Child Language Acquisition

• Grapheme


  Established marks that carry meaning
• Multimodal


  Linking words and images
• Graphophonemic 


  The link between shapes on a page and sounds
• Community of practice


  A formal learning environement
• Encoding


  Writing, speaking
• Decoding


  Reading, listening
• Emergent literacy


  Proposed by Marie Clay as the point at which a child moves beyond simple mark-making and begins to assign meaning to symbols and images they are using to represent their understanding of the world
• Marie Clay


  • Proposed the term 'emergent literacy'
• Directional principle


  Reading and writing from left to right, then using a return sweep to start the process again
• Generating principle


  A child starts to realise there are only a limited number of letters that can be mixed and matched in different ways to convey a message
• Inventory principle


  A child begins to package knowledge that they know into lists of letters and words
• Yetta Goodman (1986)


  • Characterised children's emerging print awareness through 3 principles: functional, linguistic, and relational
• Creative approach


  Allows a child to experiment creatively with language, using trial and error without strict correction. This makes children less afraid of making mistakes, building up their enjoyment and self-esteem
• Rule-based approach


  Focuses on a child understanding the conventions of writing (rules of spelling, punctuation, grammar) to progress their writing more rapidly so they can move on to producing understandable, appropriate text
• James Britton


  • Suggested writing in schools serves 3 purposes: building a relationship with the teacher, aiding learning by allowing children to organise and extend their knowledge, and exploring our own experiences
• Expressive writing


  The first type of writing children develop, focused on the self
• Poetic writing


  Literary writing, such as stories and poems, encouraged in early years as it encourages children to think about the craft of writing
• Transactional writing


  Writing for a purpose, such as reports. The writer can detach themselves and use an impersonal tone
• Orthography


  The spelling system of a language
• English is generally agreed to be an easy language to learn the basics of but hard to learn the in and outs of the spelling
• Phonetic spelling


  When a word has been spelled correctly phonetically but is technically incorrect
• Undergeneralisation


  Failing to apply an established spelling rule
• Overgeneralisation


  Applying a spelling rule to a word that doesn't require it
• Omission


  When a letter is missed out in a word
• Insertion


  When a letter is incorrectly added to a word
• Substitution


  When a letter is substituted for another
• Transposition


  When the letters in a word are swapped
• Richard Gentry (1982)


  • Identified 5 stages of spelling development: pre-communicative, semi-phonetic, phonetic, transitional, and conventional
• Recurring principle


  When a child only knows a limited number of letters they may use them repeatedly to create a message
• Functional principle


  The notion that writing can serve a purpose and has a function for the writer
• Linguistic principle


  The notion that writing is a system that is organised into words and directionality
• Relational principle


  Children start to connect what they write with spoken words, understanding that the written alphabet carries meaning
• Lev Vygotsky

  • Children need individual support from a more knowledgeable other at important moments in their development to acquire writing skills
  • MKO scaffolds learning, which is really important in helping them move onto the next stage of writing
  • Mastery of writing comes from using it to satisfy some need or fulfil an intention
• James Britton types of writing


  First category:

  • Expressive writing

  Britton argues that as writing develops, it can be placed in two further categories:

  • Poetic writing
  • Transactional writing
• Pre-communicative


  First stage of writing. Random letters and symbols on a page
• Semi-phonetic


  Second stage of writing. Letters are used to represent whole words. Writing is from left to right
• Phonetic spelling


  Third stage of writing. Spelling is based on the sounds of words
• Transitional


  Fourth stage of writing. Spelling will combine phonetic and visual approaches. Some use of silent letters
• Conventional spelling


  Fifth stage of writing. Difficult spellings are largely mastered. Homophones are learned
• Emergent literacy

  • Recurring principle
  • Directional principle
  • Generating principle
  • Inventory principle