One of the many joys of being an early childhood educator is watching and developing children’s growing imaginations. Symbolic behavior play is related to the understanding of a representational system like written language and language behavior in dramatic play is related to literate language (Mielonen, Paterson, 2009). Children are also developing their oral language skills… Read more »
Tag: Oral Language
Literacy Rich Environments
Research affirms that a literacy rich environment promotes the development of literacy skills. You can create an accessible literacy rich environment by: Providing a wide variety of print, reading, writing, and electronic materials. Adapting literacy materials to meet children’s individual needs (e.g., pencil grips, page turning devices, Velcro, etc.) Balancing informational and narrative texts. Modeling… Read more »
Oral Language Development Beyond Building Vocabulary
Intentionally planning vocabulary instruction (see Words, words, words post) is an important part of developing children’s oral language skills, but what other research-based practices can you use? See below: 1) Ask children many open-ended (those without a specific answer) questions throughout the day. Make these interactions effective by providing scaffolding support that enables children to… Read more »
Words, words, words!
Yes, we know, vocabulary development is important! But just how important is it? Research tells us that “vocabulary is very important to reading comprehension; readers need to know the meanings of individual words to understand the text as a whole” and “oral language is a predictor of a range of expressive skills beyond comprehension, including… Read more »