Literacy news

Supporting babies and young children's early language development

1 Oct 2004

Language development

Making sense

Long before babies communicate with language they are listening to and distinguishing between sounds (Sure Start 2002). Babies have a marked preference for their mother's voice and very early on show that they hear the difference between their home language and any other (Karmiloff-Smith 1994).

As babies and young children hear a string of sounds, they try to segment them into identifiable chunks. One example of this is toddlers' tendency to echo the last word/s said to them. This process of making sense of language is called receptive language development.

Children learning more than one spoken language will have a wider range of sounds to identify. Having to identify more sounds can prolong the period before expressive language emerges but is ultimately beneficial to children's development, as cognitively they are becoming aware of the abstract nature of language earlier (Siraj-Blatchford and Clarke 2000).

Expressing

Young babies may not use words but in their early months make vowel sounds interspersed by consonants. Around the time they are sitting up babies are babbling, including babies who are using sign language. Parents and practitioners respond playfully to this 'talk', giving it meaning, which encourages the baby to repeat sounds and link them to meaning.

Older babies produce more complex sounds and use intonation to convey different meanings, imitative of adult talk. By this time, babies who all started out using the same range of sounds start to sound different, depending on their mother tongue (Gopnik et al 1999). The running commentaries that practitioners make on everything that they and the baby do at this time helps the baby to think about cause and effect.

In the second and third years of life there is an explosion of language development. Starting with simplified, single words, children sound the consonants just at the beginning of words at first, then the middle, and gradually the end consonants. Consonant clusters are simplified, unstressed syllables are left out and syllables are duplicated. At this time children are becoming mobile and, once walking, the toddler's world really opens up and single words to describe objects and actions are added rapidly to their vocabulary. Gopnik, Meltzoff and Kuhl (1999) call this 'fast mapping'.

Toddlers often point and ask 'What's that?' and begin to show an interest in categorising or sorting at this time. The vocabulary of older toddlers increases rapidly, and they begin to use plurals, pronouns and adjectives. There is also increasing fine motor control at this time, and language helps toddlers to make sense of their actions, using phrases such as 'uh-oh' when things go wrong.

Many toddlers' words are not easily understood by people who do not know them well and adults' lack of understanding, plus the fact that toddlers' understanding is ahead of their ability to express themselves, can result in much frustration. In addition, the sentences older toddlers use contain just the key words, which is called telegraphic speech. This means that practitioners need to share a lot of information to understand the context of a child's talk. For example 'daddy car' may mean 'daddy's got a new car' or 'daddy crashed the car' or many other possibilities. Toddlers also make grammatical errors, such as 'I saw sheeps' or 'I goed park'. Repeating what the child says in the correct form, rather than telling them they are wrong, will both model language and show respect for what is actually an example of the child's growing understanding of grammatical rules.

Playing

A key way in which babies and toddlers come to understand and use language is through their play with sounds and words. Babies repeat different combinations of sounds in their babbling, varying the pitch from low to high. Toddlers play with intonation and sounds and invent their own words for things. Older toddlers play with nonsense words and create chants and their own versions of nursery rhymes, repeating them over and over. Repetition and routine are significant in the speech development of two-year-olds (Gillen in Abbott and Moylett 1997). They enjoy repeating the same song, story or video and often want to have the same conversation in certain situations over a period of months.

Responding

Effective support of children's language development requires practitioners to spend a lot of time listening to children. They need to wait patiently and attentively for them to express their ideas, listening rather than interrupting, then responding to the meaning of their verbal and non-verbal communications. This approach is especially important with toddlers who may often stutter or stumble over their words, as their ability to communicate cannot keep pace with their thoughts and feelings.

Effective support also includes giving bi-or multi-lingual children particular consideration. Given young babies' sensitivity to the sounds of their home language, practitioners should consider how they can ensure that the children will hear those sounds in the setting.

Recruiting practitioners who speak ethnic community languages is ideal, although they also need to feel comfortable in using their languages with the children and parents. Where this option is not possible, key persons should learn essential words in their key children's home language, and parents can tape lullabies, songs and stories for the practitioner to play during the day.

Implications for practice

The practitioner role

Practitioners are the most important resource for babies and young children learning to use language. To support nought to three-year-olds effectively, practitioners need a good knowledge of language development and detailed understanding of each individual child in their care. Skilled practitioners:

• develop trusting relationships with young children, thereby fostering confident talkers who can express their feelings and share their ideas
• use gestures, expressive facial movements, props and signing to support babies' and toddlers' understanding
• are natural conversationalists who provide a running commentary on a play scenario, naming objects and actions and wondering aloud on possible outcomes. They stress and use home languages for key words and use open-ended questions that encourage children to respond without the need for a right answer.

Working with parents

Communication between all the adults is crucial. Where parents and children are learning English as an additional language, support partnership working by:

• supporting parents to spend as much time in the group as possible, talking, singing and telling stories to the children in their home language
• employing staff who speak ethnic community languages
• accessing interpreters from the staff, parent or community groups, where necessary
• learning key words in the families' home language

Prime care times

• Be aware of key words in the children's home languages, such as 'more', 'finished' and 'pooh', as these are especially important at meal, bathroom and sleep times.
• Arrange physical care times to be with individual children or in small key groups as this will help the children to get their needs met or express their feelings and preferences more easily.
• Sing or talk to babies when they are having their nappy changed and have 'conversations', with pauses and interactions, when bottle-feeding.

Environment

For children to want to talk about what is around them the environment needs to:

• have interesting features, eye-level displays and photo albums or events and activities that babies and toddlers have done together to stimulate their recall and talk
• include objects that toddlers see at home and that trigger familiar words, including pictures of their families and friends
• be equipped with duplicates of favourite books, dual language books and books that invite a response from the child located in different parts of the room.

Play experiences/resources

To stimulate effectively the language and communication of nought to three-year-olds, play opportunities must be relevant to the children's experiences and understanding and sufficiently interesting to prompt conversation and comment. They should include:

• visiting interesting places, such as the greengrocer, in small groups
• having interesting people to visit - for example, a parent who has brought in a musical instrument or pet rabbit
• planned and spontaneous times to make sounds with objects and instruments
•  singing, made-up stories and games using children's names and experiences
• stories and songs in the children's home languages
• recording conversations between children and keypersons for the children to listen to.

References

• Abbott, L and Moylett, H (1997) Working with the under-3's: responding to children's needs. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.
• Gopnik, A, Meltzoff, A and Kuhl, P (1999) How Babies Think. London: Weidenfield
• Karmiloff-Smith, A (1994) Baby it's you. London: Ebury Press
• Manning-Morton, J and Thorp, M (2001) Key times: A framework for developing high quality provision for children under three years. London: Camden EYDCP/University of North London
• Siraj-Blatchford, I and Clarke, P (2000) Supporting Identity, Diversity and Language in the Early Years. Milton Keynes: Open University Press
• Sure Start (2002) Birth to Three Matters: A framework to support children in their earliest years. London: DfES.

(From "Using Language", Julia Manning-Morton for Nursery World)

Tags: Talk To Your Baby

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