Speaking and listening are academic, social, and life skills that are highly valued in school and your child's world. Breaking language development down let sus bring up different ways your family might help children grow their language skills.
Receptive - recognizing someone else's language as langauge
When language occurs, receptive acts must be inferred act by act. For example, sources of evidence that a receptive act was performed are: a child answering a question, following a direction, continues a topic, shows a responsive emotion (laugh, sigh, etc.), and eye gaze. Children can also perform a receptive act and mistunderstand what someone said to them. For example, a line from a song could say "All of the other reindeer." A child might later repeat it as "Olive the other reindeer." At six months old a child starts to respond to their name and other human voices without visual cues by turning their head. As they reach about 12 months they are able to understand simple instructions. A chart showing more developmental milestones for language is available on another page.
Expressive - when a child produces language either through saying or signing
At six months old a child is vocalizing with intonation, at 12 months they are using one or more words with meaning, and by age 2 they have a vocabulary of around 150-300 words. According to a study in the book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children, there is a significant difference for children whose parents talk frequently with them in the preschool age years. It is vital to your child’s development to allow children opportunities to talk and to listen to adults who are fluent in order to develop oral language skills. One way that you can help your child learn is through playing back their comments. If a child says, “I finded my shoe,” the adult responds with “I’m glad you found it.”
Later children learn to actually think about a word which is called meta-linguistic. It focuses on the language form instead of use. Each meta-linguistic act is also expressive or receptive. A sub-type of meta-cognition might be corrections for self or others as well as comment and answers to questions about language functions, vocabulary and strutures. An importnat part of early literacy is phonologival awareness which enables us to monitor and repair for reading comprehension. An example of phonological awareness, which is a subtype of meta-linguistic is to ask a child which word is bigger than the other, ape or mosquito? An adult would say mosquito. But a child who dos not have meta-linguistic awareness yet would tell you the answer is ape because the size of the actual object named. Another meta-linguistic act is self correction ("this is a we...red book.")
Receptive - recognizing someone else's language as langauge
When language occurs, receptive acts must be inferred act by act. For example, sources of evidence that a receptive act was performed are: a child answering a question, following a direction, continues a topic, shows a responsive emotion (laugh, sigh, etc.), and eye gaze. Children can also perform a receptive act and mistunderstand what someone said to them. For example, a line from a song could say "All of the other reindeer." A child might later repeat it as "Olive the other reindeer." At six months old a child starts to respond to their name and other human voices without visual cues by turning their head. As they reach about 12 months they are able to understand simple instructions. A chart showing more developmental milestones for language is available on another page.
Expressive - when a child produces language either through saying or signing
At six months old a child is vocalizing with intonation, at 12 months they are using one or more words with meaning, and by age 2 they have a vocabulary of around 150-300 words. According to a study in the book Meaningful Differences in the Everyday Experiences of Young American Children, there is a significant difference for children whose parents talk frequently with them in the preschool age years. It is vital to your child’s development to allow children opportunities to talk and to listen to adults who are fluent in order to develop oral language skills. One way that you can help your child learn is through playing back their comments. If a child says, “I finded my shoe,” the adult responds with “I’m glad you found it.”
Later children learn to actually think about a word which is called meta-linguistic. It focuses on the language form instead of use. Each meta-linguistic act is also expressive or receptive. A sub-type of meta-cognition might be corrections for self or others as well as comment and answers to questions about language functions, vocabulary and strutures. An importnat part of early literacy is phonologival awareness which enables us to monitor and repair for reading comprehension. An example of phonological awareness, which is a subtype of meta-linguistic is to ask a child which word is bigger than the other, ape or mosquito? An adult would say mosquito. But a child who dos not have meta-linguistic awareness yet would tell you the answer is ape because the size of the actual object named. Another meta-linguistic act is self correction ("this is a we...red book.")
Children start learning all of these different learing patterns regarding language even earlier than preschool. Full understanding of a lot of these concepts discussed will take children years to develop. Beginning in preschool it is good to expose children to new words and to the ideas and concepts that give them meaning. Through listening to books being read aloud and talking about interesting topics, children start to learn how words “fit” with their understanding of the world. In kindergarten and first grade children start to define words they know and recognize mulitple meanings. Their vocabulary will likely double from the preschool years. Learning a language is an amazing process. The next asepct of language that we will look at is vocabulary.
References:
Resnick, L. B., Snow, C.E. (2009). Speaking and Listening for Preschool Through Third Grade. Washington D.C.: University of Pittsburgh and The National Center on Education and the Economy.
Griffin, P. (2012). Class 2 Three Acts and Function Aspect with Two Parts. [PowerPoint Slides] Retrieved from online.
Child Development Institute, Parent Guide to Developmental Stages. http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/language_development.shtml. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
References:
Resnick, L. B., Snow, C.E. (2009). Speaking and Listening for Preschool Through Third Grade. Washington D.C.: University of Pittsburgh and The National Center on Education and the Economy.
Griffin, P. (2012). Class 2 Three Acts and Function Aspect with Two Parts. [PowerPoint Slides] Retrieved from online.
Child Development Institute, Parent Guide to Developmental Stages. http://childdevelopmentinfo.com/child-development/language_development.shtml. Retrieved March 19, 2012.
