Language and Literacy Essay

Chapter 7 begins with the ways children develop more sophisticated grammar and vocabulary. Golinkoff states that the usage of “the” “-ing” “-s” “-ed” and “and” illustrates the glue of sentence structure and particles. The examples given in the text iterate that without these simple words and endings, sentences used by children would not make sense. The main point of this chapter is how children use questions to learn how to communicate properly. The single word question “Why?” has much to do with how a child learns proper communication. Golinkoff’s idea of children learning from asking why is a thought that I agree with. As a child my parents often told me to ask why because that is how you learn new things. To this day, I still follow the advice of my parents; the use of why allows me to further my knowledge of material that I previously did not know. In relation to Golinkoff’s idea about children learning from asking why seems rather feasible as asking why in other aspects of life helps individuals learn more. The idea also relates to what was discussed in lecture that children often repeat (in the sense what

Some children may not be able to understand the words being spoken to them and/or the grammatical rules of sentence construction. Therefore, when their teacher tells the class what they need to do, or explains a new idea or concept,9 they may struggle to understand what is being said. Having inappropriate vocabulary is

Reading is an acquired skill, developed through explicit teaching and founded upon a child’s innate ability to hear and process sounds from birth. Beginning at birth exposure to oral language, gestures and the functions of communication (Fellows & Oakley, 2010 p.165) allows exploration of sounds and words and their connection to each other, and introduces cue systems that will later assist in decoding complex text as development of reading ability occurs. Cue systems including linguistic rules of speech, such as grammatical, pragmatic, semantic and syntactic structures (McDevitt & Ormrod, 2004, p. 324), provide readers with strategies and knowledge for comprehension and phonological awareness (Gascoigne, 2005, p. 1). Rich language exchanges

A child with learning problems may be many developmental years behind their peers, this will have a big impact on what they can do in all areas of development including physical skills, social skills and intellectual skills. They may find it especially hard to interact with children of the same age or stay interested in conversation. They may also need to have one-to-one lessons at school to help educate them as they may not be at the same cognitive stage as peers. This may leave them feeling left out.

Introduction to reading comes through phonetic reading boxes. The reading boxes are cleverly organized, going from simple to the complex. Reading does not follow the same process of writing, which is taking our own thoughts and symbolizing. When we read, it is not our language with which we are working with, it is the author’s language. Reading is the analysis of the language followed by a synthesis. Story telling and socio-dramatic play in the environment can help the child develop an imagination that fosters a higher capability to understand what is being read to them.

Comprehension is also an important factor when speaking of literacy. Students should be taught the many strategies that will help them with comprehension and word recognition. In my experience in a first grade classroom I used many of these strategies. Within my lessons I included the activation of prior knowledge to construct meaning, the use of context clues in a sentence, pictures clues, predicting, and drawing inferences about ideas or characters in the text. I always made sure that I modeled the strategy for the student before they set of to do it.

vocabulary and a better meaning of the words. By reading the book it not only helps them with

Speech, language and communication difficulties can have a profound and lasting effect on children’s lives and development. These can affect their ability to communicate and interact with others. The impact of these difficulties will vary depending on the severity of the problems, the support they receive, the demands of the child’s environment

Children develop communication skills from birth. They rely on speech, language and communication to be able to learn at school and play with their friends. They need these skills to reach their full potential. Children begin to understand words before they can say them. They then learn how to say these words and how to put them together to make sentences. Some develop quickly,

Students with speech and language impairment are often in general or regular classrooms. To help students with this type of disorders early intervention is way to address this communication problem. Children who are often classify, as high risk are those with chronic ear infection, genetic defects, alcohol syndrome, neurological defects or delayed language. Those who treat this disorders are called speech language pathologist and they could treat as young as 3. Around the age of two most children say around 50 or more words. At the age of there are very chatty and can begin to put sentences together. Also at three they begin to discover that different words having meaning. When the child is delay or one of the components of communication is disrupted the child is at risk for a language

For example the writer could say “The runner ran quickly across the grass” or by using higher level structures the writer could say “Swiftly the supreme athlete strode over the cropped turf”. Children need to use new and challenging language repeatedly in order to embed it and understand how to use it appropriately. As the child’s cognitive development progresses, so will their understanding and use of “higher level writing voice”.

Speech and language delays can be problematic for preschoolers, school aged children and adolescents. These delays range in degree of severity and have many causes; physical and developmentally. Communication plays a specific and important role to all people, especially, preschool children who are developing speech and language skills at fast rate. The consequences of these delays can be devastating for the children affected and can follow them into adulthood. These effects may include academic problems, social and emotional issues and may even lead into mental illness. Children with speech and language delays need professional intervention as young as possible. However even with intervention, some children are still at risk of suffering

Reading is a skill often taken for granted but it is essential in order to progress in life. For a child being able to read well helps them learn new things, give ideas and enables use of imagination. National literacy trust (2015) suggests that children’s early language skills can have a major impact on a child’s development of literacy skills. Five-year olds with poor language and literacy have a higher risk of underachieving at age seven and beyond. Reading skills encourage more opportunities in life and it can affect a child’s wellbeing if they do not achieve this effectively (Finnegan,2015).

Analysing children’s writing is critically important because it allows teachers to have an understanding of what the child knows already, and what he/she needs to build on with their writing (Stewart, 2012). In the paragraphs ahead, two samples have been chosen and have been analysed using the Victorian Essential Learning Standards and the Western Australia First Steps Developmental Continuum.

When data from students who had average accuracy and fluency scores, but lower comprehension scores were compared to data from those with similar accuracy and fluency but average comprehension, the consistent differences were found to be lower oral language and vocabulary skills in the poor comprehenders upon entry into formal schooling. (Nation, Cocksey, Taylor & Bishop) Thousands of dollars each year are spent on intervention, trying to improve the reading of children that show delays. When one reads, the clear goal is comprehension of what is read. Without communication of ideas between the author and reader, decoding texts is pointless. Most intervention programs are focused on phonics and word decoding. Oral language interventions concurrent with vocabulary and comprehension tasks at age eight have been shown to lead to significant improvements in reading comprehension. (Nation, et al., 2010). Reading comprehension is not merely a product of being able to decode words and sentences. How we teach children to process and integrate the ideas found in text can have a large impact on their ability to function in a world of ever expanding knowledge and information.