The Meaning of “Early Literacy”

EDUC 2001: Language Acquisition and Development

Week 3

Early Language Development

This week, we will follow young language learners along the road toward mastery of

language comprehension and production. After learning to label things and interact socially,

children reach a new turning point, putting words together to make sentences. These early

combinations mark the beginning of language structure, or syntax. Children begin by using two-

word combinations to convey simple concepts, then progress to using strings of words to

construct more complex thoughts. This journey, generally taken from preschool through the early

primary years, is one of the most remarkable a child will make. As children learn to ask and

answer questions, make requests, refuse to carry out commands, apologize for inappropriate

behavior, and tell stories, they become more and more competent conversational partners.

The Underlying Issues

How do children learn to communicate and why are communication skills so important? This

week we will explore possible answers to these questions. After identifying the processes

involved in language acquisition and communicative competence, we will take a deeper look at

the approaches to studying and understanding language learning that have emerged, discussing

the strengths and weaknesses of these theoretical approaches and the similarities and

differences between them. We will also review some different styles of language, and discuss

various influences on language and literacy development.

Stringing Words: Syntax and Morphology

Not long after a child gives voice to the first spoken word, s/he begins putting words together.

Even the simplest two-word utterances show evidence of syntax, that is, the way in which words

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are put together to form phrases. By the time a child begins elementary school, s/he has

developed a rich and intricate linguistic system.

Syntactic System

Children develop language at different rates, but researchers have found that the use of

phrases is dependent upon the timing of a child’s first words; the time at which the child

comprehends approximately 50 words; and the communicative responsiveness of the primary

caregiver. Just how children develop syntactic rules— the rules for stringing words together to

form phrases—however, is less clear. Most of our understanding of syntactic rules comes from a

theory developed by Noam Chomsky called universal grammar (UG). A more recent version,

government and binding theory (GB) has significantly influenced modern linguistic research. This

theory highlights two levels of meaning when looking at phrases or sentences: s-structure and d-

structure. The s-structure refers to the surface structure, that is, the grammatical components of a

sentence (e.g., noun-verb-adjective-infinitive verb).

The d-structure refers to the deep structure, that is, the underlying relationships between the

grammatical components of a sentence.

Two levels of meaning in sentences:

s-structure = the surface structure or grammatical components (e.g., noun-verb-adjective-

infinitive verb)

d-structure = the deep structure, that is, the underlying relationships between the grammatical

components of a sentence.

Once a child is able to recognize word and phrase boundaries, how does s/he go about

cracking the syntactic code? Researchers believe that children use semantics (i.e., word

meaning), pragmatics (i.e., language functions), and the grammar system itself, as well as

intonational and prosodic (i.e., accent) clues from adult caregivers. To measure syntactic

development, we can measure the length of a child’s sentences using the mean length of

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utterance (MLU), which is determined by scoring spontaneous speech. Scores are determined by

calculating the mean number of morphemes—words and word parts such as prefixes and

suffixes—used (see Figure 5.4 in the textbook for step-by-step instructions on calculating MLU).

The MLU has been used to divide syntactic development into five stages, four of which are

discussed in more detail below.

Stage I: Two-Word Utterances (MLU 1.0 – 2.0)

The first stage deals mainly with two-word utterances, though it may include phrases of three

or four words as well. One of the most striking features of these phrases are their uniqueness,

that is, they are not mere imitations of adult speech, but they indicate the child is trying to say

something different or unique. Other features are listed in the following chart.

Stage I: Two-Word Utterances

Stage 1 Feature Language Description Beyond imitation English Two-word utterances are

different than merely imitating an adult

Use of open-class words English Open-class, or content, words dominate speech (e.g., nouns, verbs, adjectives)

Absence of closed-class words English Closed-class, or function, words are generally not present (e.g., prepositions, conjunctions, articles, pronouns), with the exception of a handful of functors (e.g., more, no, you, off)

Topics: possession, location, recurrence

Universal Prime topics children are discussing (e.g., Daddy book, there Mommy, more car)

Limited set of semantic relations

Universal People, objects, actions, and the interrelationships among them (see Figure 5.2 in the textbook for specific examples)

Consistent word order English Correct use of word order more typical when using nouns than verbs

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Research suggests that children recognize consistent word order, the final feature listed in

the chart above, before they begin to produce two-word utterances. By using the preferential

looking paradigm, which relies on hidden cameras to record where a child is looking in response

to multiword utterances, researchers have shown that comprehension of word order precedes

production and is acquired through the use of prosodic, semantic, syntactic, environmental, and

social cues.

Stage II: Morphological Development (MLU 2.0 – 2.5)

Morphological development, the development of word formation elements and processes,

begins in earnest in Stage II. Two important changes signal morphological development:

• Sentences get longer as children begin combining more than

• Two basic semantic elements, and

• More closed-class terms are used in the creating basic phrases.

In particular, researchers have categorized 14 key morphemes:

Morpheme Group Examples Prepositions in, on

Articles a, the

Noun inflections • ’s (possession)

• –s (plural)

Verb inflections • –s (third-person present tense, regular verbs)

• –ing (progressive aspect) • –ed (past tense, regular verbs) • auxiliary have and its irregular forms

(has, had) • to be (as both main and auxiliary verb

and in both regular and contracted forms; e.g. I am – I’m; he is walking – he’s walking)

The appearance of these 14 morphemes comes and goes at first, but once they are fully

acquired (i.e., used 90 percent of the time), there is rarely any regression. By age three, there is

clear evidence that children are acquiring a rule-governed system. The production of over-

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regularization errors, such as adding –ed to form the past-tense of verbs that are irregular, is one

way that children demonstrate they are aware of morphological rules.

Stage III: Sentence Production (MLU 2.5 – 3.0)

Although children have already learned how to deny requests, ask questions, and make

demands, during Stage III they begin to acquire the adult form of these sentence structures. In an

analysis of negative expressions in English, children were found to progress through three

periods:

• Period 1: Placing the negative marker outside of, usually preceding, the sentence (e.g.,

No sit)

• Period 2: Placing the negative marker inside the sentence next to the main verb but

without the use of an auxiliary (e.g., I no sit)

• Period 3: Using the negative marker inside the sentence with the correct use of an

auxiliary when appropriate (e.g., I don’t want to sit)

In English and other languages there are multiple ways of asking questions. For example, we

can transform a declarative sentence into a question by using rising intonation (e.g., Mommy

wants to go?); children often use this method early on. We can also ask yes/no questions by

reversing the subject-verb order of a declarative sentence and using an auxiliary (e.g., Does

Mommy want to go?); this method is syntactically more complex and is usually not used until

Stage III. Finally, we ask wh-questions (who, what, where, when, why, and how) to obtain more

detailed information. Common early errors in asking wh-questions include omitting the auxiliary

(e.g., Where you going?) and misplacing the auxiliary (e.g., Where you are going?).

Stage IV and Beyond: Complex Constructions (MLU 3.0 +)

Children begin limited use of some of the more complex grammatical constructions, such as

relative clauses and passives, during Stage IV; frequent and successful use, however, will not be

acquired until several years later. The passive construction is used in English to highlight the

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object or recipient of an action and is relatively rare in the spontaneous speech of children.

Researchers, however, have discovered some interesting findings regarding young language

learners’ use of the passive construction.

• Truncated passives (no agent specified) are more common than full passives (agent

specified).

• Truncated passives almost always feature inanimate subjects (e.g., window, house),

whereas full passives almost always feature animate subjects (e.g, girl, dog).

• Irreversible passives, in which only one noun in a sentence could plausibly act as an

object or agent, are easier to comprehend and produce than reversible passives.

Research has also shown that early use of relative clauses is exclusively to specify

information about a person or an object that is the object rather than subject of a sentence;

relative clauses used early on are often missing the relative pronoun (e.g., Give the cake you

eating). Knowledge and use of pronouns, such as anaphora, or the way that pronouns link to their

referents in a sentence, is an area that will not be fully controlled until a child is well into

schooling.

Summary of Syntactic Development

Thus, to summarize, most children move through four stages as they gain in syntactic

development.

Syntactic Development Progression

Stage I: Two-Word Utterances

Stage II: Morphological Development

Stage III: Sentence Production

Stage IV: Complex Constructions

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We measure syntactic development by measuring the length of a child’s sentences using the

mean length of utterance (MLU). Scores are determined by calculating the mean number of

morphemes—words and word parts such as prefixes and suffixes in each utterance.

Communicative Competence

Communicative competence is the ability to use language appropriately and strategically in

social situations. A variety of knowledge is needed to achieve communicative competence, as

shown below.

Components of Communicative Competence

Knowledge Examples

Match type of expression to situation

• Ask questions • Make requests • Relay information • Give, accept, or refuse orders • Express (dis)agreement • Apologize • Praise • Joke

Engage in linguistic routines • please / thank you

• hello / goodbye

Participate in conversations • Initiate, maintain, and conclude • Provide and respond to feedback

Match style of speech to situation Be aware of the audience and social

context for the appropriate use of: • subjects • tone and volume • jargon • dialects

Egocentric Language (Piaget)

The notion of egocentrism is key to Jean Piaget’s landmark theory of cognitive development,

which concludes that children think and act more egocentrically than adults. An individual’s

egocentric view is one that is limited to items or issues that deal specifically with that individual.

Piaget and his colleagues defined three categories of egocentric speech.

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1. Echolalia: Repetition of words and syllables to make sounds for pleasure rather than to

convey meaning

2. Simple Monologue: Self-directed speech, as if thinking aloud

3. Collective Monologue: Self-directed speech that occurs in the presence of another

individual but does not require or acknowledge the other person’s participation

These categories were found to apply to younger children, making up nearly half of the

speech produced by children ages four to seven. Based on these findings, Piaget determined that

the beginning of socialization occurs somewhere between the ages of seven and eight years old.

Additional research has found that children are less likely to produce egocentric language when

describing concrete, rather than abstract, items; when speaking with an unfamiliar person; and

when speaking with a person who needs more implicit directions, such as an someone

completing a task with their eyes closed.

Requests

Requests are a critical component of language. Requests may be made either directly (e.g.,

Bring me the book that’s on the table) or indirectly (e.g., I would really like to see the book that’s

on the table). Research indicates that children respond to indirect requests as requests for action.

Evidence that supports this view is found when children justify or explain their inability to comply

with indirect requests.

Three factors that affect the form of the requests:

1. The roles and status of the conversants;

2. The setting (i.e., personal or transactional);

3. And the nature of the request itself (probable or improbable).

Adults and children alike tend to use semantic aggravators (e.g., right now) when making

requests of persons of lower status and semantic mitigators (e.g., please) when making requests

of persons of higher status. When status is relatively equal, children, like adults, tend to view

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peers who make requests using semantic aggravators as bossy and those who make requests

using semantic mitigators as nice. By elementary school, children are capable of forming

requests that feature imperative traps and courtesy phrases to comment on and manipulate

social relationships.

Language, Ethnicity, and Gender

Any single language features a great deal of variety within it, and often has sub-languages

within it.

Registers, also referred to as speech codes or styles, are language forms that vary across

group participants, settings, and topics.

Dialects are language forms that are shared by a defined group, often a group of a particular

region, but generally understood by other groups within the same language.

Distinct languages, then, are typically language forms that are not intelligible across groups.

African American English and Standard English

In 1996 a California school board decided that “Ebonics,” a dialect most commonly known as

“African American English” (AAE), should be acknowledged when teaching “Standard English”

(SE). Phonological, syntactic, and pragmatic features distinguish AAE from SE.

• Key phonological differences found in AAE include final consonant cluster reduction and

consonant reversals (e.g., cold → cole; ask → aks).

• Syntactic changes in AAE include: multiple negation, non-inverted questions, and

auxiliary deletion.

• Language play is one pragmatic feature of AAE is signifying, also known as “sounding”

and “playing the dozens,” which is a type of ironic language play used to comment on

socially significant topics.

Like any form of language, age, status, topic, and setting influence the use of AAE. For

example, research has found that AAE is used more often when discussing abstract concepts,

such as feelings, and when speaking to members of one’s own peer group.

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Gender Variation in Language Development

While there are more similarities in language production among males and females than

differences, certain speech styles seem to vary by gender. For example, research suggests that

women are more likely to use standard phonetic forms (e.g., distinctly pronouncing the final

endings of words); use particular lexical items (e.g., intensifiers, politeness markers, expressive

adjectives); and react to rather than initiate conversations. Differentiations are seen in young

children, too; girls are more likely to use more collaborative, supportive, and mitigated speech

styles, where as young boys tend to use more competitive, controlling, and unmitigated styles.

Although these differences are referred to as gender differences, many see them more as

differences in social roles than gender.

Preschool Conversation Skills

While preschoolers are able to demonstrate a fairly high level of communicative competence,

they tend to fall short in conversational abilities and the use of deictic terms, or words that point to

components of a situation without actually naming them: I, you (people); this, that (objects);

come, go (motions); before, after (time); here, there (locations).

Conversational Skill Deficiencies in Preschoolers

• Maintaining extended conversations

• Developing conversation topics

• Giving and responding to feedback

• Asking for clarification

• Picking up dialogue cues, such as upcoming conversational pauses

• Participating in telephone conversations

Additionally, there are several key factors that contribute to the difficulty of acquiring

communicative competence: a lack of strict rules for language use; no clear referents for polite

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forms such as thank you; and conventions for appropriate communication varies by setting, topic,

and group.

Caregiver and Outside Influences on Communicative Competence

Acquiring communicative competence is not an easy process, but families and others within a

child’s social circle contribute to communication acquisition in numerous ways. While caregiver-

child interactions vary across cultures and class, most of the research, and thus the conclusions,

of family influence on communicative competence centers on middle-class Americans.

Social games and routines that caregivers initiate help infants to learn about participating in

and maintaining interactions as well as how to focus on a particular theme or topic. Once these

skills are mastered, caregivers help children to advance skills even further by providing input on

what to say, when to speak, and how to stay on topic in a variety of situations. Caregivers use a

variety of strategies, as seen in the following chart, to comment on and react to children’s

communicative behaviors.

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Communicative Behaviors

Types Descriptions/Examples of Caregiver Input

Direct comment on omission

Say “Please” when you want something.

Indirect comment on omission

What’s the magic word?

Direct comment on error Don’t talk with your mouth full.

Indirect comment on error What did you say?

Prompts

Anticipatory suggestion Don’t forget to say “Goodbye” to Grandma.

Modeling Model appropriate behavior at the moment it occurs: caregiver says, Thank you, when child offers something

Teaching sibling Model appropriate behavior by modeling conversation between caregiver and younger sibling Caregiver: Here’s a cookie. What do you say? Caregiver as younger sibling: Thank you. Caregiver: You’re welcome.

Modeling

Caregivers/parents demonstrate

Model appropriate behavior through conversation between caregivers or parents Caregiver 1: I want the remote control. Caregiver 2: What do you say? Caregiver 1: Please.

Reinforcement Verbal reinforcement Verbal reinforcement following appropriate behavior: That’s nice to say “Goodbye” to Grandma

Hypothetical situation What do you say when someone says “Hello”?

Retroactive evaluation What a good girl. She said “Thank you” when Grandma gave her a present.

Address child’s question/comment

Child: Is ugly a bad word? Caregiver: No, “ugly” is not a bad word, but it’s not nice to call somebody “Ugly.”

Various

Evaluate another Child 2: Thank you. Caregiver to child 1: What a nice boy. He said, “Thank you,” when you gave him the toy.

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Some research suggests that secondary caregivers and siblings may actually pressure a

child to communicate more clearly because they are less tuned in to the child’s needs (secondary

caregiver) and possess less motivation to determine the child’s needs (sibling) than the primary

caregiver.

People who are outside of the immediate family but within a child’s social sphere, particularly

teachers and classmates, also influence the acquisition of communicative competence. Teachers

positively influence communicative competence by providing opportunities and encouragement

for different types of communication (asking, describing, relaying information) in different types of

situations (formal, informal) with different types of audiences (peers, adults, one-on-one, groups).

Furthermore, effective teachers clearly define communication rules, both restrictive (no

screaming) and prescriptive (pay attention). Classmates, in turn, place pressure on a child to

communicate efficiently and effectively, as well as help to broaden the range of a child’s

communicative experiences. As a child’s experiences widen, s/he needs an increasing amount of

knowledge, including knowledge of scripts. A script refers to the way a person conveys

knowledge about a familiar event and usually contains information about the sequence of action,

the roles and functions of people and objects, and the kind of language used during the event.

Importance of Communicative Competence

There are several reasons why communicative competence is important to a child’s cognitive

and social development.

• Oral narrative skills may provide a bridge to literacy skills because they help children

learn about conceptual organization and linguistic conventions.

• A child’s ability to appropriately speak and respond to teachers and peers affects the way

the teachers and peers perceive and, ultimately, treat the child; that is, better

communicators tend to be liked better and, thus, treated better.

It is advantageous for a child to be able to effectively use verbal strategies such as greeting,

suggesting, and making requests to participate. Good communication skills, such as the ability to

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make relevant comments and respond positively to peers, increase a child’s popularity and

status. Children with poor communication skills usually possess lower status; lower status leads

to fewer opportunities to improve communications skills and, thus, fewer chances to improve

social status. As you can see, communicative competence affects the quality of peer

relationships, which, in turn, has implications for future psychological and academic well-being.

Measures of Communicative Competence

• Adjusts messages to meet listener’s needs

• Asks appropriate questions (i.e., relate appropriately to situation or topic)

• Able to initiate and maintain conversations

• Clearly conveys intentions

• Addresses all participants when joining a group

• Makes positive comments

• Able to persuade and verbally comfort others

Models and Theories of Language Development

Language is so complex and so important it is likely that there are many routes leading to the

development of language skills. Researchers spend a great deal of time and effort to understand

language development and it’s relation to other learning and development.

Theoretical Adequacy

There are few explanatory principles that apply to the development of all areas of language

study—phonology, semantics, syntax, and pragmatics. Language acquisition theory attempts to

explain why children say what they do and why they eventually speak like adults, but currently

few theorists agree on what either children or adults are doing when they are communicating.

Most, however, do agree on an overall taxonomy of theoretical adequacy defined by Chomksy.

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Level 1: Descriptive Adequacy

At this level, distinctions between language and non-language behaviors are made and all

relevant language behaviors are cataloged. While progress toward this descriptive goal can be

and has been made, cataloguing an infinite number of possible behaviors is not possible.

Level 2: Model Adequacy

At this level, a finite number of unifying principles that account for language development are

identified. It is important to remember, however, that the rules that are defined to explain

observed data are not necessarily the same rules that people actually use when communicating.

Level 3: Theoretical Adequacy

At this level, the most ambitious level, the finite set of principles that define observable

behavior is also the set that people actually use. This level is the holy grail of language

development theory.

Comparison of Theoretical Approaches

Language acquisition research can be grouped into several theoretical approaches.

Researchers usually favor, but do not solely align themselves with, a single general approach.

Structuralism vs. Functionalism

• Structuralism attempts to uncover the rules that underlie observable language behavior.

• Functionalism attempts to predict and control language behavior in different contexts and

individuals.

Competence vs. Performance

• Competence refers to the underlying rules that may be inferred from observing language

behavior.

• Performance refers to actual language use.

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Nativism vs. Empiricism

• Nativism contends that critical aspects of language acquisition are innate, or biological,

processes.

• Empiricism contends that environmental agents are mainly responsible for language

acquisition.

Behavioral Approaches

Behavioral approaches commonly focus on observable and measurable aspects of language

behavior and reject implicit structures or processes, that is, those that cannot be readily seen.

Behaviorists emphasize performance over competence and seek to explain language functions,

the conditions that produce certain language behavior, and the consequences of language

performance.

Behaviorists contend that classical conditioning—the process of forming associations

between an organism and its environment—accounts for language comprehension and operant

conditioning—the process of forming associations between behavior and a consequence—

accounts for language production. In short, they believe that people in a child’s social circle,

primarily caregivers, are responsible for training the child in appropriate verbal behaviors;

appropriate speech is encouraged and rewarded and inappropriate speech is ignored or punished

until it disappears.

Linguistic Approaches

Linguistic approaches assume that language has a structure that is somewhat independent of

language use. This rule system, or grammar, determines the possible ways in which language

may be used. Chomsky argued that an adequate grammar must be generative, or creative, in

order to account for the infinite number of combinations that language users can produce and

comprehend. A true grammar would then describe a language user’s knowledge of all permissible

utterances (competence) rather than just those typically produced.

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Linguists contend that children contain a language acquisition device (LAD), which is

assumed to be a physiological part of the brain. The LAD functions as a specialized language

processor with enough “built-in” knowledge to enable the child to speak. As mentioned previously,

a linguistic approach also assumes that grammatical rules and relations govern words even when

they appear in isolation or in tandem. As children progress from one word to two words to

multiword utterances, they are, in effect, testing their own evolving grammars, or language

hypotheses, against data provided by the environment.

Interactionist Approaches

Interactionist approaches integrate components of both behavioral and linguistic theories.

These approaches assume that social, linguistic, biological, and cognitive factors, among others,

affect language development and that these factors are dependent upon, interact with, and

modify one another. Three types of interactionist approaches are:

• Cognitive

• Information Processing

• Social Interactionist

Cognitive Approach

Developed by Jean Piaget, this approach shares many important features with a linguistic

approach. Both agree that language functions as a system of symbols to express intention and

meaning and that internal structures are the ultimate determinants of behavior. The major

difference is that Piaget and his proponents contend that language is not a separate ability but

rather one of several abilities that result from cognitive maturation. According to Piaget, cognitive

development determines the course of language development.

Information Processing Approach

This approach contends that language is processed like all information: stimuli from the

environment are encoded and interpreted, then representations of the stimuli, as well as the

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results of operations on the stimuli, are stored in memory for later retrieval. In short, children are

viewed as information processors who progress from novice to skilled language users.

Social Interactionist Approach

The social interactionist approach combines aspects of both behaviorist and linguistic

positions with unique ideas on language development. Specifically, social interactionists contend

that language structure is directly related to the function it has in human relations; they see

children and their language environment as two parts of a dynamic system, each influencing the

other. Thus, the functions of language in social communication are central to language

development. In this view, the caregiver’s role is emphasized. For example, the exaggerated

sounds made by caregivers assist with a child’s maturing ability to control biological processes

(the physical act of speech production) and interactive sound play is believed to be the basis of

later conversational patterns such as turn-taking. Furthermore, a number of studies have found

that children were more successful imitating new sentences that were shorter and produced more

slowly and with more exaggerated intonation. When the caregiver role is diminished, as is the

case with neglected and abused children, both receptive and expressive skills are negatively

affected, delaying overall language development.

Language Styles

During the first few years of life children develop a large and varied lexicon and are able to

produce multiword utterances, participate in conversations, and make simple jokes. By the time

children enter kindergarten around the age of five, they have acquired a relatively sophisticated

command of language, but there is still a lot more to learn. During the early school years children

acquire greater expertise in phonological, semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic language skills.

They do so, in part, by playing with language and incorporating different language styles, such as

verbal humor, verbal aggression, and narratives, into their everyday language use.

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Language Play and Verbal Humor

To children, language is a rich mine of playful material waiting to be exploited. In fact, one

study found that approximately 25 percent of a kindergartener’s speech contained some form of

language play. Two areas that hold special interest to children are phonological word play, as

evident in nursery rhymes, and riddles. Riddles—word games that are usually structured as

questions and are dependent on phonological, morphological, lexical, or syntactic ambiguity—are

of particular interest to children aged six to eight.

Verbal humor is another type of language play and is a universal feature of language and

culture. Children’s ability to produce and appreciate verbal humor develops over time (see chart

below) and is vital to fully participating in the community dialogue.

Age Group Type of Humor Production/Appreciation

Younger children Phonological word play and simple scatological phrases

Preadolescent Semantic and syntactic manipulations found in conventional jokes and puns

Adolescent/Adult Irony and sarcasm

Verbal Aggression

Children mix verbal humor with verbal aggression to establish, maintain, and reorder social

hierarchies. Verbal aggression includes reprimands, harsh commands and insults, tattling,

rejections, and criticisms. One study found that 27 percent of the speech used by children in

grades one through seven contained some form of verbal aggression and that boys in general,

and fifth-grade boys in particular, were more verbally aggressive.

Some forms of verbal aggression, such as sounding (also referred to as playing the dozens

or dissing), are highly structured and ritualistic. Sounding is a predominantly African American

male activity, although similar behavior has been documented among females and mixed-sex

groups, that often features sexually explicit insults. In general, the goal of ritual insults seems to

be to generate an insult so clever or so over the edge that it cannot be topped. Interestingly,

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children who engage in this behavior often display better comprehension of figurative language

than their peers.

Narratives

Narratives are stories, usually about the past, that help people make sense of their

experiences. While narrative development begins with single-utterance narratives from children

as young as 24 months, most children master the ability to relate coherent narratives during the

school years. As narrative ability develops, changes are seen in story length and overall story

structure. Narrative structure may be analyzed from a variety of perspectives, including:

1. Story grammar, which focuses on structural elements and the problem-solving aspects

of stories

2. Stanza analysis, which analyzes lines and groups of lines

3. High-point analysis, which focuses on the development of a story to a high point and

then follows up with an evaluation of events

A 1983 study used high-point analysis to review a large body of personal narratives produced

by children ages four to nine; some of the study’s findings are highlighted below.

1. Leap-frog narrative: most commonly used by the youngest children (age four); jumps

from one event to another, typically lacking in causal and temporal connections.

2. Chronological narrative: commonly used by children ages four to eight; recounts events

sequentially.

3. Classic narrative: relatively uncommon in young children but accounts for 60 percent of

the narratives related by eight- and nine-year-olds; events build to a high point, are briefly

suspended and evaluated, and then resolved.

4. Evaluation: variety and use increases with age; can be expressed using compulsion

words (have to, must), affect terms (scared, funny), and negatives (he didn’t hit me).

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Influences on Language and Literacy

As children grow older their exposure to language and literacy continues to be influenced by

home experiences, but the smaller and larger communities to which they belong begin to play

increasingly important roles as well. In time, peer interactions provide the true testing ground for

children’s evolving communicative competence. Adolescents use language to ally themselves

with their peers and to exclude outsiders, marking their group membership through the use of the

adolescent register, which contains distinct phonological, semantic, syntactic, and discourse

patterns. Gender, class and cultural differences, regional dialects, and immigrant languages also

influence the continued development of language and literacy.

Home Literacy Experiences

There is evidence that children can and do learn some language skills, particularly

vocabulary, by viewing television. The nature of the programs viewed, however, impact the

language and literacy skills learned, with informational and educational programs relating to more

positive gains.

Emergent literacy is the term often used to describe children’s earliest awareness of the

function and form of literacy. Young children are often able to recognize environmental print on

road signs (e.g., STOP) or familiar commercial logos (e.g., Coca-Cola). They also quickly acquire

some of the conventions of written English, including the separation of words by spaces and the

reading of words from left to right and top to bottom. The degree to which children are exposed to

emergent literacy and the degree to which literacy development is actively encouraged, however,

depend greatly on the home environment. Children whose parents frequently engage them in

literacy-related activities, such as alphabet games and book reading, have a distinct learning

advantage upon entering school.

Different interaction styles used in book reading have been associated with different long-

term effects.

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Book-Reading Styles

• Describer style: parent provides description and encourages labeling

• Comprehender style: parent stress meaning, inferences, and predictions

• Performance style: parent reads a story in its entirety but precedes reading with

comments and follows with prompts regarding inferences and evaluations.

The describer style produced the greatest gains in vocabulary and print skills, though

outcomes were dependent on initial skill levels. For example, children with strong vocabularies

benefited more from the performance style. Regardless of style, however, the best outcomes

were associated with an interactive, collaborative approach in which a child’s verbal participation

is encouraged.

While the importance of reading at home, particularly with adults, should be stressed, studies

have found that good reading skills are more closely associated with school factors, such as

practice with structured materials. An interesting related finding showed that children who were

exposed to optimal language and literacy experiences at home but had poor preschool

experiences performed lower on kindergarten language and literacy measures (narrative

production, emergent literacy, and receptive vocabulary) than did children from homes where

language and literacy experiences were poor but who had optimal preschool experiences.

Gender Differences

Children as young as two or three begin to develop ways of communicating specific to their

genders, often referred to as genderlects. During the school years, gender differences become

even more apparent (see chart below). Because of self-segregation by gender, peer socialization,

which has a significant impact on language use, is likely to occur within same-sex groups. Adults

also have a strong influence on the development of gender-based language. Teachers should be

aware that they might unknowingly react to students in gender-specific ways. For example, a

teacher may respond positively to a boy who calls out an answer without raising his hand but

criticize a girl for the same behavior.

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Language Use Tendencies

Girls Boys • tend to seek affiliation • use more collaborative, supportive, and

mitigated speech styles • talk more about abstract concepts, such as

emotions and feelings • use more polite expressions • collectively score higher on measures of

reading, writing, and spelling

• tend to seek power • use more competitive, controlling, and

unmitigated styles • talk more about concrete concepts,

such as objects and events • use more aggressive expressions • collectively score lower on measures

of reading, writing, and spelling

Two gender differences—placement of vocal register and incidence of language disorders—

have strong biological ties. During adolescence, the size of boys’ vocal tracts undergoes rapid

change, leading to the ability to speak at lower fundamental frequencies. Research has shown,

however, that differences in voice pitch are based as much on style, reflecting local linguistic

conventions, as on biology. Language disorders, particularly developmental dyslexia, are more

commonly seen in boys. While some of this difference may be due to referral bias, possible

biological reasons include differences in brain lateralization and organization.

Class and Cultural Differences

Children from economically disadvantaged homes face a greater failure rate in the acquisition

of basic literacy skills, and children of working-class families typically experience only a fraction of

the shared-reading time that children of middle-class children experience.

Children’s narrative styles typically reflect their culture. For example, the narratives of Latino

children often focus on personal and family relationships rather than specific events, while the

narratives of Japanese children often connect temporally distinct events thematically. Further

cultural differences can be seen when comparing the narratives of Caucasian children with those

of African American children. Caucasian children tend to relate topic-focused narratives, telling

stories with distinct structures (beginning, middle, end) about a single person or event, while

African American children, girls in particular, tend to relate topic-associating narratives,

thematically linking several episodes whose characters and settings may vary. Because a

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teacher’s implicit devaluation of a child’s indigenous culture can have negative consequences,

teachers should be especially wary of their own cultural biases.

Bilingualism

People who frequently use two languages for everyday discourse are bilingual. Children are

able to learn two or more languages simultaneously without difficulty. Though these children may

show initial delays in vocabulary growth in each language, their combined lexicons are often

greater than the vocabularies of monolingual children. Additionally, bilingual children usually

outperform their monolingual counterparts on some metalinguistic and emergent literacy tasks.

Children who learn a second language before puberty are also likely to speak that language with

a native accent.

The process of gaining a second language while retaining the first is called additive

bilingualism and can occur in submersion settings, in which the speaker is surrounded by

speakers of the second language, or immersion settings, in which the speaker and others receive

instruction in the second language only. Recent research seems to suggest that if children first

master literacy in their native language, they are better able to transfer those literacy skills to

English.

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