July 2nd Blog- Language Acquisition

How do children acquire language? What might this have to do with reading?

There are many theories on how children acquire language but it is not disputed that acquiring language is an innate human capacity which occurs during the ages of 2-6. Children hear language all around them and that is how they first learn. They tap into the language capabilities they were born with and develop it further.

It is critical that language acquisition starts and continues to develop from ages 2 through 6. Without this, children will most likely never learn to speak beyond mere words. This is seen through one child who was raised by animals and another child that was stashed away and could not speak. People tried to teach these children or adults at the time, how to speak but could not get them to go beyond phrases such as "Mommy cookie" or "Daddy go". The language explosion period had surpassed them and there was no going back.

Reading definitely ties into language acquisition. When children hear spoken words from a story, they learn the format of a story, new concepts, new words and grammar too. Just by pointing out signs and saying the word, the child is seeing words and associating language with it and improving his/her vocabulary. Reading, writing, and language acquisition are all closely related.