An Introduction to The National Language Research Institute: A Sketch of its Achievements
Third Edition(1988)/ HTML Version(1997)

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II.4.7 The Language Ability of Children in the Third and Fourth Grades

(Report 14, 1958. 389 pages)
This is a report on a study of the development of the language ability of children from the first term of the third grade to the end of the fourth grade. Besides covering the real conditions and characteristics of the development of understanding in silent reading, reading speed and oral reading skill, we cover the eyeball movement during reading. We examine the development of not only the ability to write compositions on decided subjects or on the same experience, such as an excursion, but also the ability to write for various purposes, for instance, letters and records. We also deal with the relationship between the ability to write compositions and the ability to evaluate them. We mainly describe the ability to read and write sentences in this period, searching for the factors that influence its development, and add a report on case studies. The reader can thus see the outline of the state and problems of the development of the ability to use the orthography of characters, both katakana and kanzi, and the development of the power of vocabulary and grammar. The real conditions of reading at home, which becomes active in this period, are reported in detail, along with concrete records of reading notes. Studies of reading at home and of social nature are appended. This survey was made by KOSIMIZU Minoru, ASIZAWA Setu, TAKAHASI Taro~ and MURAISI Syo~zo~. (The development of speaking and listening ability in this period is described in Annual Report 9, 1957.)

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