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Language Acquisition Autobiography

Christina Casares

Department of English, Los Angeles Pacific University

ENGL 420: Principles of English

Professor Smarr

November 11, 2023

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I honestly have very little recollection of my earliest years, let alone memories about

speaking. I remember that I used to know Spanish when I was little, but that when I went to

kindergarten at the age of 5, my parents were told to stop speaking Spanish at home as it would

make me fall behind. I remember the first time I ever “read” a book all by myself. I was 4 or 5

but I had read the story so much that I had it memorized so I’m not sure that it actually counted.

My family hardly ever read books together though as both of my parents worked full time jobs

and my brothers and I were left with a babysitter, or alone, as far back as I can remember. She

used the TV to keep us distracted. The majority of the reading I did was with my grandmother,

but she lived hours away so it wasn’t very often. I think this was actually beneficial though

because it made reading a novelty and I was always so excited when we got to pull out the Dr.

Seuss books. I especially liked Hop on Pop and Are you my Mother? My parents did eventually

realize that the lack of involvement was impacting the 3 of us. My youngest brother the most. He

was getting into fights at school so often at this point. He was the first kindergartener that I had

ever heard of getting suspended for fighting. Within a year, my dad found a new job and we

moved away where there was a cheaper cost of living and my mom was able to stay home to be

available to us and to volunteer at the school where we attended.

My mom loved to sing, so I do remember some singing but I’m not sure when that was. I

have always been at or above grade level and reading was no different. My brothers though were

both far below grade level when it came to reading. We moved to Sacramento when they were in

2nd and 3rd grade and I remember them having to do intervention groups that my mom got to

volunteer with. I think that having a more involved parent was beneficial because she could add

a more personalized touch and understood how to apply these lessons at home to push their
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learning even further. My teachers saw my potential and pushed for me to be placed in the GATE

program and helped me to acquire books that were more challenging. My vocabulary exploded

from 4th to 6th grade. By 6th grade I was reading Shakespeare with a friend at recess rather than

playing. The fact that these teachers helped my family navigate how to best use the resources

available and pushed me to challenge myself caused a huge shift in my educational journey. I

was no longer floating through school but felt that I had reason to be there. It was at this age that

I first decided to become a teacher. My brothers of course did master reading, although neither is

nearly as fond of it as I am.

As an adult with my own children, I am incredibly aware of language acquisition as well

as literacy. I worried endlessly when my girls began to say sounds, or not say them as with my

oldest. The speech sounds development chart is helpful to make sure that a child is hitting

developmental milestones on time, but they can also cause needless worry. My daughter was still

hardly saying any words at 18 months. I was in mommy groups with other babies the same age

or younger that were speaking short phrases as was indicated as normal. Bringing my concerns

up to her pediatrician, she explained that as long as she was still able to communicate her needs

in other ways, that her language would catch up. Indeed, it did and she is in 3rd grade above

standards across the board. The amount of anxiety caused by comparing her to a generalized

chart was completely unnecessary and I know of many others with a similar experience. As my

girls began to reach the point of literacy, Covid hit. My daughter began kindergarten in the Fall

of 2020 on Zoom. This was not the first day of school I had dreamed of for her. She, like many

of her classmates, struggled to focus on her teacher inside of the computer she wasn’t allowed to

touch. The point that she was to be building a strong literacy foundation was spent at home,

doing assignments online. When students returned in the spring for 2, 2 hour days at a time, they
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were in masks that made it impossible for teachers to demonstrate sounds to students. It was at

this point that I made a career shift and applied to be an assistant at her school.

I began as an IA in first grade in the fall of 2021. Speaking with the first grade teachers ,

it was apparent that the majority of incoming first graders were barely at the kindergarten level.

My oldest was yet again far behind compared to what the standard for her age was. This was my

first year working with students to help them to build literacy skills and I realized quickly how

much I enjoyed it. There are so many imperative pieces to teaching a child to read. We spent the

beginning of the year just focusing on sounds and letter recognition. Then we slowly added the

1st grade curriculum. At the same time, I had enrolled in school and was taking classes that went

into detail about the development of children’s brains and how they learned new concepts. With

the combination of this new knowledge and my experience in the classroom, I figured out what

works best for different students when learning to read. I was put in charge of intervention

groups for more and more students. I still work with a few of these now 3rd graders that have yet

to achieve grade level, as well as two groups of 1st graders and a 4th grader that only entered the

school system this October. I am planning to become a teacher, hopefully first grade as I love

teaching kids to read but have been told repeatedly that I could run an intervention program as

well which I think that I would also enjoy.

I have seen firsthand just how important early language exposure is to a child’s future. It

is easy to recognize when a child has involved parents that read to them regularly vs a child that

only plays on electronics and rarely practices letters or sounds. If a baby is not exposed to

enough sounds by a caregiver during specific developmental windows, they will lose the ability

to recognize and then create necessary sounds to acquire the language. I have seen this firsthand

in my own children as I did not speak to them in Spanish when they were infants where my
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family spoke to me in Spanish as a baby. I can pronounce Spanish words correctly but neither of

them can. We have practiced but it just doesn’t seem like they can figure out how to make the

sounds. I had no idea that this was something that needed to be done at such a young age. It

makes much more sense why they can’t make the correct sound now though. I think that

someone’s language/literacy experiences have a huge impact on a student’s feelings regarding

language/literacy later in life. If a student is not confident in their ability, then they will generally

dislike the subject as it makes them frustrated. If they do not like to spend time on the subject,

then they will not improve quickly at all, which will just lengthen the whole process. We learned

that there are key time frames that will most greatly impact a child’s language acquisition. While

this information is available, I don’t think that it is explained clearly enough as it is by Patricia

Kuhl. I know that if I understood more clearly that babies only create statistics for sounds that

they will use from about 3 to 10 months, that I would have put a lot more emphasis on saying

more sounds for them. I think that enough parents would agree as well.
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References:

Admin, K. S. W. (2016, November 29). Speech Sounds Development Chart. Kid Sense Child

Development. https://childdevelopment.com.au/resources/child-development-charts/

speech-sounds-developmental-chart/

Kuhl, P. (2010, October). The linguistic genius of babies. Patricia Kuhl: The linguistic genius of

babies | TED Talk.

https://www.ted.com/talks/patricia_kuhl_the_linguistic_genius_of_babies

Roy, D. (2011, March). The birth of a word. Deb Roy: The birth of a word | TED Talk.

https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word