Record of Oral Language (Marie Clay)

Proficiency in oral language has long been considered important by teachers for self-expression and for communicating ideas. Children who are learning to speak English catch on to the rules. -first by grasping the early structures, -then those of medium difficulty, -and finally those of greater difficulty. Awareness of features that will allow a learner to master a wide range of structural knowledge about English sentences should help teachers develop more powerful language programmers. This book describes a technique for recording and assessing change in children's oral language development. It was developed for research studies of young children from three ethnic groups but has been widely used in New Zealand, Australia, Britain, and the United States. Experience has shown that Record of Oral Language helps practising teachers to observe and understand changes in young children's language. The book is directed towards teachers who wish to do this.