
background might be reflected in the quality of
language usage when teacher judgment is concerned
in evaluating performance.
gests level of income and
Since occupation sugamo~Ult
o~
education, in-
formation concerning employment of parents was obtained from current school records and tabulated
to append the description of the smnple.
This
tabulation is presented in Table 1.
2.
In this study, chronological age is represented
by grade level.
Although this is not a very re-
strictive range of actual birthdates, in practice,
it provides an age-grouping of children for instruction with materials prepared, published and
labelled for use in the specified grade.
The
purpose of the study was to compare the syntactic
elements of the oral language of children assigned
to first-grade classrooms with some selected reading textbooks vwitten for them.
---------·--~-------
The chronological
Table 1.
Distribution of Pupils According to Occupational Status of the Parents
Occupational Classification
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
Total
Professional
I
0
Semi-professional and managerial
I
3
Clerical, Skilled trades, retail business
I
5
Farmers or Ranchers
I
l
Semi-skilled occupations, minor clerical
positions, and minor business
I
5
Slightly skilled trades
Day Laborers
4
__Q
18
Adapted from the Minnesota Scale for Paternal Occupations
~
16
ages or the children is reported in Table 2 as
additional descriptive
ma~erial
concerning the
selected sample of childrf:m.
3.
Strickland (1962), Loban (1963) and Hunt (1968)
related syntactic maturity to chronological age
by demonstrating that the use of embedding techniques increased as children progressed through
school.
Hunt (1968) and Loban (1970) in more
recent writings observed that syntactic maturity
is significantly associated not only with chronological age but, among students or the same age,
is associated with academic achievement and mental maturity as well.
The Strickland (1962) and
Loban (1963) studies seemed to indicate that poor
language skills are less related to intelligence
than to environment.
Intelligence ratings were
not assessed as none were available.
A range of
achievement based upon the teachers' evaluation
of the reading progress of their first-grade
pupils is the only consideration for the mental
maturity f'aetor in this project.
The Oral Language Sample
The oral language which was analyzed in this project
was obtained by an individual interview with each child
followed by the child telling the f'amiliar
story,~
Three
Table 2.
Part I.
Distribution of Pupils According to Sex, Chronological Age and Reading Level.
Chronological
Age
I Preprimer
_ Boys Girls
8.0- 7.9
2
7.8- 7.5
7.4- 7.1
1
l
7.0- 6.9
6.8 - 6.5
l
1
6.4- 6.1 I
i
Table 2.
Part II
Grade 1
Totals
I
I BoysPrimerGirls
Reader
I
Bovs Girls
li
1
Boys I Girls I Grand Total
i
l
I
I
i
2
2
l
l
2
2
2
8
4
1
1
2
2
4
4
2
2
l
I
2
l
I
I
i
II
II
I
I
-
I
18
Distribution of Pupils According to Sex and Chronological Age
Chronological Age
8.0- 7.6
7.5- 7.1
7.0- 6.5
Boys
Girls
Total
1
2
3
4
6
6
2
I
12
18
t-'
-.J
18
Bears, which had been used in the language program earlier
in the year.
To engage the child in verbal activity, each session
began with the initial interview from the Ilg and
Assessment of School Readiness.
~
Six picture cards from
the story, The Three Bears, were arrange in sequential order on the table and the child was requested to tell the
story.
The interview and the storytelling were recorded by
tape recorder.
Most of the children had had some experi-
ence in dictating stories.
Promising each child a copy of
his story not only motivated the child but created a situation which stimulated the production of his most booklike language.
Loban (1965) and Strang and Hocker (1965)
indicated that the situation determines the function of
language and that function affects language usage.
In
particular, Hocker observed that sentence length was influenced by the situation; for example, play situations
stimulated the production of one-word sentences.
Wardhaug
(1971) has pointed out that written material is not simply
speech written down since the content of
~~iting
abstract and the language is more controlled.
is more
As this pro-
ject planned to compare children's oral language with reading textbooks, a sample of the child's most formal language
was desirable.
The taped version was played as many times as neces-
19
sary to verify both vocabulary and terminal points in the
typed transcription.
Twenty consecutive sentences from
each child were selected for analysis.
The Written Language Smaple
Samples of twenty sentences were tru{en from each of
the selected reading textbooks.
From the preprimers, the
four consecutive sentences from the beginning of each of
the last five stories were used for analysis.
From the
primers and readers, the first four consecutive sentences
following the first period were selected from the middle
of the book, the second page of the second story., the second page of the last story and the two pages midway between
the middle of the book and the first and last pages from
which smnples were drawn.
When necessary, the sample was
drawn from the page which followed the designated one.
The physical make-up of the Harper Row book, Strand II,
necessitated adopting a different pattern for selecting
sentence samples.
For this book, sentences were drawn
from the next to the last page of the first five units.
The Analysis of Oral and Written Language
The book samples and the oral language samples were
analyzed in the same manner using the analysis worksheet
which was developed. (See Analysis Worksheet, Appendix)
To begin the analysis, both written and oral language
20
samples were segmented into t-units.
The t-u.nit is one
independent clause with all of its modification, including
dependent clause or clauses.
Before segmenting into t-units, the oral language
samples were scanned and the mazes bracketed.
Since mazes
were not meaningful communication, they were neither t-unit
nor parts of t-units and were isolated from the rest of the
language sample.
The number of mazes and the percent of
maze words in total words were noted.
T•units were classified according to a system devised
and used in the study by Lob an ( 1963, PP• 11-14}.
with dependent clauses, only the
main clause was considered.
struct~~al
In t-uni s
pattern of the
Identifying and reporting only
the structural pattern of main clauses reduced the number
of possible
patterns.
O'Donnell (1967) indicated that
including movables in types of patterns (as was done in the
Strickland study) emphasized minor features of sentence
patterns, 1nost of which result simply i'rom varied positions
or modifiers.
The t-units were tallied according to patterns.
Loban
(1963, p.l4) showed in his analysis that all t-units, once
mazes had been omitted, could be classified under nine
patterns and one partial or incomplete ttnit.
Mean t-unit length was computed for both oral language
and book samples.
While counting words, the following con-
ventions were observed:
21
1.
Contractions were counted as two words.
2.
The number of bases involved detern1ined the count
of compound nouns (solid or hyphenated).
3.
A coordinating conjunction linking two independent
clauses was regarded as the first element in the
second clause.
The occurrence of three types of coordination was
counted:
coordination of independent clauses; coordination
of verb phrases; and coordination of subject phrases.
The occurrence
was also counted:
or
four types of dependent clauses
noun clauses; adjective clauses; initial
adverbial clauses; and final adverbial clauses.
Noun phrases from both the oral language sample and
the written language sample were examined and the syntactic
structures that occurred were tabulated under these heading :
nouns; pronouns;
verbals;
phrases; and clauses.
infini:tives;
prepositional
When the noun phrase was expanded,
one mark was tallied in the noun count and another mark
was tallied in the adjective count.
Examples of words
which were counted in the adjective colurnn were color, size
number and possessives;
determiners and demonstratives
were not counted.
In a separate chapter on major findings, tables were
utilized to summarize the results of the study and to
compare the oral language sample with the written language
sample.
CHAPTER IV
MAJOR FINDINGS
This project analyzed the structure of the oral language of 18 first-grade children and the structure of the
written language of selected reading textbooks.
Twenty
sentences from each child and each book were studied.
Ther
were totals of 360 sentences in the oral language sample
and 260 sentences in the written language srunple.
Mazes in the Oral Language Sample
Mazes, or word tangles, are hesitations, false starts
and repetitions that occur in spoken, but not in
language.
written~
Loban (1970) and Marascuilo (1969) considered
mazes as one of the fluency factors in speech.
In this
study the frequency of mazes in the oral language of boys
and in the oral language of girls is the same; and the
frequency of mazes in the oral language of children perfo
ing at different reading levels is also similar (Table 3).
This finding is consistent with the studies of Strickland
(1962) and Loban (1970).
Both Loban and Strickland found
frequency of mazes to vary more within a group than between
groups of different chronological ages.
Table 3.
Frequency of Mazes According to Reading Level and Sex.
~
-----
~
-
-------~------
Grade 1
Reading Level
Frequency, Reading Level
Boys
Girls
Preprimer
3,4 'l 0
3,7,7
34
Primer
4,5,8
3,4,7
31
Reader
2,3,11
3,6,9
34
50
49
Frequency,
Boys, Girls
TOTAL
99
N
w
The number of words per maze did not show much variation between boys and girls
and between reading levels.
The lowest and highest mean number
or words per maze was
found among children reading on the primer level:
2.28;
girls~
maze is
3eOl.
1-4
boys$
The range for the number of words per
and this range is found among boys reading
at the reader level (Table
4).
The percent of maze words in total words ranged from
2 percent to 16 percent and this range again occurred
among boys
reading at the reader level.
The girls read-
ing at the preprimer level indicated a slight tendency to
use more words in mazes when the percent
total words were considered (Table
ferring to Table
4
1
5).
o~
maze words in
However~
upon re-
these same girls appeared to use fewer
words in mazes when the mean number of words per maze were
considered.
The researcher's judgraent or the oral language
samples selected the percent of maze words in total words
as the more realistic measure of the fluency factor in
oral language.
The frequency or mazes appeared to be a very individua
factor and was not related to either sex or reading level.
Mazes were subdivided and tabulated as noises, holders
repeats and edits.
as
tt ah~ It
n ~a-a, n
Noises were unintelligible sounds such
"ern and the like.
Holders were such
expressions as ttthen ••• then~" "you known
were used to hold attention.
.. w~nds-a~neady--spLlken..
and
"welln that
Repeats were repetitions of
Edit.s._were
w:or.d~he
.speaker..
~-
1
I
Table 4.
Range and Mean Number of Words Per Maze According to Reading Level and Sex.
I
I
I
I
I
Boys
Reading Level
Range
I
I
I
Girls
Mean
Range
Mean
1 . 30 - 3. 50
2.26
2. 33 - 3.14
2.87
Primer
1.25- 3.60
2.28
2.28 - 3.75
3.01
Reader
1 .00 - 4.00
2.97
2.40 - 3.33
2.87
Pre primer
I
I
1'.
•
N
01
Table 5.
Percent of Maze Words in Total Words According to Reading Level and Sex.
Grade 1
Reading Level
Preprimer
Boys
Girls
7%
9.6%
Primer
8.3%
7%
Reader
7.7%
8%
N
0'\
which indicated
a correction in his utterance.
Nearly
half of the mazes were edits; holders and repeats were
nearly equal in frequency (Table 6).
The Strickland (1962)
study indicated nearly equal usage of all four types of
mazes in the first grade.
The children in this study were
retelling a story and perhaps edits
ly because they
~rere
occu~red
more frequent
recalling a s.tory.
Nearly half of the total number of mazes appeared at
the beginning of the utterance; approximately one-third
appeared in an interior position within the utterance and
slightly more than a tenth appeared at the end of the
utterances (Table 6).
This finding concurred with Strick-
land's study (1962).
Structural Patterns in the Oral Language Sample
The frequency of the structural patterns used by the
18 first-grade children were tabulated in Table 7•
The
NV {noun, verb) pattern was used more frequently than any
other pattern.
This is consistent with Strickland's {1962)
findings for first-grade children.
The N V DO (noun, verb,
direct object) and the N LV sub.camp. (noun, linking verb,
subjective complement) were two more patterns
used by all of the children.
frequent~y
One pattern, Here L V N (here
linking verb, noun) was infrequently used but it was used
by both boys and girls in all three reading levels.
Ques-
tions were used slightly more frequently than the Here LV N
Table 6.
Frequency of Type of Maze and Position of
Type of Maze
Beginning of Utterance
Boys
~laze
According to Sex.
Interior of Utterance
Girls
Boys
Girls
l
2
End of Utterance
Boys
Total,
Type of
Maze
Girls
I
Noise
4
2
Holder
10
6
3
1
3
4
9
3
4
12
10
7
4
3
Repeat
Edit
11
I
'
l
9
20
23
47
I
!
TOTAL,
Position of
Maze
'
25
+
= 48
23
18
+
= 37
7
19
+
= 14
i
7
!I
.,
'I
I
99
I
I
N
00
Table 7.
Frequency of Structural Patterns Used By 18 Children According to Sex and Reading Level.
Grade 1
Structural Pattern
Preprimer
Boys
Girls
Primer
Boys
Girls
Reader
Boys
Girls
TOTALS
N V or N LV
29
29
29
30
40
41
198
N V DO
17
21
19
25
22
18
122
N V Sub. Comp.
20
21
9
12
22
25
109
Partials
14
8
10
8
1
41
2
3
9
1
15
l
3
2
2
12
2
1
2
Questions
Here, LV N
2
2
N V DO Outer Comp.
N V IO DO
5
2
2
Passives
0
Requests
0
I
N
\..0
30
pattern but questions were not used by the preprimer reading level.
offered
an
The retelling of' the story,
~
Three Bears,
opportunity to use the question pattern.
For
example, there was the opportunity to use the construction
"Who 1 s been eating rrry porridge" instead of
eating my porridge."
11
Someone's been
The most :frequent use of the question
pattern was employed by boys at the reader level.
The
N V DO outer comp. (noun, verb, direct object, outer coml"'
plement) pattern was infrequently used.
Passives and re-
quests were not used by any of' the 18 children.
Partials
were used by both boys and girls at the preprimer and primer
levels but a partial was used in only one instance
among the six children at the reader level(Table 7).
Partials in the Oral Language Sample
Partials were short utterances used by the children at
the preprimer and primer reading levels.
a word or a group of words.
A partial may be
Partials carry meaning within
their context and are spoken with a falling intonation.
However, a partial is structurally incomplete.
Partials
were subdivided and tabulated as ellipsis, counting, salutation, interjection and
onomatopoeia~
The :majority of
partials were ellipses in which an essential part of the
sentence was omitted.
Examples of ellipses
mother's" and "went to sleep. 11
of partial used by boys.
were uwent on
Ellipsis v-1as the only type
The majority of partials used by
31
girls were also ellipses.
Partials were used with nearly
equal frequency by both boys and girls at the preprimer
and primer reading levels but partials were not used by
children at the reader level (Table 8).
T-Unit Length in the Oral Language Sample
Hunt (1968) and Loban (1963) observed that as children
matured~
they tended to use more words and to produce
sentences that increased in length and contained a larger
proportion of subordinate clauses.
Length of sentence may simply occur by compounding two
or more independent clauses.
However, compounding indepen-
dent clauses does not increase the syntactic complexity of
a sentence as i·t increases sentence length.
Thus Loban
{1963) and Hunt (1968) developed the t-unit.
As an inde-
pendent clause with all of its modification, an increase
in t-unit length coincided with an increase in complexity
more involved than joining two or more thought units together with conjunctions.
Modification involved subordina-
tion, deletions and embedding one or more sentences into
another.
T-unit length was found by Loban (1963}, Hunt
(1968) and O'Donnell (1967) to be a simple; objective and
significant measure of language maturity.
The average number of words per
t-uJ~it
for the oral
language sample has been tabulated in Table 9.
The mean
leng~h
of t-units for girls slightly exceeded
Table 8.
Frequency of Types of Partials Used By 18 First Grade Children According to Sex and
Reading Level.
-
Type of
Partial
Preprimer
BOYS
Primer
Ellipsis
14
10
Reader
GIRLS
Preprimer Primer
4
Reader
1
2
Counting
Frequency,
Types of
Partials
31
6
6
Salutation
2
2
Interjection
1
1
Onomatopoeia
1
1
Frequency,
Boys, Girls
14
+
10
= 24
+
0
8
+
8
+
1
= 17
w
N
Table 9.
Mean and Range ofT-Unit Length Used By 18 First-Grade Children According to
Sex and Reading Level.
Reading Level
Boys
I
Girls
Mean
Range
Mean
Range
Preprimer
5.32
4.68-6.04
5.74
5.13-6.26
Primer
5.73
5.19-6.55
5.99
5.72-6.48
Reader
5.98
5.67-6.58
6.19
5.74-6.75
I
w
w
34
that for boys at the same reading level.
The mean length
of t-units increased steadily, though slightly, from preprimer to reader level for both boys and girls.
The range
of t-unit length showed the same small, steady increase
from preprLmer to reader level for both boys and girls.
Coordination in the Oral Language Sample
O'Donnell (1967) suggested that childrents first
attempts to combine sentences may involve simple compounding of independent clauses followed by the deletion of a
subject and the compounding of the predicates.
Three
occurrences of co.mpounding were tabulated in Table 10:
coordination of independent clauses; coordination
of
subjects; and coordination or verb phrases.
The coordination of independent clauses was the most
frequent type of coordination employed by the 18 firstgrade children; the coordination of independent clauses
occurred 102 times.
Verb phrases were compounded 38 times
and subject phrases were compounded only 7 times.
Compound
ing verb phrases and noun phrases helped to account for the
increase in t-unit length while compounding independent
clauses increased the number of t-units in the oral languag
samples.
All of the children combined independent clauses.
The range and mean for the number of t-units per 20 sentenc s
is recorded in Table 11.
The greatest variation in range,
24-40, was found among boys at the reader level.
Boys at
Table 10.
Frequency of Types of Coordination Used By 18 First-Grade Children According to
Reading Level and Sex.
'
Type of
Coordination
Boys
Girls
15
13
Verb Phrases
5
Subject Phrases
2
Independent Clauses
I
I
Prep rimer
Primer
Boys
Reader
Frequency,
Type of
Coordination
Girls
Boys
Girls
9
19
26
20
102
3
7
6
8
9
38
1
2
1
l
7
I
I
I
Frequency,
Per Reading Level
22 + 17
39
18 + 25
43
35 + 30
65
w
tTl
Table 11.
Range and Mean Number ofT-Units Per 20 Consecutive Sentences of Oral Language
From 18 First-Grade Children According to Reading Level and Sex.
Preprimer
Reader
Primer
Boys
Girls
Boys
Girls
Boys
Girls
Range
23 - 31
23 - 30
21 - 29
26 - 29
24 - 40
26 - 29
Mean
27
28
24
27
32
29
w
Q)
37
the primer level and boys at the reader level varied from
the common mean of 28 t-units per 20 sentences because at
the primer level one boy compounded only once and at the
reader level one boy compounded
40
times.
Dependent Clauses in the Oral Language Sample
O'Donnell (1967) suggested that dependent clauses may
be a syntactic strategy employed by children to combine
sentences before making deletions to produce structures
less than a predicate.
A count ot: dependent clauses was
tabulated in Table 12.
Final adverbial clauses were used 8
times within the 360 sentences ot: oral
analyzed.
lru~guage
which were
Initial adverbial and noun clauses were each
used 6 times while adjective clauses were used only twice.
Loban (1970) found that there was a steady growth in the
use of adjective clauses through the elementary grades.
The presence of dependent clauses increases t-1n1it length
but does not occur frequently enough in this study to ini'luence the mean t-unit length or the oral language samplLe.
Noun Phrases in the Oral Language Sample
Noun phrases were examined and the syntactic structure
that occurred were tabulated under these headings:
nouns;
pronouns; verbals; infinitives; prepositional phrases; and
clauses.
Replacement of single word noun slots with phrase
or clauses not only increased the length of the t-unit but
'
I
I
i
Table 12.
Frequency of ~~pes of Dependent Clauses Used by 18 First-Grade Children According
to Reading Lev1e1 and Sex.
I
Type of
Clause
--
Depen~ent
Preprimer
Boys
1
I
I
Primer
Girls
Boys
2
1
Final Adverbiah
Reader
Girls
Frequency,
Type of
Clause
Boys
Girls
3
2
8
2
l
6
I
Initial Adver~ial
Noun
1
I
I
2
1
I
I
I
Adjective
Frequency,
Boys, Girls,
Reading Level
2
3
I
I
I
I
I
6
I
2
2
i
I
i!
'
+
2
=
7
5
+
l
=
7
6
I
+
5
=
3
8
I
'
I
I
.
I
w
co
39
the complexity of the t-unit as well.
Color, size, number
and possessive modification of' nouns resulted f'rom embedding one kernel sentence in another.
The elements in noun phrases used by the 18 children
13. Pronouns and nouns were used
354 and 271 times respectively and in a combined count, 625
times. Adjectives were used 415 times and more frequently
than either nouns or pronouns but only about 2/3 as frewere tabulated in Table
quently as nouns and pronouns combined.
phrases occurred
Prepositional
135 times. Verbals, infinitives and noun
clauses did not occur as frequently as one per child.
The
use of adjectives and prepositional phrases appeared to
account for the lengthening of the t-units in the oral
language sample of' this study.
Comparison of the Written Language Sample
With the Oral Language Smaple
The frequency of' the structural patterns in each book
sample was tabulated in Table
14. The use of' an asterick
indicated that this pattern was found in the preprimer but
not among the sample of 20 sentences selected :Cor analysis.
The first preprimer of' both the Harper Row and the
Bank Street series used two patterns, the N V pattern and
Partials which were rank ordered in children's oral languag
usage as 1 and
primer is
4 respectively.
lL~ited
-···--·· ~-~----~--~-
While the Bank Street pre-
to these two patterns, Harper Row used
Table 13.
Frequency of Elements in Noun Phrases Used By 18 First-Grade Children According
To Reading Level.
Reading Level
Total
Elements In Noun Phrases
Pre primer
Primer
Reader
I
Adjective
129
129
157
415
Pronoun
109
101
144
354
Noun
92
92
87
271
Prepositional Phrase
37
45
53
135
Verbal
4
2
6
12
Infinitive
3
7
1
11
Clause
4
2
0
6
I
+::>
0
Table 14.
Rank
Order
Rank Order of Structural Patterns Used By 18 First-Grade Children and the Frequency
of the Patterns in Samples From Selected Readers For Grade 1.
Structural
Patterns
Ii
I
f
I
I
I'
!
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
N V or N LV
Inverted
N V DO
N LV Sub. Comp.
Partial
Questions
Here, LV N
N V DO
Outer Comp.
N V IO DO
Passives
Requests
i
I
I
198
0
122
109
41
15
12
5
~
Bank Street
1-1
1-1
I
I
1
MacMillan
Harper Row
I
Preprimer
1
2
3
3
*
i:
~
5
*
I!
1
I!
~ 3
:I
I
1
3
3
S-
S-
E
-o
m
I
6
-o
m
QJ
-1-l
(/)
0..
0:::
nl 2
5
4
5
5
12
11
6
3
3
6
7
1
5
5
3
5
*
1
2
*
1
2
S-
E
0:::
S-
4
3
3
S-
0..
•r-
5
6
-o
s::
m
Preprimer
2
1
QJ
QJ
S-
•r-
6
I
5
l
QJ
S-
QJ
1
1
1
6
1
1
2
2
2
l
1
1
3
I
QJ
3
:
10
I
I
I
I
QJ
QJ
-o
m
•r-
QJ
S-
0:::
0..
10
2
1
2
4
8
4
4
4
3
2
1
17
l
*
3 :
I
:
I
1
I
I
2
0
0
S-
S-
E
I
'
8
2
'
I
I
14
I
I
*
1
i
I
6
II
'
3
5
3
I
I
I
I
!
I
5: 3
I
I
!
I
!
*Pattern found in Preprimer but not in Sample
..j:::,
__,
42
mainly the Request pattern.
The Request pattern was not
used by the children in their storytelling.
All of the
Harper Row books employed the Request pattern and employed
it frequently in the first and second preprimers.
Bank
Street did not use the Request pattern until the primer
and reader levels.
The Request pattern was found in the
Macmillan primer.
A common pattern found in oral language, the N V DO
pattern, was used in all books except the first preprimers.
However, the infrequent use of this pattern is noted in the
Bank Street series at the preprimer and prDner level.
The
third most common oral language pattern, N LV subjective
complement, was used in the ·textbooks at a lower frequency
than was found in the children's oral language.
Among the children the fourth most common pattern,
Partials, is generally used with a decreasing frequency
as reading level progresses (Table 7).
Pm.. tials were not
found in samples of written language from the Harper Row
reader and the Strand II book.
Although the Here LV N pattern was not used frequently
by the children, this pattern was found in Harper Row
preprimers as frequently as
the patterns that were
used
freely by the children.
The textbooks, like the children did not use the
N V DO outer complement pattern, the N V IO DO pattern
or the passive transformation.
43
The N V pattern, common to both oral language and text
book samples, was found in an inverted order only in the
textbook samples.
Children always used the construction
"Mother said" vJhile textbook samples might use the construction nsaid J:.1other. 11
Among the types of partials, the textbooks used
salutations much more frequently than the children.
closer look at Table
15
A
indicated that salutations were
used heavily in Harper Row preprimer I but were not found
in samples from the Bank Street preprimers.
Although
children used the ellipsis type of partial almost exclusive
ly, textbooks used as many counting type of partials as
ellipsis.
The frequency of interjections and onomatopoeia
did not differ between the two language samples.
According
to Table 16,. the Harper Rov.r and the Macmill n
seri.es increased rapidly in mean t-tt..'1.it length.
Row series moved from a mean t-unit length of
preprimer to 9.
43
in the Strand II book.
The Harper
4.05
in the
The Macmillan
series :moved from a mean t-unit length of' 3.93 in the
primer to 6.68 in the reader.
The increase in the mean
t-unit length in the Bank Street series resembled the
slight but steady increase found in the oral language
sample.
Ho-vrever, the Bank Street mean t-uniti length always
remained less than the mean t-unit length of the children's
oral language.
The tabulations in Table 17 indicated that there is
Table 15.
Rank Order of Types of Partials Used By 18 First-Grade Children and the Frequency of
Partials In Samples From Selected Readers For Grade 1.
~--
Harper Row
1
Type of
Partial
Rank
Order
~1acmi
ll an
Bank Street
f
S-
Preprimer
l
2
3
4
S-
"'0
S-
Q)
E
"'0
S-
Q)
Q)
E
"'0
!::
<U
•r-
Q)
S-
S-
.jJ
0:::
(/)
o._
o._
<U
S-
Q)
Q)
•r-
Ellipsis
33
2
'Counting
6
3
, Salutation
2 I 9
4
, Interjection
1
5
'Onomatopoeia
1
I
1
l
I
I
1
l
2
0:::
i
I
S-
Q)
Q)
E
"'0
•r-
<U
l
3
I
II
S-
2
o._
<U
Q)
0:::
11
1
2
10
7
3
2
'
I
2
i
I
4 I
1
l
1
18
1
4
II
1
l
!
I
I
TOTAL,
Partials Per
Reader
S-
Pre primer
I
'I
l
Total,
Type of
Partial
Per
Reader
I-I
I-I
I
I
112
1
4
6
3
2
10
3
1
I
~
~
Table 16.
Mean Length ofT-Units Used By 18 First-Grade Children and Appearing in Selected
Readers For First Grade According to Reading Level.
Reading
Level
Mean Length ofT-Units
Children
Harper Row
MacMillan
Bank Street
Prep rimer
5.53
4.05
Primer
5.86
4.64
3.93
4.22
Reader
6.09
8.13
6.68
4.64
4.09
I
I
Strand II
9.43
I
..j::>
Ul
46
r-----------------------------------------------------------~·~
a difference in the usage of the types of coordination
employed in the oral language sample and the written language sample.
The
Wl~itten
language sample used the three
types of coordination with equal frequency while the oral
language sample usually employed only the coordination of
independent clauses.
Coordination of phrases appeared to
occur in the written language of the reading textbooks before coordination of independent clauses while the reverse
seemed to be true in the children's oral
l~~guage.
The use of dependent clauses was tabulated in Table
18.
While children used more final adverbial clauses
and used adjective clauses scarcely at all, book samples
used one type of dependent clause as frequently as another.
In the Harper Row series noun and adjective clauses seemed
to appear before adverbial clauses.
Baru~
Street textbooks
seldom used dependent clauses and the Macmillan reader
used only adverbial dependent clauses.
The comparison of elements in noun phrases as used by
children and reading textbooks was reported in Table 19.
Children and textbooks seemed to use the elements in about
the same ranlr order of frequency.
more frequently than book samples.
Children used pronouns.
Cb.ildi•en used adjective
to expand noun phrases on a 2 to 3 ratio v.rhile textbooks
used a 1 to 3 ratio.
Both oral language sara.ples and writte
language samples used prepositional phrases frequently.
Textbooks used infinitives much more frequently than did
Table 17.
--~
Rank Order of Types of Coordination Used By 18 First-Grade Children and the
Frequency of Coordination In Samples From Selected Readers For Gradel.
-
-
-------~--------
Harper Row
Type of
Rank
Order Coordination
Macmillan
Bank Street
I-I
f
~
Q)
Preprimer
l
2
E
•r-
I3 I4
~
0..
~
Q)
-o
ro
Q)
0::::
-o
s:::
ro
~
Q)
Q)
~
•r~
-o
ro
Q)
(/)
0..
0::::
+-'
E
~
~
~
Preprimer
Q)
Q)
-o
ro
Q)
E
•r~
l
2
Total,
Type of
Coordinatio n
0::::
Cl..
I
l
Independent 102
Clause
2
Verb Phrase
3
Subject
Phrase
38
7
3
1
4
1
2
3
1
9
l
1
2
1 '
1
1
3
1
10
2
9
i
,.J:::>
"-J
r
I
Table 18.
1
-
Rank
Order
Harper Row
Type of
Dependent
Clause
f
Pre primers
1
2
3
4
Macmillan
-
---
-
Bank Street
......
......
II s...
I~
II
$...
"'0
$...
$...
n::s
E
ClJ
ClJ
"'0
c
ClJ
"'0
n::s
•r$...
0...
$...
+-'
ClJ
0:::
(./)
n::s
aJ
0:::
Preprimer
1
2
$...
ClJ
E
•r$...
0...
$...
ClJ
"'0
n::s
2
Final Adverbial
----
-
-----------
Total, Type
of
I
Dependent
Clause
!
aJ
0:::
I
!
1
I,
Rank Order of Types of Dependent Clauses Used By 18 First-Grade Children and the
Frequency of Clauses In Samples From Selected Readers For Grade 1.
I
8
4
2
3
2
7
1
I
I
Initial
Adverbial
6
Noun
6
'
'
1
5
i
!
I
3
l
1 i 4
l
1
8
I
4
Adjective
2
4
1
I
1
6
I
I'
i
;
I
!
'
II
I'
..j::::.
00
Table 19.
Rank Order of Elements in Noun Phrases Used By 18 First-Grade Children and the
Frequency of Elements in Samples From Selected Readers For Grade 1.
Harper Row
Rank
Order
Elements In
Noun
Phrases
Macmillan
Bank Street
........
........
f
S-
Pre primer
Q)
E
·.--
3 10
3
Noun
271
7
4
SQ)
E
SQ)
-o
5
6
9
6
5 11
8
100
8 18 15 11
13
18
10
1
2
8
117
17 12 15
9
20
21
20 20 • 20
192
6
13
8
4
8
92
1
4
9
16
6
Preposition- 135
a1 Phrase
4
2
9
5
Verbal
12
l
6
Infinitive
11
1
7
Clause
6
Pre primer
29
2
354
Q)
0:::
3
Pronoun
-o
Q)
0,_
2
2
S-
E
s::
U")
4
4
S-
ltl
0:::
3
415
-o
·.--
2
Adjective
Q)
S-
1
1
S-
-o
Totals, per
Element
4
l
S-
0,_
ltl
Q)
+'
2 18
9
1
1
5
4
4
l
4
l
S-
2
ltl
Q)
4
2
l
9
·.-S-
0,_
1
ltl
Q)
0:::
I
l
25
8
''
l
Ij,
+'>
1.0
50
r-------------------------~·------------------------------------.
children.
Harper Row series used infinitives earlier and
more frequently than the Macmillan series.
The Bank Street
series seldom used infinitives.
The tabulations in Table 18 indicated that the Harper
Row textbook, Strand II, frequently used dependent clauses.
This seemed to account for the mean t-tuait length being
longer in the Strand II textbook than in any other language
sample.
The tabulations in Table 19 suggested that an
increase in the mean t-unit length of the Harper Row reader may be the result of a more frequent use of adjectives
and prepositional phrases.
Harper Row reader:
11
This is an example f'rom the
Mark Pa:Vk took a walk in the park in
the dark. 11 The children and the other textbooks limited
prepositional phrases to one per t-unit.
Summary of Major Findings
This project recorded and analyzed for syntactic
structure samples of the oral
langua~e
used by 18 first-
grade children as they retold the story of
~
Three Bears.
Samples of' language from the state-adop·ted reading textbooks for f'irst grade were also an.alyzed_.
The syntactic
structures the project sought to study combined with the
major f'indings were summarized.
1.
Patterns
o! syntactic structure.
There was not a perfect match between the syntactic
patterns used by children and the syntactic patterns used
in their reading textbooks.
These syntactic patterns were
fo~tnd
both in the orali
language of the 18 first-grade children and in the written
language of the textbooks:
a.
noun, verb pattern.
b.
noun, verb, direct object pattern.
c.
noun, linking verb, subjective cmnplement pattern.
d.
partials.
The use of partials decreased as reading level advanced both in the oral language sample and in the written
language sample.
Neither the samples of children 1 s oral language nor
the samples of textbook language used these two patterns:
a.
noun, verb, indirect object, direct object pattern
b.
the passive transformation.
Textbooks used the request pattern while children did
not use this pattern in retelling a story.
Questions were found in the textbooks but were infreqently used by the children as a group and not at all by
children reading at the preprimer level.
In this project,
the oral language situation encouraged the use of who
questions rather than yes/ho questions.
2.
Types of dependent clauses.
The use of dependent clauses occurred at the reader
level in the samples of language from the textbooks.
In
the children's oral language, dependent clauses occurred
52
with equal
frequency, regardless of reading level.
Frequency counts for adjective, noun, initial adverbial, and final adverbial clauses were almost identical in
the language samples from the textbooks but not in the ora
language of the children.
Children's oral language con-
tained the highest frequency of final adverbial and the
lowest frequency o:f adjective clauses.
3•
Type~
£!
coordination.
The coordination of independent cl·auses, o:r verb phrases
and of subject phrases occurred with equal frequency in
the samples of language from the textbooks.
In the oral
language of the children, the coordination of independent
clauses occurred more than twice as frequently as the
coordination of verb phrases and the coordination of
subject phrases seldom occurred.
4•
Elements !g
~
:e_hrasese
Except for the Harper Row Reader, children 1 s oral lang
uage samples seemed to contain proportionately more adjectives and prepositional phrases
samples.
th~n
did the textbook
The use of adjectives in the children's oral
language occurred in the frequent use of the noun, linking
verb, subjective complement pattern of structure.
The
use of this pattern may have been stimulated by the story
situation in
~
Three Bears as the bowls of porridge,
the chairs and the beds were described.
A proportionately larger number of infinitives was
53
found in the samples of language from the textbooks.
In general, the frequencies of the granm1atical structures selected for study are not the same in the oral lang
uage samples of the children and the
samples from the reading textbooks.
1~itten
language
CHAPTER V
CONCLUSIONS
Suggestions for Further Study
Wardhaugh (1969) indicated that the frequencies of
various grammatical structures are probably just as important as word frequencies in controlling the difficulty
of language used in reading textbooks.
There has been
much less work on structure counts than on word counts.
This project counted the frequency of patterns of sentence
structure, four types of dependent clauses, three types
of coordination, and elements in noun phrases.
Other
factors could have been considered:
1.
The use of negative transformations might be
studied.
2.
An examination of the use of yes/no questions
versus the use of who, what, when, where and why
questions might find growth factors in language
usage.
3.
The use of modals and verb tenses might prove
helpful in describing language acquisition.
4• The adverbial clause was the most frequent type
of dependent clause tabulated in this study.
54
It
55
would be of interest to compare the use of adverbials of place, adverbials of time, and adverbials of manner.
5.
A study of words used to introduce dependent
(
clauses might also add to the description of the
syntactic complexity of language.
Rec'_onnnendations for an Improved Reading Program
Changing from one series of textbooks to another will
not provide assistance for the unsuccessful beginning reader when the language used by young children is not similar
to that used in any beginning reading book.
rials to match the children's
language~
To find mate-
beginning reading
programs need to use the stories dictated by the children.
For
the young child, beginning reading is a transition
from oral to written language and there appears to be
stages of overt and covert vocalization.
As the children learn to read their own dictated
stories, it is valuable to encourage th&a to use new
syntactic patterns.
There are various ways to provide
language enrichment programs within the classroom'
1.
Children need to be encouraged to talk within the
classroom and they need to hear language used
by others.
2.
When children learn new words, the words should
be used orally in phrases and sentences.
Children
56
need to notice the ways words sound in the larger
intonational setting.
Participation in choral
reading is one way to encourage usage of a variet
of syntactic patterns.
3·
In general, writing is a more
deliberate~
con-
trolled kind of language than is speaking.
In
order to learn the patterns of written language,
the children need to be read to by the teacher
and they need to hear each other read orally.
They also need to hear stories read on films, tape
and records in listening centers.
Since early
language learning has been through the aural
modality, familiarity with the written form is
increased through listening to the written form
read aloud.
4• As interest in written words develops, children
enjoy listening to tapes of easy reading books as
they follow the printed form with their eyes.
5.
In addition to listening experiences, there are
language enrichment progra.m.s that augment acquisition of written language forms.
state-adopted series,
~
Sounds
One of the
2! Language by
Bill Martin, Jr., emphasizes grruwaatical structur s
and provides material in which children may be
encouraged to expand language, particularly
through substitution and rearrangement of syntact"c
51
elements.
The
Ne_Q.rask~
Qp_:!:.t.§.
2!. Ensll&h also
provide language enriching experiences that include the utilization or transror.mations, modification and intonational patterns.
Children
should have regular opportunities to participate
in experiences that explore language.
Concluding Statement
Children have mastered a wide variety of structures
but some or the more complex patterns are not frequently
produced by yotUlg children.
In this study, two patterns
were used in neither the oral language of the children
nor in the
Wl~itten
language of the reading textbooks. Thes
two patterns were the N V IO DO (noun, verb, indirect
object, direct object) and the passive.
Except for partia s
and ·questions of the who type, the children, regardless of
reading level, seemed to use patterns of structure with
similar frequency.
Samples of language rrom textbooks
showed variation in the frequency of patterns of structure
from book to book.
At the preprimer level in the sample
of language from the textbooks, there appeared to be
omissions of some patterns of structure used by children
while there was frequent inclusion of one pattern (request)
which was not used by children.
Except for the omission of some patterns at the preprimer level, the textbooks did not appear to i'ollow any
58
logically deter.mined sequence in the use
o~
patterns of
structure.
It was apparent in the mismatch found in the use of
subordination, the use of coordination and the occurrence
of infinitives that textbook usage of syntactic structures
did not parallel the language development of children.
To date, no research has proved that the mismatch of
the child's language with the language of the reading
textbooks causes interference in the beginning reading
process.
However, the general appeal to common sense
would suggest that a mismatch would lessen the chances of
a successful reading performance during the beginning reading program.
If the child guesses when his undeveloped
word attack skills fail him, his guesses most likely agree
with his
OIDi
syntactic form (Hatch, 1969); and thus the
auditory-visual match of sound and symbol may not coincide.
Furthermore, common sense suggests that use of syntactic
forms unusual to the child may cause him to misinterpret
sentence meaning.
Wardhaugh (1969) emphasized that lang-
uage is acquired in stages and that each stage is an adequate language system in its own right.
Understanding
takes place at the deep level of structure and may be
represented in various surface structures.
Structure count
as well as vocabulary counts should be considered in determining the level of difficulty in reading textbooks.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Anastasiow, Nicholas, 11 0ral Language and Learning to Read, 11
in Carl Braun (Ed.), Language~ R~~di~g ~the Communication Process, Newark, Delaware: International Reading
Association, 1971, 29-40.
_
Bernstein, Basil, "Language and Social Class,"
Journal of Sociology, XI (1960) 271-276.
Bergh, Enola r-1., "The Case for Syntax,"
lish, XXXXII (January, 1965) 28-34•
British
Elementary En-
Braum, Carl, "Reading Achievement of Monolingual and,Bilingual Children in Relation to Selected Linguistic
Variables," in Carl Braun (Ed.), Language, Reading
and the Communication Process, Newark, Delaware: International Reading Association, 1971, 41-51.
Carroll, John B., "Language Development, 11 in Chester W.
Harris (Ed.), Encyclopedia of.' Educational Research,
New York: The Macmillan Company; 1960, 144-752.
Chomsky, Noam, Syntactic Structures, The Hague-Paris:
r1outon and Co., 1966.
Hatch, Evelyn, ~ Experimental Studies !£ Syntax of Young
Children,, Inglewood, California: Southwest Regional
Ed. Lab., March, 1969.
Hodges, Richard E., nLanguage Development in the School
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School Programs, the Sixty-Ninth Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education, Chicago:
University of Chicago Press, 1970, 215~225.
Hunt, Kellogg
Element~x
w.,
"Recent Measures in Syntactic Development n
~glish, XLIII (November, 1966) 732-739·
Hunt, Kellogg_Jw.• ,. Grammatical Structv.P~s Written at Three
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Teachers of English, 1965.
Hunt, Kellogg w. and others, ~ Instrura~ to Measure
Syntactic liaturity, Preliminary Version, Tallahassee~
Florida: Florida State University, 19613"
59
60
Hunt, Kellogg w., "Another Probe into Syntactic Maturity,u
Louisiana English Journal, Vol. 9 No. 1, (Spring, 1969)
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r.oban, Walter, ULanguage Pro.ficiency and School Learning, It
in J.D. Krtunboltz (Ed.), Learning and~ Educational
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Loban, Walter,
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61
Roberts, Paul, En~lish Syntax, New York: Harcourt, Brace
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Ruddell, Robert B., ''The Effect of' Oral and Written Patterns of Language Structure on Reading Comprehension,n
The Reading Teacher, 18: 270-275, January, 1964.
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Smith, William L., "The Effect of Transformed Syntactic
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Reading ~ ~ Communication Process, Newark, Delaware:
International Rea_ding Association, 1971, 52-62 ..
Strang, Ruth and Mary Elsa Hocker, "First-Grade Children's
Language Patterns," Elementarz .§9.gl;hsh, XXXXII (Jan~
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F
·
Strickland, Ruth G., ~ Languaru:., 2.£ Elem~~ Scho...Q.l
Children: ~ ~elation~hip ~ the ~gn~age of Readi~g
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Educa~t~ Process, Chicago: Rru!d McNally, 1965; 91-11 •
Wardhaugh, Ronald, Reading: ! Ling~i~~~ Perspect~~~
New York: Harcourt, Brace and World, 1969.
Wardhaugh, Ronald, nTheories of Language Acquisition in
Relation to Beginning Reading Instruction," ~~
Research Qgart~l~, 7: 168-94 (Fall, 1971).
·.
62
THE SELECTED READING TEXTBOOKS
AND THE LOCATION OF THE SAMPLES OF
~~ITTEN
LANGUAGE
The samples or written language were drawn from these
pages of the selected reading textbooks:
The Macmillan Company
Irma Simonton Black, Senior Editor
The ~ Street Readers
Preprimer
~ ~e
City
4,
Prepr~er
People
~
19, 29, 36, 46, 56
~
Primer Arormd
Reader
Upto~,
12, 18, 23, 28
49., 64, 95, 125
15, 53, 94, 139, 184
Cit:y 12,
Downtown
Harper & Rmv
r1abel O'Donnell
Byron H. VanRoekel, Educational Consultant
~ Harper ~ ~ Basic Reading Program
Preprirner
26, 30, 34, 38, 44
Janet~~
Preprim.er Outdoors !.B.9,
Preprimer CitJ[ Days,
1.!1 40, 46, 52, 58, 64
Cit~
PreprLmer Just for Fun 16,
-~---
Primer Arormd
~Corner
---
Ways 34, 40, 48, 58, 64
28, 36, 46, 56
12,
L~5,
78, 116, 154
Reader Real and Make-Believe 12, 61, 110, 162, 214
Strand II
~ Ele~hants
i2 Eskbnos 35, 55, 87, 107 1 14
The Macmillan Company
Albert J. Harris and Mae Knight Clark, Senior Authors
~ Macmi~l~ R~~ing Program
Primer
Wor_l~
Reader Lands
£! Wonder 16, 50, 85, 134, 184
~
Pleasure 14, 62, 111, 163, 216
ANALYSIS vJORKSHEET
or
Oral Language of'
~ook.~~--~-=~----~--~~~~-Grade l._Birthda-:-t-e------::c-."'::"A-._--~
~ank Street Harper Row Macmillan
PPl PP2 PP3 PP4 Prli~er Reader
Reading Level: PP Primer Reader
Boy
Girl
word count (excluding mazes)
r-----sentence count
'average sentence length
I---t-unit count
average t-unit length
number of' mazes
----~total words in mazes
______average number words per maze
______total words including mazes
%maze words in total words
----'
______
1
Sentence Patterns
1
NV
·-N
or
N LV
v DO
N LV
sub.comp.
Coordination
coordination of independent clauses
-·M-·-coordination of verb phrases
---··-·-coordination of subject phrases
Dependent Clauses
__________initial adverbial
----------~f'inal adverbial
_ _._ _adjective
N v
IO
DO
v
DO
outer co:m.p.
Elements in Noun Phrases
___________adjectives
here
LV
N
----------~nouns
N
questions
_passives
_requests
___________»ronouns
verbals
infinitives
----~
_______
____prepositional phrases
clauses
_ _ _ _ _others
-------
-----
I
I
partials
Comments: __________..____________________
Adapted f'rom O'Donnell (1967)
0'
VJ
EXAMPLES OF
Pattern
Symbol
SENTID~CE
PATTERNS
Examples
one
NV
two
N
v DO
Mary eats strawberries.
three
N
LV
Strawberries are berries.
Strawberries are good.
four
N
v IO DO
Mary
five
N
v DO outer comp.
They elected Mary president~
They thought Susie conceited.
six
Here
seven
Questions
How does he do it?
Who is here?
eight
Passive forms
Strawberries were eaten by Mary.
nine
Requests
Go home.
Let us go home.
(ten)
Partials
Any incomplete unit. This is not actually
a pattern like the preceding nine patterns.
or
N
LV
sub.comp.
LV
N
Mary eats.
thre~r;r
(or)
Mary is home.
the dog some biscuits.
Here is Mary.
There ar'e four houses on Lime Street.
Is he here?
Adapted from Loban
(1963~
pp.14, 15)
$