Argues that it is children's development of knowledge of written language that is key to literacy development. Offers models of emergent literacy and identifies differences between oral and written language. Poses implications for policy, research, and practice in home and school. (DLH)

Argues that the single greatest resource to share and focus on with young children is language. Provides guidelines and specific titles for selection of books most appropriate for each stage of development: (1) for infants; (2) for toddlers and twos; and (3) for three-year-olds. Includes a buyer's directory guide for children's books. (SD)

Offers suggestions for using talk time with toddlers in an early care setting to promote communicative interaction. Discusses how talk time was introduced and its usefulness in promoting language development, and identifying and helping delayed talkers. Describes talk time themes and strategies, including a caution not to use the time to correct…

Children from low-income families are at increased risk for significant behavioral and language problems. Early identification of these problems is essential for effective intervention. The purpose of the present study was to use multiple behavioral assessments to examine the behavioral profiles of sixty 3- and 4-year-old children from low-income…

This study investigated the contributions of four variables (children's expressive language scores at 30 months of age, mother's facilitation of child language, mother's education, and group assignment) to the prediction of IQ at age 3, verbal IQ at ages 5 and 8, and reading at age 8 for 571 children of low-birthweight. Four separate multiple…

The authors examined the developmental relations between language acquisition and emergence of reading prior to formal literacy instruction. Sixty-one Finnish-speaking children were followed up once a year from infancy to school start (1 year 0 months-7 years 3 months). Before entering first grade, 43% of the children were classified as emergent…

Often parents don't realize just how much their children benefit from repeated readings. Repeated readings provide great opportunities to develop early literacy skills. Young children notice different things each time a book is read. Rereading provides an opportunity to expand a child's world as the parent follows his lead and picks up on the…

A substantial number of 5-7 year old children experience delayed language development which threatens their progress in school, although they have not been placed on speech and language therapy caseloads. Children with delayed language development typically have a limited ability to understand and tell stories. Intervention to develop the oral…

This case study follows Casey, a child with significant speech and language deficits, from age 4 years 2 months until 9 years 9 months. It focuses on a 9-month period starting at age 5 years 9 months during which a meaning-based phonological intervention was used to improve his intelligibility and language skills. Clinicians evoked frequent word…

This article examines elementary music curricula. It presents an overview of research on childhood mental development; the importance of the early experiences of children on childhood development; the impact of environmental factors on language development; children's acquisition of music ability; enhancing elementary music curriculum; and…

Recent research has found that the acquisition of theory of mind (ToM) is delayed in children with specific language impairment (SLI). The present study used a battery of ToM and visual perspective taking (VPT) tasks to investigate whether the delayed acquisition of ToM in children with SLI is associated with delayed VPT development. Harris'…

There has been little or no research on Vietnamese phonological development, let alone on phonological disorders of Vietnamese-speaking children. The goal of this study is to evaluate the sound systems of monolingual Vietnamese-speaking children with phonological impairment. Independent and relational analyses of four children (ages 4;4 to 5;5)…

This article features energizing and surprising activities for children at group time. In the drawing activity, children are asked to give instructions on how to draw a picture using vocabulary and descriptive language. In the mailbox activity, children will be surprised to discover that they have mail at group time. Mailboxes can be used for…

Children improve at word learning during the 2nd year of life--sometimes dramatically. This fact has suggested a change in mechanism, from associative learning to a more referential form of learning. This article presents an associative exemplar-based model that accounts for the improvement without a change in mechanism. It provides a unified…

This article reports on a series of 5 analyses of spontaneous production of verbal inflection (tense and person-number agreement) by 2-year-olds acquiring French as a native language. A formal analysis of the qualitative and quantitative results is developed using the unique resources of Optimality Theory (OT; Prince & Smolensky, 2004). It is…