Language development in

Early years

2nd September, 2023

By: Marzia Nauroz Ali

My expectation from you
 Ice breaking activity

 Write your name on a sticky note backward.

Think and respond

What do you know about language

development?
Objectives:

By the end of this session learners will be able to know about:

 Why language development is important in Early years.
 Strategies which they can use in their routine teaching and
learning to enhance language skills of a child.
 Incorporating Language development in play-based activities
 Incorporating phonics instructions in the early years for
creating a strong literacy foundation.
 Why language development is important in
Early years?
Language development is an important part of child development.
It supports the ability of a child to,
 communicate, express and understand feelings.
 Develop their skills (listening, speaking, reading and writing)
 Provides children with the ability to communicate their needs and wants.
 Supports cognitive development and provides children with the ability to think and reason.
 Promotes social interaction and helps children interact with friends, family, and other
members of society.
 Aids self-expression and improves self-esteem.
 solve problems
Understanding the Link between Language
Development and Literacy

 Language development is very closely linked to literacy of a child. A research has been done on this
topic and all have proven that early literacy is closely connected to language development in children
during the kindergarten years.
 The link between the two is quite natural because long before a child learns how to read words and
recognize symbols, they develop and hone the skills required to understand how language works.
Additionally, before the age of eight, children form the foundation for language and literacy
development by discovering that speech has patterns and symbols have meaning. As a result, successful
language development is a vital part of later achievement in reading.
 However, many times, owing to different reasons language skill delays happen in children leading to
inefficient vocabularies causing them to fall far behind the peers. Therefore, proper exposure to
structured and age-appropriate instruction during the formative years of language and literacy
development helps bridge this achievement gap.
Thinking time

 Thinkof an activity with your partner which

support language skills of a child.
 Circle Time

Questioning Shared
Reading /
writing

Teaching
Strategies

Games and Show and Tell

Puzzles

Story Time Role Play

Suggested activities

Oral language is the foundation of literacy. Pre-kindergarten children are not reading yet, but they are
building comprehension skills through listening, the lively back-and-forth of every day conversations, pretend
play, and active read alouds where parent and child/teacher and child are having a dialogue about the book.
 Active every day conversations (circle time)
 Sharing oral stories (give them some object or toy to share)
 Reading books together (DEAR time: drop everything and read)
 Singing and playing rhyming games (brain break, warm up, starter activity)
 Listening games, such as “Simon says” , listen and follow
 Dramatic play where your child takes on imaginary roles (Assembly presentation)
 Play an I-spy game that encourages language participation.
Group task

 Listdown fun activities for circle time which

promote child’s listening and speaking skills
Promoting language rich environment

Watch a video and list down activities which we can

use to make our classroom a language rich
environment.
https://
youtu.be/pDQMnUqGQTM?si=lZmTrEwSmvcwIC
of
Language rich environment

 Share daily routine

 Talk to them and value them
 Sing a song in their own language if possible
 Ask how they spend their holidays or do ask them why they are feeling sad/happy
 What makes them happy
“Children must be taught
how to think, not what to
think.”
 Strategies to support language development

 Building Varied Vocabulary (sight words, tricky words, dictation words)

 Increasing Phonological Awareness (letter sounds, blending, segmenting, decoding)
 Encouraging Story Comprehension Skills (story telling, give new ending)
 Promoting Language-Rich Environments (tall and think, talk chalk)
 Supporting Multilingual Learners
 Measuring Progress
 Plan activities (spelling bee, word search competition, dictation)
 Reflect
 Leveled Literacy Intervention
explanation

 Every day is a good day to support children’s speaking and understanding in early
years settings. When it comes to learning to talk, even small acts in every day
conversations can have a huge impact.
 Language thrives when children have opportunities to interact with others and explore in
a playful and creative manner. Children learn to communicate through everyday
interactions with children and adults they have a connection with, and by sharing
experiences together.
 With that in mind, early years practitioners can really make a difference to children’s
development.
What is Brain break?
Play based activities

 Open-ended resources
 Signs and labels
 Role play areas
 Outdoor exploration
 The emotional environment
 Tuning in
 Cozy spaces
Phonological awareness
 There are 26 letters.
 The English alphabet has 5 vowels, 19 consonants, and 2 letters (Y and W) that
can function as consonants or vowels.
 The 5 basic skills of Phonics are:
1. Learning the letter sounds
2. Learning letter formation
3. Blending
4. Identifying sounds in words
5. Tricky words
Letter sounds

 Children learn in a fun, multi-sensory way using stories and

actions.
Letter sounds
Any idea about these?

 Digraphs
 Trigraph
 Blending
 Segmenting
 Decoding
 Reading
 Digraphs
Digraphs are two letters that make one
sound.
 trigraphs
Digraphs are three letters that make
one sound.
Key points (over view)

 Language development supports many other aspects of development, like cognitive,

social and literacy development.
 Language development starts with sounds and gestures, then words and sentences.
 You can support language development by talking a lot with your child, and
responding when your child communicates.
 Reading books and sharing stories is good for language development.