Aspects of the processing of frequency information were investigated in two studies. The first showed that second graders were as prepared to process frequency differences as adults. The second showed that practice at frequency counting does not improve the performance of young adults and neither does feedback regarding earlier performance.…

This work represents an effort to develop empirical algorithms useful for measuring alliteration. The resulting rankings compare not unfavorable with an intuitive ranking. (Author)

Points out that the "-ed" participle forms of psychological verbs such as "amuse,""offend,""disappoint," etc. are gaining increasing grammatical acceptance since the "by"-agentive phrase (passive construction) and the adverb "very" co-occur in everyday usage. Results of experiments done…

The Search of Associative Memory (SAM) model for recall is extended by assuming that a familiarity process is used for recognition. The model, formalized in a computer simulation program, correctly predicts a number of findings in the literature as well as results from an experiment on the word-frequency effect. (Author/BW)

Concludes that there are about 88,500 words in printed school English and that even systematic direct vocabulary instruction could not account for a significant proportion of all the words children actually learn, nor cover more than a modest proportion of the words they will encounter in school reading materials. (FL)

Presents (1) suggestions of a sex-related frequency variation in vocabulary, pronunciation, and grammar; (2) evidence of increased sensitivity to sexist language in the manuscripts submitted to the National Council of Teachers of English; (3) a proposed substitution of "Dear Reader" for "Gentlemen" in business correspondence; and (4) a description…

The principles of readability are in every style manual. Readability formulas are in every writing aid. What is missing is the research and theory on which they stand. This short review of readability research spans 100 years. The first part covers the history of adult literacy studies in the U.S., establishing the stratified nature of the adult…

The investigators recommended that in view of the similarity in the results across ethnic and SES backgrounds, that the high-frequency words identified in the investigation be among the first words students learn to spell and write. (Authors)

Part 1 of this article appears in Zielsprache Deutsch", n1 1970. (RS)

Discusses word familiarity, an attempt to measure the degree of importance people attribute to words, and its role in preparing a basic word-list for the teaching of English as a second or foreign language. Word familiarity ratings for 192 nouns are presented. (FB)