Cynthia,

I never studied reading, but I spent a couple of years of my graduate school career marking clauses and T-Units on 4th, 8th, and 12th grade papers for Kellogg Hunt. And certainly the better writers wrote longer clauses and T-units. You have to believe that the better writers were also reading phrases and clauses more efficiently. One of the reasons they write longer clauses, by the way, is that they include more non-restrictive phrases, as Christensen made more a point of. So the ability to perceive how phrases and clauses work together is clearly related to writing and reading ability.

Max

Max Morenberg
Professor Emeritus
Department of English
Miami University
Oxford, OH 45056

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From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Cynthia Baird [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Saturday, August 16, 2008 8:38 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: phrasal fluency

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