Language Development & Literacy
The First Five Years
The foundations of language and literacy are developing during infancy. Many people do not realize that strong listening and talking skills are required for the development of strong reading and writing skills later. The most critical time period for establishing language and the foundations for literacy are from birth to five years of age. By the age of five, children have acquired most of the communication and language components of an adult speaker. Children develop these skills during the very natural back-and-forth interactions that occur with parents and other caregivers during normal activities of daily living such as feeding, bathing, and dressing. Therefore, it is critical to foster development of these language and pre-literacy skills from infancy.
Communication, Language & Literacy
Generally, we think of communication as the act of exchanging thoughts, opinions, or information by speech, writing, or signs. Language may be thought of as a system of signs, symbols or words, used commonly by a group of people in a community to convey such thoughts, opinions, or information. Language is further broken down into receptive language, what is understood; expressive language, what is stated, written, or signed; and pragmatic language, how language is used in varying contexts. Further divisions of language include articulation or the production of speech sounds, such as the “k” sound in the word “can” or the “b” sound in the word “big”; syntax, the word order used in sentences; semantics, the meaning of the words we use; and grammar, rules used to compose our sentences when talking, writing, or signing.
Literacy for our purposes refers to the ability to read and write, or to understand written symbols. The origins of the word “literate” come from the early form of the word “letter”. It is easy to see then that “language”, “letters”, and “literacy” are related. In fact, the ability to hear and recognize speech sounds, the ability to articulate or say words using the correct speech sounds, and the knowledge that a specific written letters represent specific speech sounds are crucial precursors for the successful development of functional reading and writing skills. Surveys of classroom teachers have shown that children with reading difficulty in second grade also had difficulty with speech sounds or spoken language as kindergarteners.
Development in the First Five Years
Brain Development
The hardwiring for language and literacy is located in your baby’s brain and nervous system. Your baby’s brain and nerves will continue to grow and develop well after birth. Important insulation on the outside of these nerves begins to grow in the third trimester of your pregnancy. Growth of the nerve insulation will explode during baby’s first two years of life then progress more slowly well into her teens. During this explosion of brain nerve development, your baby’s communication and language skills will explode, too. She will be showing you many language skills such as using eye contact and turn-taking in conversations, the ability to follow routines in familiar language games, and saying many words and short sentences. Also during these first two years, your baby will understand a lot more than she can say. Her brain will grow to be approximately 80 percent the size of yours by weight!
Hearing, Vision & Breathing Development
In order to develop spoken language and literacy skills, it is important that your baby hears normally. Her hearing should be screened as a newborn in the hospital after birth. We know that her ear and other related structures for hearing are well developed before she is born. However, she will need several more years to fully hone her listening and comprehension skills. But, there are many listening skills that your 2-3 month old infant will have, such as, the ability to hear the difference between similar speech sounds like “p” and “b”; the ability to recognize different voices; and the ability to tell the difference between the sound pattern of a question and the sound pattern of a statement.
Also, it is vital that your infant can see you in order to make use of the many facial expressions and gestures that you use as a part of your interactions with her. This is the way that your baby learns how to listen, talk, and take turns for conversations – by looking at you, listening to you, and talking to you during all of the activities that you do together each day like feeding, dressing, changing diapers, and playing. As she grows and develops and practices her quickly developing language skills, she is also exercising her lungs, voice box, throat, and mouth muscles for speech. Many people do not realize that we talk on our breathing. That is, we breathe in quickly before we begin to talk then exhale while we are talking. This skill is so automatic that we do not even realize it is occurring.
Speech, Language & Pre-Literacy Skill Development
As your baby’s brain continues to develop over time, so too do many of her motor skills. Just as she continues to improve her ability to move her trunk, arms, and legs in a coordinated fashion for walking and running, she also refines her motor skills related to the production of speech sounds. Many relatively easy speech sounds to make, like “p”, “b”, or “g” are made by your baby when she begins to coo and babble. Children master most speech sounds by the time they are 5 years old. However, some difficult speech sounds, such as the “s”, “r”, or the “ch-“ sound as in “chop” are not mastered until 5 – 7 years old. Also, preschoolers with normally developing speech skills are able to associate sounds with corresponding letters and to sound out site words. These are crucial pre-reading skills. Did you know that preschoolers typically learn an average of 3,000 vocabulary words per year? Within those 3,000 words are many that they will need to know in order to read effectively when they begin school.
How to Help Your Baby
Parents are the natural first teachers of their children and are uniquely suited to have a strong and positive influence on baby’s language and literacy development. Here are some tips to keep in mind:
- The first 5 years are the most important for your child’s language and literacy development.
- Talk to your infant during feeding, bathing, and diapering. Use a slow and sing-song voice.
- Pause sometimes when you are talking to your baby and wait for her response. This could be a smile, a sound, or a wiggle.
- Imitate sounds that your baby makes then make a new sound for her to try.
- Read to your baby and limit her exposure to television and computers.
For more information regarding language and literacy development, contact a speech-language pathologist in your area.