Understanding Language and Literacy

Understanding Language and
Literacy
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Introduction
The essay will discuss the children's oral language development based on four components of
language development. It will identify and discuss theoretical perspectives with examples that
support oral language development of children from the perspective of nature and nurture. Oral
language is the base for acquiring knowledge for reading and writing and is crucial for
supporting the growth of primary literacy skills in children.
Thesis Statement: The children will utilize oral language in all phases of their learning, in the
classroom as they will associate with their teachers and friends as well as all through their lives
as they will lead towards adulthood.
Main Context
Oral Language Development
Oral language is a skill which is gained naturally by the child; the significance of its
development in early childhood could not be exaggerated. After all, it is the platform which
creates the base for learning to read and write. Oral language has four components, phonological,
syntactic, semantic and pragmatic (Berninger, Abbott, Cook & Nagy, 2017).
Phonological Development - It includes different sounds which are utilized for speaking. These
consists of phonemes, stress, and intonation. Phonemes are the sound units of an individual
which are utilized to formulate each word. Intonation is the fall and rise in the pitch of an
individual's vocal sound. Stress is the emphasis on the syllables in words.
Syntactic Development - It consists of the grammar of a language. It has the implementation of
the rules to arrange the words and make a meaningful sentence (Khan Academy, 2019).
Semantic Development - It includes the meaning of the words and the sentences which are
formed. Oral language needs knowledge of the meaning of the words and sentences (Peterson,
McIntyre & Forsyth, 2016).
Pragmatic Development - It deals with the language in a sensible way instead of theoretical
manner. In other words, it deals with the individual’s usage of language in different cultural and
social contexts.

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It is essential to integrate all then four components at the same time for effective oral
communication. The professionals of early childhood must consider the four elements while
planning for language growth and monitoring for development in their oral language. The
development of oral language in the children must take place according to these components.
The nurturing of the oral language is crucial for care and education in early childhood. Young
children need continuous support to gain the skills needed to use the oral language effectively
(Lepola, Lynch, Kiuru, Laakkonen & Niemi, 2016). They need to observe and take part in
various talk experiences to help them to progress and acquire different kinds of competency in
the language.
Theoretical Perspectives:
Theoretical perspectives have influenced the thinking of the teachers regarding the development
of oral language and also the types of practices teachers and parents and need to implement to
nurture the language development in the children. The three theoretical perspectives which
support the development of oral language in children as follows:
Behaviorist Perspective - As per the behaviorist perspective, personal experience and
environment mostly shape the learning. So nurture plays the dominant function than nature in
learning the language. But, modern researches have shown that there is a complicated, complex
relationship between nurture and nature, so the debate of nature-nurture is out-of-date. The role
of the environment is crucial to this perspective. Learning the language needs an environment
which is full of language and experience and which offers different language models so that it
can be imitated by that child (Kennedy, 2019). Constant support as, applause from other people
or positive and effective communication by the child, is also necessary to make sure that a child
repeats some behaviors and further imitate and practice takes place.
This perspective suggests through operant conditioning that children learn to imitate or
experiment with sounds which they listen and then receive positive support from parents, brother
or sister and other people around them (Pakulak, 2018). For instance, a child may say, "Da-da-
da" and he must be cuddled and kissed and respond with "Yes, daddy is here." This perspective
suggests through classical conditioning that children learn to know the language with actions or
things with words. As a child will know about milk if the word is repeated regularly such as
"Will you have some milk?” “Here is your milk?”