Language: Development of Academic skills

1. Language: Development of Academic skills • Yardley, (1973) observes that, 33% of a child’s academic skills are attained before age six. • It is important that adults refrain from providing too much help, which deprives the child of the rewarding experience of of finding solution independently.

2. Language Learning • Nativist view maturation (pre-wired for language • Behaviorist view – significant others in the child’s lives model language behavior and reinforce children’s responses through a reward system • The interactionist/constructivist view – language and reasoning skills develop as children interact and respond to the language that is part of their environment. • Piaget’s stages of development sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operations

3. Providing learning • Infants – both verbal and non-verbal • Toddlers – naming, labeling (listening, speaking, prereading, and prewriting activities). Books are enjoyed on a one-on-one basis. • Preschool and Kindergarteners – jiggles, rhymes, and songs. Speaking and listening to one another, listening and discussing literature.

4. Developmental factors: In language development • Physical – poor health hinters language development • Perceptual – distinguishing differences in sounds, letters, etc. • Cognitive – A high IQ is not a prerequisite! • Language – may need more dialogue with adults • Affective – self-image is important • Environmental/experiential readiness – language rich environment.

5. Early Learning of Mathematics. • Most children can solve addition problems with sums lower than 10 before they enter school (e.g. counting upward, just counting, recall) all this rests on memory and language. • Observing that the cookies have been eaten, the child will remark, no more, or all gone. • The Yuppie parents of the early 1980’s, learned that pressurizing their children cost them “lost childhood.” • Memorization, drills may impend problem solving skills.

6. Early Learning associated with reading. • Children first construct concepts about about books and how print works, and then begin to attend to aspects of the print that surrounds them. This is followed by growth of phonemic awareness and acquisition of phoneme-grapheme knowledge. AS children construct knowledge about print and the relationship between print and speech, they also are building oral language skills that support their progress as they encounter the demands of first grade and begin to move to conventional forms of reading and writing. (Dickinson, et a.l., 19993, p. 376)

7. What is the role of speech in children’s early learning? • Many children are able to recreate meaning from printed texts before they come to school(the big M!, and other advertisements). • Durkin (1966) states that, “… the degree of interest the child shows in reading and the degree of interest the parents have in reading, to the child, for pleasure, and availing reading materials in the home. • Cognitive correlates of reading ability, include, perceiving letters as distinct from other marks, drawings, a variety of squiggles.

8. Should we teach children the names of the letters? • Another correlate to reading is phonemic awareness (dividing a word into its components sound or blending the sound together to form a sequence of sounds) – Phonics Vs whole-word • All children must eventually abandon phonological recoding in order to become efficient readers.

9. Early learning associated with writing • Writing is a complex activity. A lot more is known about reading than writing. • Children’s sense of story, developed in early childhood, will carry them a long way if they are freed, in at least some writing tasks, from the mechanical demands of writing.

10. Language and Academic skills, from the child’s perspective • Children’s learning progresses according to their degree of readiness • Young children are, for the most part, in-charge of their own learning • Play play an important role in children’s learning • The role of parents in early learning is facilitator, not instructor • Interaction is essential to children’s early learning. • Learning is embedded in the process of socialization (Children’s lives are not like school curricular)

11. Dealing with Attentional Difficulties • Is the task difficult? –This a pedagogical problem. Reevaluate the materials and Strategies • Is the child expected to maintain concentration for too long? – Planning problem. • Might the child have an attentional disorder? – This is a physical, social, or emotional problem? – seek to promote effective interactions with the child who has attention deficit disorder

12. Strategies for Working with Attention Difficulties • Get in close proximity to the child and move yourself to the child’s physical height before beginning. • Establish eye contact and encourage the child to look directly at your face. • Use physical touch (e.g. a light touch on the forearm) to get attention before speaking. • Remind the child frequently of what he/she is expected to do.

13. Cont. • Make directions simple, clear and sequential. Repeat each step of the directions and ask the child to repeat. • Make more use of concrete objects and hold the object directly in front of the child. • Try using songs or music (e.g., a clean-up time song) to communicate. • Have a special signal and practice it with child ( e.g., a bell means to stop whatever you are doing and pay attention.

14. Cont. • Work with parents and families to reinforce techniques at home. • In extreme cases, consult with the family and the professional team about the use of a sturdy chair equiped with a seat belt, called a rifton chair. Adapted from Dunlap, L.L. (1997).