This paper provides an overview of the features of caregiver input that facilitate language learning across early childhood. We discuss three dimensions of input quality: interactive, linguistic, and conceptual. All three types of input features have been shown to predict children's language learning, though perhaps through somewhat different…

Productivity is a central concept in the study of language and language acquisition. As a test case for exploring the notion of productivity, we focus on the noun slots of verb frames, such as __"want"__, __"see"__, and __"get"__. We develop a novel combination of measures designed to assess both the flexibility and…

Children need sound language and literacy skills to communicate with others and actively participate in a classroom learning community. When an early childhood classroom offers a language- and literacy-rich environment, children have numerous opportunities to practice language and literacy in a social setting. A language-rich classroom includes an…

The study investigates the development of English multiword negation, in particular the negation of zero marked verbs (e.g. "no sleep", "not see", "can't reach") from a usage-based perspective. The data was taken from a dense database consisting of the speech of an English-speaking child (Brian) aged 2;3-3;4 (MLU 2.05-3.1) and his mother. The…

This article begins by identifying that children have a spontaneous predilection for playing with language, engaging in poetic discourse even before their first poetry lesson. Although children's language play is relatively unresearched in the classroom, in a case study of two groups of pupils aged between 10 and 11, it was observed that children…

Determined the degree to which a sample of one child's creative utterances related to utterances that the child previously produced. Utterances were intelligible, multi-word utterances produced by the child in a single hour of interaction with her mother. Results suggest the high degree of creativity in early English child language could be…

Discusses the kinds of things teachers can learn from children if they allow their students the freedom to use their language and their imaginations creatively. (HTH)

This paper explores the linguistic aspects of the artistic and aesthetic development of children, teaching strategies for the teaching of art, and an analysis of a sixth grade lesson in aesthetics. (Author/RK)

Although interest in the language sciences was previously focused on newly created sentences, more recently much attention has turned to the importance of formulaic expressions in normal and disordered communication. Also referred to as formulaic expressions and made up of speech formulas, idioms, expletives, serial and memorized speech, slang,…

Tests were given to a nine-year-old boy to establish the constraints operating when he was writing poetry. The tests involved writing cloze tests on poems by poet Ted Hughes and on a poem the boy had written a year earlier. The boy was also asked to write a poem and then to discuss what he was thinking as he wrote. The following constraints were…

Art and literacy experiences can be integrated into the classroom to great effect, and in this book, the author demonstrates that. Interpreting and creating pictorial representations is an important step on the road to literacy, as is experimenting with combinations of symbols and text. When teachers value and support children's symbolic…

Touches on the cognitive and self-discovery processes and imagination and creativity children experience before their verbal skills are fully developed. (HTH)

Isolated examples of creative adaptation show that Jean Piaget's theories of childhood development provide the conscientious teacher with a veritable warehouse of innovative and thought-provoking principles with which to construct a meaningful foundation of language arts experimentation. The elementary Piagetian principles for evoking creativity…

This paper discusses the nature of language knowledge and the manner in which children come to acquire this knowledge. Among the topics discussed are language production and the ability to understand sentences never heard before, sentence formation, children's construction of rules, children's language creativity, language acquisition and age,…

Creative methods of communicating with young children are discussed. In order to communicate through talk, adults must realize that children have a "secret world" with their own language and reasoning and must respect it. Self awareness, patience, understanding, and consistency are necessary for adults to truly communicate with children through…