Notesale: Turn your study into money

Document Preview

Extracts from the notes are below, to see the PDF you'll receive please use the links above

---

Child Language Acquisition: 
Quick revise 
Children all around the world seem to acquire language by passing through a similar set
of stages; although the time it takes to move from one stage to the next can differ from
child to child
...
 

Stages of Development 
Before birth: 
It is possible that even before birth a child has acclimatised to the sounds of its native
language
...
 
Crying: 
During the first few weeks of a child’s life, the child can express itself vocally
...
This
suggests that cries are distinctive noises and as such, cannot really be described as
‘language’
...
It is thought that during this
stage the child is discovering its vocal chords and sounds like ‘coo’ ‘goo’ and ‘ga-ga’ are
made
...
It usually begins
when the child is between 6 and 9 months
...
 
Combinations of sounds are produced such as ‘ma’ ‘ga’ and ‘da’
...
Such sounds still have no meaning, but parents are often eager to
believe their child is speaking its first words
...
 
Pre-expansion: 
This is where the number of different phonemes produced by the child increases
initially
...
Later at about 9 or 10 months the number
of phonemes occurs (phonemic contraction)
...
We know this
happens because research has shown that at this age, the sounds made by babies from
different nationalities are different
...
For example, there might be a rising tone at the end of an utterance,
adding emphasis and rhythm
...
 
Understanding: 
Although the child may not yet have begun to speak properly, it doesn’t mean that they
don’t understand the meaning of certain words
...
Words that are recognised are likely to include family
members, responses to questions such as ‘yes’ or ‘no’ and basic expressions like ’byebye’
...
 
  
Pragmatic Development: 
Pragmatic Development - What do words do? 

Language functions 

Michael Halliday’s ‘Learning how to mean’ proposed seven main ‘functions’ that spurred
a child to want to use language
...
eg ‘I want’
Used to influence the
Persuading /
behaviour of others
commanding /
requesting other people
do as you want ‘daddy
push’ (child on swing)
Used to develop social The Phatic dimension
relationships and ease of talk eg ‘hello’
interaction
Used to express
Sometimes referred to
personal preferences / the ‘here I am!’ function
the speaker’s identity – conveys attitudes,
expresses feelings
Used to communicate Relaying or requesting
information
information eg ‘I got a
new doll

HEURISTIC

Used to learn and
explore the
environment

IMAGINATIVE

used to explore the
imagination

Using language to learn
– this may be questions
or answers or the kind
of running commentary
that accompanies
child’s play
May also accompany
play as children create
imaginary worlds / may
arise from story telling
...
 
  

FUNCTION
LABELLING
REPEATING
ANSWERING
REQUESTING ACTION
CALLING
GREETING
PROTESTING
PRACTISING

EXAMPLE
Naming or identifying a person,
object or experience
Echoing something spoken by an
adult speaker
Giving a direct response to an
utterance from another speaker
Demanding food, drink, toy,
assistance etc
Attracting attention by shouting
Pretty self explanatory
Objecting to requests etc
Using and repeating language when
no adult is present

  

Phonological Development: 

Phonological Development - how children develop the ability to use and understand the
sounds of language 
Trends in Phonological Development 
It is difficult to be precise about later phonological development and the way in which
vowels and consonants are acquired varies from child to child
...
Researchers have identified certain trends
in phonological development and these are listed below: 
Command of all the vowels is achieved before all of the consonants 
•
By the age of two and a half the average child has mastered all of the vowels and
•
around two thirds of the consonants 
At four the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants 
•

•
•
•
•

The child may be six or seven before confidence in using all vowels and
consonants has been acquired 
Consonants are first used correctly at the beginning of words but consonants at
the end of words are more difficult for example ‘p’ and ‘b’’ sounds in ‘push’ and
‘bush’ will be easier to pronounce than ‘rip’ and ‘rib’
...
 
R (as in rock or story) becomes w 
•
Th (as in there, that or thumb) becomes d, n or f 
•
T (as in toe) becomes d 
•
P (as in pig) becomes b 
•
Reduplication of sounds is another common phenomenon
...
When
an adult asked ‘is that your fis?’ he replied ‘no, my fis
...
’ Another child confused card/cart and jug/duck in his
speech, but when shown pictures of the items, could correctly identify them
...
 
  

Grammatical Development: 
One word stage / Holophrastic stage 
The average child is about a year old when it speaks its first words
...
This is known as the ONE WORD STAGE
...
For example: ‘Allgone’
...
These words are called HOLOPHRASES
...
 
Two word stage 
Two word sentences usually appear when the child is around 18 months old
...
Words that convey
less information such as ‘in’ or ‘the’ for example, are missed out
...
Also, depending on the CONTEXT of the
utterance it might have more than one meaning
...
Some
will be grammatically complete such as ‘Amy likes tea’ or ‘Mummy sleeps upstairs’ but
others will have essential grammatical elements missing such as ‘Daddy home now’ or
‘Laura broke plate’
...
These are known as inflectional affixes
...
These are word endings such as –ed and –ing
...
 
Brown (1973) studied children’s language development between the ages of 20 months
and 36 months and found the sequence shown below occurred regularly
...
They
observe that past tense forms usually end in –ed so instead of ‘ran’ they say ‘runned’
...
 
3)    In the third stage, correct inflections are used 

Understanding Grammatical Rules 
Children produce accurate grammatical constructions from an early age, and researchers
have tried to determine if they have learned this themselves or have copied adult
speech
...
  At first, the child was shown a picture
of one creature and told ‘this is a Wug’
...
Children
aged 3 and 4 replied ‘Wugs’
...
 
Asking Questions 
Research suggests this happens in three stages: 
1)    Relying on intonation in the two-word stage eg: daddy home? Said with a rising
tone 
2)    During their second year children acquire question words such as ‘what’ and
‘where’ resulting in questions such as ‘where daddy gone?’ They can’t yet use auxiliary
verbs such as ‘has’ 
3)    In their third year, children can use auxiliary verbs and learn to say ‘is Joe here?’
however, they can’t always use wh-words correctly yet and might say things like ‘why
Joe isn’t here?’ 
Negatives 
This also happens in three stages: 
1)    Words ‘no’ and ‘not’ are used in front of other expressions eg) no want 
2)    During the third year ‘don’t’ and ‘can’t are used eg) I don’t want it 
3)    In the third stage more negative forms are acquired such as ‘didn’t’ and ‘isn’t’ and
negative constructions are used more accurately
...
The social worker
discovered that the woman and her husband had kept their 13-year-old daughter Genie
locked away in almost total isolation during her childhood
...
She had spent every day bound naked to a
child’s potty seat and could move only her hands and feet
...
Whenever
Genie made a noise her father beat her
...
 
After she was rescued she spent a number of years in excessive rehabilitation programs
including speech and physical therapy
...
She also eventually learned to recognise many words and speak in basic
sentences
...
She didn’t however, learn to ask questions and
didn’t develop a language system that allowed her to understand English grammar
...
A
san adult she speak in short, mangled sentences like ‘father hit leg’ ‘big wood’ and
‘Genie hurt’ which when pieced together can be understood
...
Some language experts have argued that
cases such as these suggest the existence of a critical period for language development;
but other issues can cloud these case 

Is there a critical period for language learning?  
Most babies learn a language by a certain age if they are to learn to speak at all
...
  It is a time of readiness for learning, after which,
learning is difficult or impossible
...
 
In 1967, Lenneberg proposed that language depends on maturation and that there is a
critical period between about 18 months and puberty during which time a first language
must be acquired
...
 
Although much language learning takes place during pre-school years, it continues into
adulthood
...
 

Language Development (Davis & Brown): 
David Crystal (1996) 

Cries, Burps and Burbles

In the first two or three months of
life an infant makes lots of noises of
pain, hunger and discomfort, to
which parents learn to respond, but
it is difficult to attribute specific
meanings to these sounds
...

This evolves into babbling – the first
extended repetitions by children of
some basic phonemic combinations
such as ‘babababa’ etc
...
  However,
these single words may appear to
serve a multitude of functions or to
have more than one meaning
...
  MLU is calculated by dividing
the total number of words (morphemes – smallest meaningful part of a word) spoken by
the number of utterances a child makes
...
  Brown has related MLU scores to stages of CLA: 

MLU Score
1
...
0
2
...
5
2
...
0
3
...
5
3
...
0

Stage
1
2
3
4
5

  

Child Directed Speech: 
Phonology 
•
•
•
•

Separate phrases more distinctly, leaving longer pauses between them
...
 
Use exaggerated ’singsong’ intonation, which helps to emphasise key words
...
 
Use a higher and wider pitch range
...
 
Adopt child’s own words for things (doggie, wickle babbit)
...
 

Grammar 
•
•
•
•
•

Simpler constructions 
Frequent use of imperatives 
High degree of repetition 
Use of personal names instead of pronouns (e
...
‘Mummy’ not ‘I’) 
Fewer verbs, modifiers and adjectives 

Large number of one-word utterances 
•
•
•
•
•
•
•

Deixis used to point child’s attention to objects or people 
Repeated sentence frames eg
...
 
Omission of past tenses, inflections (plurals and possessives)
...
 
Use of EXPANSIONS – where the adult fills out the child’s utterance
...
 

Pragmatics 
•
•
•

Lots of gesture and warm body language
...
 
Supportive language (expansions and re-castings)
...
 

What effects do you think this kind of speech has on children? 
Some claim that it retains the attention of the child, others that it makes language more
accessible
...
 
Not every culture uses such forms of child-directed speech
...
 

Features and purposes of Child Directed Speech 
CDS aims to: 

•
•
•

Attract and hold the baby’s attention
...
 
Make the conversation more predictable by referring to the here-and-now
...
 
Katherine Nelson (1973) 
Found that children at the holophrastic stage whose mothers corrected them on word
choice and pronunciation actually advanced more slowly than those with mothers who
were generally accepting
...
  For example, a parent is more likely to
respond to “there doggie” with “Yes, it’s a dog!” than “No, it’s there is a dog
...
  Brown replied using “fis”
and the child corrected him again but saying “fis”
...
”  This shows that babies do not hear themselves in
the same way that they hear others and no amount of correction will change this
...
 

•

In some cultures (non-western) babies are expected to blend in with adult
interaction and no special accommodation is made in speech addressed to them
...
  However Clark & Clark’s
research suggests that children who are only exposed to adult speech do not
acquire the same standard of language as those whose parents speak to them
directly in a modified manner
...
  People now think it’s beneficial to the child
...
 

Language Acquisition 

STAGES OF EARLY
LANGUAGE
ACQUISITION
Stage

Function 
What children are trying
to do with their
language

Meaning
Children may have
competence which they
have no occasion to
demonstrate
...

statements (Bird gone)  They are concerned
-  make requests
with articulating the
present state of things,
describing or relating
things and events in
their world
...
(It gone – the
listener has seen what
it is
...
They are often
referred to as operators
because here (as
opposed to their
function in adult
speech) they serve to
convey the whole of the
child’s meaning or
intention
...


2 At this stage children
begin to ask questions;
usually where
questions come first
...
 
They may begin to talk
about locations
changing (e
...
people
coming or going or
getting downor up)
...
g
...


3 By now children ask
lots of different
questions, but often
signalling that they are
questions by intonation
alone (Sally play in
garden, Mummy?)
...


Children now begin to
talk about actions
which change the
object acted upon (You
dry hands)
...
 
Children refer to events
in the past and (less
often) the future
...
They begin to
articulate the changing
nature of things
...

Basic [subject]+[verb]
structure emerges: It
gone, Man run, or
[subject]+[verb]+
[object]: Teddy
sweeties (=Teddy
wants some sweets)
...
 
  
Children begin to use
auxiliary verbs (I am
going) and phrases like
in the basket
[preposition]+[article]+
[noun]
...

4 As children begin to
use increasingly
complex sentence
structures, they also
begin to: 
  
-  make a wide range
of requests (e
...

Shall I cut it? Can I
do it?) 
-  explain 
-  ask for
explanations (Why
questions appear)

Because children are
now able to use
complex sentence
structures, they have
flexible language tools
for conveying a wide
range of meanings
...
 
Children in this stage
begin to express
meaning indirectly,
replacing imperatives
(Give me
...
 
As well as saying what
they mean, they now
have pragmatic
understanding, and suit
their utterances to the
context or situation
...
They are
now able to use
auxiliary verbs: do is
the first to appear,
followed by can and
will
...
?):
this may reflect
understanding that may
is required for courtesy,
while can indicates the
fact of being able to do
something
...
Now they can do
this, language is a very
flexible means of
communication for
them
...
 
They are able to
explain the conditions
required for something
to happen: You’ve got
to switch that on first
...
 
As well as general
references to past and
future, children now
talk about particular
times: after tea; before
bedtime; when Daddy
comes home
...
g
...


By this stage, children
are quite at home with
all question structures
including those
beginning with words
like What?and When?
Where the subject and
verb are inverted
(transposed): What
does it mean? When is
Mummy coming? 
  
Children use sentences
made up of several
clauses, whether
multiple (using coordinate clauses) or
complex (using
subordinate or relative
clauses, and
parentheses)
...

Now children use
structures which allow
more economy (this is
known as cohesion)
...

Children will vary individually in when (relative to their peers) they reach each stage, but
there is little variation in the sequence of language learning
...

From now on what is learned increasingly depends upon experience and environment – on
opportunities to use language and to hear it used, for a wide range of purposes and a wide
range of audiences in a wide range of contexts
...


Learning to Read: 
Historics of learning to read 
1960-70 

Frank Smith said that as children learn to talk by talking they learn to read by reading
...
 
The reader has 2 basic needs: 
•

The availability of interesting material that makes sense to the reader
...
 

Psycholinguists explained that readers draw upon the following cue systems when
making sense of texts: 
•

Semantic cues – using knowledge and experience of stories to predict events,
phrases and words
...
 

•

Grapho-phonic cues – using knowledge and experience of relationships between
sounds and symbols to read particular words
...
Ÿ   
A research programme in Bristol found clear evidence that listening to stories was one of
the most significant pre-school experiences associated with children’s development as
readers and writers
...
Through this
talk children come to know more about what is involved in becoming a reader
...
These texts are often made into books and become a valuable part
of the classroom’s reading resources
...
On each occasion the child plays a more active role in the

reading, predicting and re-enacting of the text
...
 

Silent reading 
Usually during the infant stage the child moves from reading aloud to reading silently
...
With experience the words become ‘thoughts in the head’ and the
rate of reading increases
...
It involves teaching
children the relationship between letters and sounds, so that they can learn the sounds
for individual letters and then blend the sounds together to make the word they see on
the page
...
 
Nevertheless, it is interesting to look in more detail at what is taught in phonics
programmes, as letter-sound correspondences are not always as simple as c-a-t in
English
...
These include:       
Alliteration
...
 
•
Repeated grammatical structures
...
 
•
Moral lines
...
 
•
Familiar discourse patterns
...

How? There are two principal methods by which a child learns to read
...
This method might make use of pictures and labels
...
What do you think are the advantages
and disadvantages of both? 

Readability 
One important aspect of studying children's literature, and for writing for children
yourselves, is the concept of readability
...
The frameworks allow us to be a bit more specific
...
 
Lineation
...
 
font(s) and size of letters
...
 
Types of words and semantic fields
...
g
...
 
Concrete/abstract nouns
...
 
Ease of recognition (sound-spelling match)
...

Sentence type (simple, compound, complex
...
 
Position of subject and verb in sentence
...
 
Verb tense
...
g
...
 
Pronouns used after subject (or object) has been
clearly established
...

Careful structuring of sentences to make the text
cohesive
...
 
Pronouns used after referent well established
...
 
Familiar scenarios
...
 
Informal register
...

Alliteration (big, bad wolf)
...
 
Parallel sentence structures
...


  

Learning to Write: 

  
Stages of Children’s Writing 
  
In the early stages of learning to write and read, young children compose before they
know much about the conventions of writing and reading or have the skill to control a
pencil or crayon or form letters
...
These are not mistakes
...
 
  
Dr Kathy Barclay has identified seven stages of children’s writing
...
    The first stage is SCRIBBLING: These are random marks on a page
...
 
  
2
...
 
Children produce lines of wavy scribbles
...
 
  
3
...
 
  
4
...
  Adults will often see a string of letters across a page that a child
reads as a sentence
...
    This is known as the INVENTED SPELLING stage: As the child writes conventional
letters, they begin to cluster letters to make words
...
    Stage six is the APPROXIMATED OR PHONETIC SPELLING stage: Children begin to
associate sounds with the letters
...
    The last stage of writing is the CONVENTIONAL SPELLING stage: This occurs as the
child’s approximated spellings become more and more conventional
...
Practical: Most of us make lists, jot down reminders, write notes and
instructions
...
Job related: Professional and white collar workers write frequently
...
Stimulating: Writing helps to provoke thoughts and organise them logically and
concisely
...


Social: Most of us write thank-you notes, invitations and letters to friends
occasionally
...


Therapeutic: It can be helpful to express feelings in writing that cannot be
expressed so easily by speaking
...
  It can be studied in conjunction with
children’s emerging cognitive, social and linguistic abilities
...
In addition to motor ability and functional awareness, children need to develop
the structures of language appropriately
...
4-7) 
•

  

•

Basic motor skills develop and principles of the spelling system acquired
...
7-9) 

•

Children begin to use writing to express what they can already say in speech
...
 

•

There may be colloquialisms, strings of clauses linked by “and”, unfinished
sentences
...
Errors are common at first, as children learn new standards and
experiment with new structures found in their reading
...
 

•

At this point children need guidance about the structures and functions of written
language
...
 

•

They therefore begin to draft/revise/edit
...
 

•

This continues to develop throughout adult life
...
This one uses four stages although
there are perfectly good systems divided into six and eight categories
...

2
...


Pre-letter writing
...
 
May use repetition of familiar letters such as the letters in child's name
...

5
...
 
Uses random sight words
...

2
...

1
...


Leaves random spaces in writing
...
e
...
 
Shows letter-sound correspondence
...
 
uses partial mapping of word (2 or 3 letters)
...

2
...

4
...


Total mapping of letter-sound correspondence
...
 
Writes quickly
...
 
Letters are assigned strictly on the basis of sound br=bar or prt=party
...

2
...

4
...

6
...
 
Silent "e" pattern becomes fixed
...
 
Common letter sequences are used (ay, ee, ow)
...
 
May include all, but reverse some, letters (from=form)

---