Child Language Development

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The development of literacy and language is a continual progress within a person. This development is one that starts from the moment a child is born (Hurst and Joseph, 2000). This development is promoted within the home environment and is extended within the early years’ classroom domain. Literacy and language development is comprised of four strands, which are listening, speaking, reading & writing. These four factors are in constant interaction together and are constantly developing within the person (Saffran, Senghas and Trueswell, 2001). The early years of a child can be considered as being the most important and critical, as they serve to be the basis and formation of what the child will learn and achieve later on in their life. These …show more content…

Parents should constantly speak to their children from the moment of birth. As the child is the receiver, the child is absorbing the language through his/her parents, which he/she will later on implement throughout his/her daily life (Berk and Winsler, 1995). Through spoken language, the child encounters new vocabulary; therefore parents or guardians need to use a variety of vocabulary to help the child broaden his/her range of vocabulary, as the parents or guardians are their child 's language role models (Dickinson and Tabors, 2001). As the child starts to develop and begins to experiment in speaking, the parents or guardians should be at the child 's assistance in building on what he/she has heard his/her parents say and perform it in his/her language base. As learning starts from the home environment, each family member should help the child understand and put in practice language on a daily basis (Berk and Winsler, …show more content…

Therefore, students need to be helped perform at their level of ability in order to succeed. Building a strong parent-teacher relationship will benefit the three participants; the parent, the teacher and most importantly, the child him/herself (Holdaway, 1979). Continuous contact and help from the parents will help the educator relate his/her classroom environment with what the students experience within their home environment. Therefore, this puts the responsibility on all the adults present in the child’s life to ensure that the experiences that the child is facing are helping him/her extend his/her learning achievement (Dombro,