COMPARISONS OF YOUNG CHILDREN'S SYNTAX TO THE SYNTAX OF THEIR BASAL READERS

Abstract

Based on T‐unit analysis of passages from three recently published basal series at grade levels one, two, and three and oral language samples of subjects at corresponding grade levels from Loban's (1976) longitudinal study, comparisons are made between children's oral syntax and the syntax of the basal stories they read. Results indicate that in average number of words per T‐unit, complexity of basal passages generally exceeds that of children's oral language. Although this is not always true for students high in language proficiency, this is especially true for randomly grouped students and students low in language proficiency. In addition, none of the basal series exhibit a graduated increase in average number of words per T‐unit among basal passages within the same basal reader. Findings are discussed and implications suggested.