EARLY CHILDHOOD CARE AND DEVELOPMENT

Lesson 25: Cognitive activities in ECE center

Language

Language acquisition is one of the most important tasks to be accomplished during the early childhood years. Language acquisition not only involves vocabulary building, but also effective usage for purpose of communication. Language is also important for concept formation as many words are used as labels to refer to some common properties of objects. Generally children acquire language through imitation and reinforcement. According to Brown (1964) imitation is one of the primary means of speech acquisition.

Ways of fostering language in children

1. Providing a good speech model.
2. Verbal stimulation through informal talk, storytelling, rhymes, free conversations during lunch break, field trips, excursions etc.
3. Dramatic play where children initiate and seek for new words to express themselves.
4. Doll play initiate children to various roles.
5. Block play-as children play together to construct structures they verbalize with each other.
6. Puppets too promote speech.
7. Picture reading activities.
8. Displaying new items in bulletin board and encourage children to question.
9. Listening to children and correcting their speech.
10. Giving something real talk about things in their environment i.e. conversation, starters for eample- which animal would you like to see in the zoo?
11. Posing questions that require more than one word answers.
12. Elaborating answers while responding to children’s questions.