In 1965 Kellogg Hunt published Grammatical Structures Written at Three Grade Levels. It is still the most important research project on natural language development in school children, and it established the "T-Unit" as the basic measure of syntactic maturity. A "T-Unit" is essentially a main clause defined as including all subordinate clauses and other constructions that go with it. (For a discussion of the complexities of the T-unit, click here.) Although the study included analysis of other constructions, such as subordinate clauses, Grammatical Structures' primary effect was to establish the "T-Unit" (main clause) as the basic measurement of natural syntactic development in school-age children.

     Hunt's conclusions were supported by other researchers, the most important of which are Roy O'Donnell and Walter Loban. Unfortunately, the work of these researchers was not widely available to English teachers for two major reasons. First, it was done and presented in terms (literally) of transformational grammar. Today we know that most English teachers have a poor command even of the terms and concepts of traditional grammar. The researchers' use of transformational concepts and terms meant that they might just as well have written their studies in Greek. To compound this problem, the research studies are heavily ladened with statistics and all the paraphernalia thereof. Add Sanskrit to the Greek. 

     In a final irony, although Hunt, among others, called for drastic changes in the way grammar is taught, the results of the studies were erroneously but effectively used by other researchers (Mellon, and especially O'Hare) to "prove" that grammar should not be taught at all. The bias of professional organizations (especially NCTE) against the teaching of grammar, and the unwillingness (or inability?) of many English teachers to read and understand the research is demonstrated by the fact that a study by Bateman and Zidonis is regularly cited as being against the systematic teaching of grammar, even though they concluded that "the persistently higher gain scores for the experimental class in every comparison made strengthens the contention that the study of a systematic grammar which is a theoretical model of the process of sentence production is the logical way to modify the process itself." (37) They further noted that "the persistent tendency of researchers to conclude that a knowledge of grammar has no significant effect on language skills (when judgment should have been suspended) should certainly be reexamined." (37)
     In effect, the hierarchy of the profession misread the research, ignored it, or even turned its conclusions upside down, thereby leading NCTE into its 1985 unfounded and harmful official resolution against the teaching of grammar. The effect of that resolution was not only to kill any further research, but also to subject any teacher who advocated teaching it to derision. That resolution was never rescinded, and there are still many active NCTE members who chant about research that proves that teaching grammar is ineffective or harmful. They are, however, unable to refer to any research which actually supports their claim. Their chants, however, have obscured the important work of Hunt, O'Donnell, and Loban, which still remains almost unknown to the majority of English teachers. One of the objectives of this study is to bring their work back into the light.
 

Hunt's Aluminum Study -- Pluses and Minuses

Competence vs. Performance (and Effects on Statistics)