Language development
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Children develop language through actively trying to make sense of what they hear and looking for patterns, guided by innate biases and rules. By age 5-6, most children have mastered the basics of their native language, including pronunciation, syntax, vocabulary, pragmatics, and basic metalinguistic awareness. Throughout school years, they continue developing more advanced skills in these areas, such as understanding passive voice and abstract concepts, and appropriate conversational turn-taking. Language development is a lifelong process supported by schooling goals of increased language and literacy abilities.
Language development
- 2. All children master their native language unless there is a severe deprivation or physical problem to interfere their language development.
- 3. How do children develop their language? • Children develop language as they develop other cognitive abilities by actively trying to make sense of what they hear, looking for patterns and making up rules. • In this process, built-in biases and rules may limit the search and guide the pattern recognition. • Reward and correction play a role in helping children learn language use, but the child’s thought processes are very important.
- 4. Language Development in the School Years • By the age of 5 or 6, most children master the basics of their mother language. • During the school years they should accomplish: • Pronunciation • Syntax • Vocabulary and meaning • Pragmatics • Metalinguistic awareness
- 5. Pronunciation • Majority of students in grade 1 have mastered most of the sounds in their mother language. • The j, v, th and z sounds are the last to develop. • Young children know a lot of words, but they prefer to use words that they can easily pronounce.
- 6. Syntax (order of words in sentences or phrases) • Children master the basics of word order very early. • Complicated forms such as passive voice take longer to master. • In grades 1 and 2, many children can understand passive sentences, but they do not use them in conversations. • During the lower primary grades, children also learn complex grammatical structures such as qualifiers and conjunctions.
- 7. Vocabulary and meaning • The average six year old has a vocabulary of 8000 to 14000 words, growing about 40000 by age 11. • Children in the early grades enjoy language games and jokes that requires playing with words. • Children in lower primary grades have trouble with abstract words such as justice or economy. They also may not understand subjunctive case, ‘if I were a butterfly’. This is because of their cognitive abilities.
- 8. Pragmatics (appropriate language use) • Children must learn the rules of turn-taking in conversation. • Children wait for their turn but they do not listen to others to create conversations. • Adolescents speak to their peers in slang but with adults they speak politely
- 9. Metalinguistic awareness • Understanding about one’s own use of language. • This process continues throughout the life. • One goal of schooling is the development of language and literacy.
- 10. Metalinguistic awareness • Understanding about one’s own use of language. • This process continues throughout the life. • One goal of schooling is the development of language and literacy.