Child Language Aquisition

Child Directed Speech

Gender

Fathers are more demanding than mothers, using more direct questions and a wider range of vocab.

Pragmatics

Carers use gesture and warm body language, they take fewer utterances per turn to let the child pratise turn-taking, and they use supportive language.

Phonology

Adults use longer pauses between utterance, they speak more slowly, use exaggerated intonation and a higher and wider pitch. use gesture and warm body language, they take fewer utterances per turn to let the child pratise turn-taking, and they use supportive language.

Lexis & Semantics

Adults use concrete nouns, they adopt the child's language, frequently use the child's name, and use a lack of pronouns when talking to a child.

Grammar

Adults use repeated phrases, simple sentences, they omit the past tense and inflections, they use imperatives and interrogatives and tag questions.

EXPANSIONS - Filling in a child's utterance

RE-CASTINGS - Using a child's vocab in a new sentence

Common Errors

Underextension

Restricting the application of a word

Overextension

Misunderstanding the precise application of a word

Stages of language aquisition

1. Holophrastic stage - 12-18 months

2. Two word stage 2 years

3. Telegraphic stage 2-3 years

4. Pre-school years 3 years+

Halliday's Functions

Instrumental - language to fulfil a particular need

Interactional - Build up social relationships

Regulatory - Influence other's behaviour

Personal - Express ideas, opions and identity

Representational - Convey facts and information

Hueristic - To explore the environment

Imaginative - Used to create an imaginary environment

Trends in Phonology

Deletion - Deleting certain sounds

Addition - Adding vowel sounds to break up consonants

Substitution - substituting hard sounds for easier ones

Reduplication - syllable is repeated, often created a CVCV pattern

Assimilation - Sounds in a word are made to sound like neighbouring sounds

Metathesis - Sounds in a word are swapped around

Berko & Brown 1960 - The 'Fis' Phenomenon - a child's language can develop mentally faster than physically (mouths)

Skinner

Imitation theory - Children learn to speak by imitation their parents and being rewarded or punished according to the accuracy of their utterances

Chomsky

Innate theory - Babies are born with the innate knowledge of the structure of language and this speeds up their learning of their native language when they here it. They have a mental model of how language works.

Piaget

Cognitive theory - Langauge development goes hand in hand with the development of thinking and knowing. The child must understand the concepts of words of size, object permanence and time to be able to use them.

Bruner

Social Interaction Theory - Language is social. Children use language to get what they want. Language development is enriched and accelerated according to the quantity and quality of their social interactions with adults. It is only through interactions with adults that children can learn the social pragmatics of language use.

Common Errors

Single and double letters cause difficulty

Unstressed syllables are missplet

Prefixes and suffixes cause confusion

Phonic alternatives

Vowel Combinations

Developmental stages of spelling - Gentry

Exploration - Pre-letter writing, random writing on paper, repetition of familiar letters, uses left to right directionality, uses random sight words

Semiphonetic - Leaves random spaces in writing, uses few known words in correct place, uses initial consonants, uses partial mapping of word, reads back accurately at conference

Phonetic - Total mapping of letter-sound correspondence, vowels are omitted when not heard, writes quickly, spaces words correctly, letters are assigned strictly on the basis of the sound.

Transisional - Vowels appear in every syllable, silent 'e' pattern becomes fixed, inflectional ending like 's' and 'ing' are used, common letter sequences are used, child moves toward visual spelling, may reverse some letters.

Rothery 1984

Observation/Comment - Presenting an observation and an evaluative comment.

Observation

Recount - a chronologically organised sequence of events. However in more mature writing there's a reorientation at the end going back to the beginning.

Report - Gives factual objective description of events or objects. General classification then description. Reports differ from recounts because there is no chronological sequence of events.

Narrative - The inclusion of events that sonstitue a problem or complication of some kind.Resolved for better or for worse. Main character is often introduced in the orientation.

Barclay 1996

Stage 1 - Scribbling - Making random makrs on the page that aren't related to words. Learning the skill of holding the pencil.

Stage 2 - Mock Handwriting - Practise drawing shapes of paper. Letter-like forms (pseudo-letters) begin to appear in drawings as the first sign of emergent writing.

Stage 3 - Mock Letters - Produce random letters, no spacing awareness or match to sounds.

Stage 4 - Conventional Letters - Start matching sounds with symbols. Words are unlikely to be spaced out. Children use initial consonants to represent words. The initial letter might be read out as if the full word were on the page.

Stage 5 - Invented Spelling - Most words are spelled phonetically, most simple and familiar words are spelled correctly.

Stage 6 - Appropriate Spelling - Sentences become more complex as the child becomes more aware of standard spelling patterns.

Stage 7 - Correct Spelling - Most words are spelled correctly.

Kroll 1981

1. Preparatory Stage (4-7 years) - Basic motor skills develop and principles of spelling system aquired

2. Consolidation Stage (7-9 years) - Children begin to express what they can already say in speech, writing reflects the patterns of spoken language. There may be colloquialisms, and clauses linked by 'and'. Unfinished sentences.

3. Differentiation Stage (9 years+) - Writing begins to diverge from speech and develops it's own patterns. Errors are common at first. Their written work becomes more diverse as they encounter the need to produce different written language. They begin to draft/revise/edit.

4. Integration Stage (14 years+) - Writers have such a good command of language that they can vary their stylistic choices at will and devlop a personal 'voice. This continues to develop throughout adult life.

Features borrowed from Oral Tradition

Alliteration - the repetition of the same consonant or consonant cluster sound

Repeated Epithet - This is like an additional name tag, often an adjective that goes in from of a character's name

Balanced sentence - Two ideas are placed side by side, the second complimenting or contrasting with the first

Assonance - Repetition of vowel sounds

Repeated Formulae - A repeated spell or sequence of events

Proverb or Aphorism - A saying or summary of some accepted wisodm, for example 'Never talk to strangers'

Parallel Sentences - Similar to a balanced sentence, but there is repeated syntax in the sentence

Rhythmic Language - This is best appreciated when a book is read aloud, the emphasis on some words over others, often by using a combination of alliteration and parallel sentences

Epithet as Metaphor - Create new ways of looking at familiar ideas.This is like a child's creativity with language when they don't know the single work for something.

Methods

Phonic Schemes - identifying the regular sound-letter relationship in a writing system, teaching the child to use these when decoding or constructing words. 'Sounding out'.

Whole Word Schemes - Recognising words as a whole.

Harris and Coultheart's 4 Stages of Learning to Read

1. The Sight Vocabulary or Whole Word Stage - where children recognise written words as a whole and are not aware of their internal orthographic structure

2. Discrimination Net Stage - Where children are beginning to pay attention to the orthography but in a frangmented way. When faced with an unfamiliar word, they are likely to base their judgement on broad similarities to words that they already know.

3. Phonological Recoding Stage - where extensive use is made of letter to sound correspondance and 'sounding out' words.

4. The Orphographic Stage - words are recognised directly by their spelling rather than by sound. Faster than sounding out.