Tough, J. Listening to children talking: A guide to the appraisal of children's use of language. London: Ward Lock Educational, 1976, 174 pp., $3.00
✍ Scribed by Gilbert R. Gredler
- Publisher
- John Wiley and Sons
- Year
- 1978
- Tongue
- English
- Weight
- 316 KB
- Volume
- 15
- Category
- Article
- ISSN
- 0033-3085
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
✦ Synopsis
This is an important book for several reasons. First, it is a wefl-written account of children's use of language. The author's knowledge of her subject matter is a t a sophisticated level and is given in depth. This book will be a most helpful aid to school psychologists and teachers. School personnel desperately want to be able to appraise in a valid manner young children's use of language, and Tough's book is important because it indicates how to accomplish this objective. Best of all, the author is able to attain her purpose without resorting to the jargon used by many specialists in the language area. If you have ever despaired of learning all the specialized vocabulary of the speech pathologists or the special education psycholinguists, take heart, for this book will show that you can ('overcome." If you ever secretly wondered whether a low score from the PPVT really measured anything of importance in regard to language, take heart again, for you will find that it does not. This book is also a refreshing holiday from the turgid prose of the current crop of writers expressing opinions on psycholinguistic functioning.
According t o the author, this book grew out of a need for teachers to obtain more knowledge about the characteristics of disadvantage as they apply to early childhood. But it was felt that special emphasis should be placed on how language skills might be promoted in young children while in school. Tough's main message is to show how teachers can deliberately stimulate language skills in young children. I n so doing she has fashioned a book which serves as a sophisticated intro-