Children are miraculous! They are born with an innate knowledge of language. BUT children are not born with an innate knowledge of reading.
They need to be taught that text is read from left to right and that words are separate from images.
Although learning to talk and read are two distinct domains, they are also intricately related.
Early language skills are linked to later successful reading.
Young children need a variety of skills to become successful readers. Research indicates that children who enter school with more of these skills are better able to benefit from the reading instruction they receive when they arrive at school.
The following core skills have been identified as being crucial to the development of later reading.
Knowing the names of things is an extremely important skill for children to have when they are learning to read.
Help develop your child’s vocabulary by reading a variety of books (both fiction and nonfiction), and by naming all the objects in your child’s world.
2. PRINT MOTIVATION
Print motivation is a child’s interest in and enjoyment of books.
A child with print motivation enjoys being read to, plays with books, pretends to write and asks to be read to.
Encourage print motivation in your child by
• Shared book reading a special time, keeping books accessible, and letting your child see that you enjoy reading.
• Explain how reading and writing are used in everyday life, for example shopping lists, newspapers, TV guides, and computer screens.
A fun activity is to read through the TV guide with your child and bookmark a favourite programme to watch or record.
3. PRINT AWARENESS
Print Awareness includes learning that writing in English follows basic rules such as flowing from top-to- bottom and left-to-right, and that the print on the page is what is being read by someone who knows how to read.
An example of print awareness is a child’s ability to point to the words on the page of a book.
Your child’s print awareness can be encouraged by
- Pointing out and reading words everywhere you see them – on signs, labels and the supermarket.
- Going shopping with young children. This can be challenging, especially with all the sweet temptations within the child’s direct line of sight. I know that it is easier to leave your child at home when you go shopping, but try to make a point of taking your child with you at least once a week.
Something to keep your child occupied in the supermarket is to send him ahead of you in the aisle to try to find a certain brand of crisps/cereal/tomato sauce.
Use items that your child is motivated to buy 🙂
Drawing your child’s attention to prices also creates print awareness.
4. NARRATIVE SKILLS
The ability to understand and tell stories and describe things is important for children in order to understand what they are learning to read.
An example of a narrative skill is a child’s ability to tell what has happened at a birthday party, or a class outing.
Help your child strengthen his narrative skills by
- Asking him to retell a well-known story. Encourage your child to predict what might happen next in the story. Facial expression can create excitement about what might happen.
- Encourage your child to tell you about things he has done that have a regular sequence to them. For example, having a bath.
5. LETTER KNOWLEDGE
Letter Knowledge includes learning that letters have names and are different from each other, and that specific sounds go with specific letters.
An example of letter knowledge is a child’s ability to know that the letter B makes a /b/ sound.
- Playing games like “I spy” will develop phonemic (sound) awareness.
- Focus your child’s attention on the letters in the words and highlight the letters that are in your child’s name.
- Encourage your child to pay attention to the shape of letters and trace them with his finger.
6. PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS
Phonological Awareness is the ability to hear and manipulate the smaller sounds in words.
Phonological awareness includes the ability to hear and create rhymes, to say words with sounds or chunks left out, e.g. monkey without /mon/, and the ability to put sounds together to make a word.
Strengthen phonological awareness by
- Exposing your child to songs and rhymes.
- Encourage them to “make up” silly rhyming words
- Say words and sounds with a pause between the syllables and have your child guess what word you are saying. E.g. um—bre—lla
The environment and daily routines in your home can be one of the best teaching tools to help children develop pre-reading skills. A print-rich environment helps foster skills needed for reading. By surrounding your children with print in your home and talking to them about what it means, they will learn more every day. As your child points, labels, makes nonsense words, and tells you outrageous stories, they are practicing to be literate. The next time you hear the word “again p-l-e-a-s-e!” remind yourself that you are laying the foundation for life-long literacy. So with the same enthusiasm you’ve demonstrated one hundred times before, “READ IT AGAIN” as if it were the very first time!
In an era where children spend more and more time in front of televisions, computers and video-games, it is important not to forget how important stories are!
Hearing stories regularly allows pre-readers become familiar with narrative patterns, speech rhythms, and the flow of language.
Knowledge of story structure contributes to a child’s understanding of how the world functions, facilitating the ability to
– Predict actions and consequences
– Understand cause and effect
An understanding of narrative structure reduces the processing load and facilitates the use of prediction to aid comprehension and word recognition
The ability to comprehend and express stories is an integral part of life and academic success:
- It allows the child to sequence ideas or information
- It promotes reasoning skills such as inferential thinking and problem solving.
- It encourages the use of complex sentence structure and vocabulary and correct grammar.
- Reading stories helps with the development of listening skills and memory.
- Storytelling fuels the imagination and allows children to develop mental imagery.
- Stories help children adapt to new experiences
Narrative language skills in pre-school and early primary school are excellent predictors of literacy skills in later primary school.
How do children develop story telling/narrative skills?
Children as young as 20 months, have elements of storytelling in their play. However once verbal language develops it can be classified into developmental stages.
Stage 1: Heap Stories (2 years)
Heaps consist of labels and descriptions of events or actions. There is no central theme or organization. There is no real high point.
Stage 2: Sequence Stories (2 -3 years)
Sequences consist of labeling events about a central theme, character, or setting. There is no plot. The events could be listed in any order without changing the meaning.
Stage 3: Primitive Narratives (3 – 4 years)
Primitive narratives contain three of the story grammar elements: an initiating event, an action, and some result or consequence around a central theme. There is no real resolution or ending to the story.
Stage 4: Chain Narrative (4 – 5 years)
Chain narratives include four of the story grammar elements: an initiating event, a plan or character motivation, an attempt or action, and some result or consequence around a central theme. There is usually either cause-effect or temporal relationships, but the plot is weak and does not build on the motivations of the characters.
Stage 5: True Narrative (5 years +)
True narratives have a central theme, character, and plot. They include motivations behind the characters’ actions and include logical and/or temporally ordered sequences of events. Stories at this stage include five story grammar elements: an initiating event, a plan or character motivation, an attempt or action, a consequence, and a resolution to the problem.
Why do children like the same story?
The “Read it again,” phase that preschoolers go through is perfectly normal. Children love the sense of power that comes from knowing what’s on the printed page, and since they cannot read it for themselves, the next best thing is to memorize it. To do that they need to hear the story read over and over.
Toddlers love repetition because that the way they learn best. Hearing something many times helps them remember information for increasing periods of time. Hearing a story over and over helps children better understand the characters and the important events in the story. Children get an idea of story sequencing, as in beginning, middle and ending of a story. It also helps children understand some of the standard story “language” such as “once upon a time” or “happily ever after
Once your child has learned something, he’ll enjoy repetition because he can anticipate what comes next. After many readings of a familiar book, your child may even remember it well enough to add the endings to most of the sentences. This accomplishment means that he can participate more actively in story time. This is also why simple songs and nursery rhymes have such an impact on a toddler: Not only can your child practice his speaking skills and vocabulary by singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” nine times in a row, but he also has the satisfaction of feeling he’s added something concrete to his repertoire.
During the extraordinary early learning years, stories, songs and rhyme plant the seeds of sounds and language. So talk, sing and tell stories, and don’t give up on “reading again.”
Your son is 2 years old and still isn’t talking. He says a few words, but compared with his peers you think he’s way behind. You remember that his sister could put whole sentences together at the same age. Hoping he will catch up, you postpone seeking professional advice. Some kids are early walkers and some are early talkers, you tell yourself. Nothing to worry about…
This scenario is common among parents of kids who are slow to speak. Unless they observe other areas of “slowness” during early development, parents may hesitate to seek advice. Some may excuse the lack of talking by reassuring themselves that “he’ll outgrow it” or “she’s just more interested in physical things.” After all, wasn’t Einstein late to talk? This can be a very confusing situation for parents who want to do the best for their child.
Whilst it is important to recognize that every child is unique and develops at his/her own pace, knowing what’s “normal” and what’s not in speech and language development will assist you in making a decision regarding referral to a speech and language therapist. Below is a chart of “typical” language development in children.
LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CHART
|AGE OF CHILD
||TYPICAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
| 6 – 8 months
- Vocalization with intonation
- Responds to human voices without visual cues by turning his head and eyes
- Responds appropriately to friendly and angry tones
- Enjoys social games like peek- a- boo
- Babbling sounds include p, b, m
- Uses one or more words with meaning (this may be a fragment of a word)
- Understands simple instructions, especially if vocal or physical cues are given
- Practices inflection
- Is aware of the social value of speech
- Responds to name
- Has a vocabulary of 10-20 words.
- Produces more than 5 consonant sounds, like m, w, n, p, and b.
- Begins to use two words together (“mommy shoe” meaning “mommy’s shoe”).
- Points to some body parts
- Follows simple commands (“Give me the ball”).
- Pretend play beginning.
|2 years (24 months)
- Approximately 2/3 of what child says should be intelligible
- Vocabulary of approximately 150-300 words
- Rhythm and fluency often poor
- Volume and pitch of voice not yet well-controlled
- Can use two pronouns correctly: I, me, you, although me and I are often confused
- My and mine are beginning to emerge
- Responds to such commands as “show me your eyes (nose, mouth, hair)”
- Puts many actions together during play like stirring, pouring, scooping, and feeding a doll.
|3 years (36 months)
- Use pronouns I, you, me correctly
- Is using some plurals and past tenses
- Knows at least three prepositions, usually in, on, under
- Knows chief parts of body and should be able to indicate these if not name
- Handles three word sentences easily
- Has in the neighborhood of 900-1000 words
- About 90% of what child says should be intelligible
- Verbs begin to predominate
- Begins to use negative words – no, can’t don’t
- Understands most simple questions dealing with his environment and activities
- Relates his experiences so that they can be followed with reason
- Able to reason out such questions as “what must you do when you are sleepy, hungry, cool, or thirsty?”
- Should be able to give his sex, name, age
- Should not be expected to answer all questions even though he understands what is expected
- Asks lots of questions.
- Most regular and irregular past tense verbs are used correctly.
- Understands most questions but has difficulty answering “how” and “why.”
- Can retell stories and recent past events.
- Uses the pronouns: they, us, hers, his, them, her, its, our, him, myself, ours, their, theirs, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
- Knows names of familiar animals
- Can use at least four prepositions or can demonstrate his understanding of their meaning when given commands
- Knows one or more colors
- Can repeat 4 digits when they are given slowly
- Can usually repeat words of four syllables
- Demonstrates understanding of over and under
- Has most vowels and diphthongs and the consonants p, b, m, w, n well established
- Often indulges in make-believe
- Extensive verbalization as he carries out activities
- Understands such concepts as longer, larger, when a contrast is presented
Many late talkers do “grow out of it,” but many do not. It can be difficult to predict which children will not catch up to their peers. However, a list of risk factors has been identified, which suggest that a child is more likely to have continuing language difficulties. These include:
- quiet as an infant; little babbling
- a history of ear infections
- Limited number of consonant sounds (e.g., p, b, m, t, d, n, y, k, g, etc.)
- does not link pretend ideas and actions together while playing
- does not imitate (copy) words
- uses mostly nouns (names of people, places, things), and few verbs (action words)
- difficulty playing with peers (poor social skills)
- a family history of communication delay, learning disabilities, or academic difficulties
- a mild comprehension (understanding) delay for his or her age
- uses few gestures to communicate
What about the group of late talkers who seem to catch up on their own without intervention?
Even though a large percentage of these children appear to catch up to their peers by the time they enter school, studies are showing that this group of children do not perform as well as their peers in certain aspects of language use such as language complexity and grammar.
So, back to my maxim – when in doubt, check it out,