8.1: Introduction
Language is one of the most crucial tools that children acquire, one that is essential for cognitive development, reading achievement, and overall school performance, as well as for social relations. It allows people to share a society’s achievements and history and the deepest emotions. Language includes conventional sounds, gestures, and visual symbols, such as writing, that are used separately and jointly for purposes of communication.
The human brain is “hard-wired” to learn language, a process quite similar in all children. Yet children differ a good deal as to when they hit milestones such as when they use their first words, start to combine words into sentences, and use complex sentence forms to communicate meaning. Though children begin to develop language and literacy at birth, with nonverbal cues such as eye gaze and gestures, they arrive at preschool ready to communicate with symbols: words, signs, and pictures.
Children’s early language and literacy environments often vary, with the amount and kind of experiences differing across families. Some children experience more conversations and book reading than other children and more than one language. Some children see print primarily in the environment (e.g., street signs, store coupons, labels on containers). Other children engage with print in many contexts, including books read to them regularly.
Some children have opportunities to scribble, draw, and write with crayons and markers long before they come to preschool, while others have few of these emergent writing opportunities. Teachers should encourage all preschoolers to join in activities that will expand their language and literacy skills. Each child’s family should be invited to participate in this exciting process.
The following components constitute oral language:
Parts of Oral and Sign Language System[1]
- Phonology—the sound system of language, such as noticing that hat, cat, and mat differ by only a single initial sound
- Semantics—the meaning conveyed by words, phrases, and sentences
- Syntax or grammar—the rules that govern how sentences are put together
- Morphology—the units of meaning within a language, also called morphemes, such as –ed for past tense (e.g., walked) and s for plural (e.g., dogs)
- Vocabulary—the words in a given language
- Pragmatics—the rules of language used in social contexts (e.g., one would talk differently to the president than to one’s mother). Pragmatics includes gathering information, requesting, and communicating. Good conversations depend on staying on the topic and turn-taking
These components are used in the auditory (i.e., listening, speaking) and visual (i.e., sign, reading, writing) modalities. Language allows children to express their feelings and needs, acknowledge the feelings and needs of others, and to talk about emotions.
Preschool is also an exciting time for written language development and for promoting interest in reading. If the social and physical environme