Language and Vocabulary Development: Birth to Age Five
Language activity in children ages birth to five correlates with language comprehension later in school in life. Learn what you need to know to aid children in this development.
Description
Approved by Illinois Early Intervention Training Project for:
- 1 hour in Typical Development
- 1 hour in Intervention
- 0.5 hours in Working with Families
Language activity in children ages birth to five correlates with language comprehension later in school in life. Learn what you need to know to aid children in this development. Student oral and written comprehension scores have remained low in elementary and high schools nationwide despite school reform efforts.
Early childhood professionals need to carefully plan and execute deliberate language in response to children's interests, play, and attempts at language. Brain imaging demonstrates that neural connections for language are lost in environments with low levels of language between caregivers and the very young child. Language activity is key to success in school and an essential prerequisite to reading.
This workshop will review recent theories of language acquisition. The group will practice using different conversation strategies with children and will discuss ways of collaborating with parents to increase children's oral comprehension.
About the Instructor
Tammy Steele, before retiring, worked as an Early Childhood Leader Mentor in a Columbia College grant, and as Lead facilitator training day care coaches working with 85 classrooms in literacy curriculum. She worked with 6 Chicago Public Schools as facilitator of Annenberg Grant, Chicago Arts Partnership in Education (C.A.P.E.) and Erikson Arts Project facilitating teacher training developing integrated arts curriculum with teachers and artists. She is currently working on a language development guidebook for parents.
Objectives
This workshop will help participants:
- understand theories of language development in infants and toddlers
- learnt the practice of activities designed to increase children's language usage at school
- plan methods of increasing parents' language with their children