Teaching Children To Read: The Behaviorist Theory Of Oral Language

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Oral language is an important and necessary cognitive developmental step in literacy. People, children as well as adults, adults use oral language on a daily basis. People use oral language as their primary form of communication. Children learn oral language before they learn written language. According to our text book, “Teaching Children to Read: The Teacher Makes the Difference” by Reutzel and Cooter there are four oral language developmental theories. These theories include: the behaviorist theory, the innatist theory, the constructivist theory, and the social interaction theory. First, B.F Skinner, a psychologist, developed the behaviorist theory of oral language development. “Behaviorist theory of language development states that infants learn oral language from other human role models through a process involving stimulation/modeling, imitation, rewards, punishment, and practice” (Reutzel, 2015, pp.38). Skinner believed that children learned by operate conditioning, which is rewards for accomplishing a goal. In the case of oral language Skinner believed that children, specifically infants learned oral language by getting rewards such as smiles or praise for imitating words adults wanted them to speak. However, this does not explain how children who do not receive praise from …show more content…

These four theories are the behaviorist theory, the innatist theory, the constructivist theory, and the social interaction theory. Each theory has many different ideas on oral language development, however the theories all agree that oral language development is essential to all human beings. Human beings use oral language every day to communicate their wants, need, desires, and ideas to others. Children need to learn oral language at a young age and consistently improve that language to become good communicator. Good communication will help children to be successful in school and