LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Language Development: How do children acquire language? What accounts for language development?

Language Development

Introduction

Research and theories about young children's language development have been evolving for well over a century. Language development (Edelsky, 2006), and early childhood scholars have discovered how young children come to know what language, including literacy (Dyson, 2003), is and what it does as a result of a range of diverse and social literacy practices in their homes, communities, and schools. Exploration of the controversies concerning literacy learning and teaching in the early years is essential to teachers, teacher educators, and researchers. (Ferreiro, 2003)

The teaching and learning of language and language arts are pervasive especially in preschool, kindergarten, and primary grades (Edelsky, 2006). Reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing (the language arts) are central to every subject. Written and oral languages are the tools humans use to think about and to actively explore their worlds. Language forms are based on the functions language serves in society (Dyson, 2003). Language development is taken for granted by the lay public (Edelsky, 2006). Since everyone uses language continually, it is easy for people to believe that they know how language works, how it is learned, and therefore how it should be taught. Thus, recommended changes to language arts teaching and learning are often controversial, and innovative literacy practices are at odds with honoured status quo practices. (Dyson, 2003)

Related Research

To understand and take part in discussions about how do children acquire language, we need to develop knowledge and understandings about the social, political, and historical contexts of young children's language learning. As teachers appreciate the learning capabilities of young readers and writers and the influences of classroom contexts on learning, they build and expand on children's language development and help young children become aware of their own contributions to their development. (Edelsky, 2006)

Oral and written language are symbiotic systems that humans use to communicate. Human language represents people's thinking, knowledge, and emotions. Language is so necessary to human interaction that when people are deaf, they develop the language of signing. Although language and thinking are not the same, they are integrally intertwined and necessary to support each other (Ferreiro, 2003). Both oral and written language are flexible and change over time to meet the needs of an ever-changing society. Some people bemoan changes in language, claiming that change damages the beauty and meaning of language. Language change results in the ...