Concepts for Linguistic and Literacy Development of Children and Adolescents
Concepts for Linguistic and Literacy Development of Children and Adolescents
Among all of the many components of child development and young adult learning, the mastery and appreciation of spoken and written language is one of the most important. For most teachers and students, spoken and written language is the primary medium through which the daily activities of the classroom are conducted and the study of language arts occurs at all levels of the curriculum. No matter where you find yourself as a teacher, on any given teaching day you might find yourself:
• Unsure of how to respond to a young child’s creative experiments with ‘foots’ and ‘gooses,’ ‘breaked’ and ‘goed,’ and a host of wittle white wabbits.
• Wondering whether a child’s dialect pronunciations might affect letter recognition and reading skills.
• Helping bilingual students with a linguistic contrast between their first and second language.
• Stymied by an articulate 7 yrs. old who nevertheless can’t seem to keep his eyes focused on the book full of little squiggly lines swimming before his eyes.
• Outclassed by an ambitious 10 yrs. old whose detailed knowledge of plot structure and character in the Harry Potter novels makes you seem like a literary dunce.
• Surprised that students who are clearly competent in math concepts and computation are often confused by the written language of the story problems.
• Confronted by frustrated adolescents who want to know why they can’t write in “their own voice,” or the dialect of their peers and their community.
• Discouraged in your attempts to inspire students who seem less interested in reading than in visual media such as TV, movies and video games.
• Moved to tears by the raw emotional purity of young creative writers and the sources of their private pain.
• Frustrated by the seemingly contradictory priorities in language arts: “correctness” vs. “creativity” and “process” vs. “product.”
Among all of the many components of child development and young adult learning, the mastery and appreciation of spoken and written language is one of the most important. For most teachers and students, spoken and written language is the primary medium through which the daily activities of the classroom are conducted and the study of language arts occurs at all levels of the curriculum. No matter where you find yourself as a teacher, on any given teaching day you might find yourself:
• Unsure of how to respond to a young child’s creative experiments with ‘foots’ and ‘gooses,’ ‘breaked’ and ‘goed,’ and a host of wittle white wabbits.
• Wondering whether a child’s dialect pronunciations might affect letter recognition and reading skills.
• Helping bilingual students with a linguistic contrast between their first and second language.
• Stymied by an articulate 7 yrs. old who nevertheless can’t seem to keep his eyes focused on the book full of little squiggly lines swimming before his eyes.
• Outclassed by an ambitious 10 yrs. old whose detailed knowledge of plot structure and character in the Harry Potter novels makes you seem like a literary dunce.
• Surprised that students who are clearly competent in math concepts and computation are often confused by the written language of the story problems.
• Confronted by frustrated adolescents who want to know why they can’t write in “their own voice,” or the dialect of their peers and their community.
• Discouraged in your attempts to inspire students who seem less interested in reading than in visual media such as TV, movies and video games.
• Moved to tears by the raw emotional purity of young creative writers and the sources of their private pain.
• Frustrated by the seemingly contradictory priorities in language arts: “correctness” vs. “creativity” and “process” vs. “product.”