Language and Literacy

Children from 0 months and up need both verbal and non-verbal communication to grow and develop.

Language development can be verbal and non-verbal.

Talking to infants often, and touching them, give the infant security and warmth. Listening to their cues and responding appropriately is very important to young children.

The value of touch is of vital importance to infants.

Communicating is just as important for survival in the life of young children; it helps them to become well adjusted.

Children listen to, interpet, comprehend and derive meaning from language which are all signs of being literate.

Language modeled effectively teaches listening skills, warmth and empathy.

Reading to young children daily exposes them to language and interpetation of print and art.

Young children need to be exposed to language in many ways:

• arts - pictures, art books, creating their own art, looking at each others art
• books - rhymes and stories that are repetitious, poems and fables
• music
• songs

The ability to interact and to derive meaning from pictures helps to nurture in children a love of books, the arts, songs and much more.

Children learn what they live, which proves that both nature and nurture influence personality, growth and development, which will reflect how literacy is taking shape and being reshaped as children learn.

Questions asked before, during and after lessons, stories or activities builds comprehension and interpretation skills of:

• language itself
• the written word
• pictures

The abcteach site offers a list of skills that are deveolped when children play in different centers: