STRUCTURE AND MEANING IN THE ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE OF THIRD GRADE CHILDREN IN FOLLOW THROUGH AND NON FOLLOW THROUGH CLASSROOMS

Abstract

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