preschoolers: pragmatic and semantic development 2-5 years

1: PRESCHOOLERS: PRAGMATIC AND SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT (2-5 years)

4: B. Motor Development

6: C. Social Development

8: II. SEMANTIC DEVELOPMENT A. Introduction Semantic development is closely related to development in motor, social, and cognitive abilities The better a child�s abilities in those areas, the more language he receives and practices

9: Preschoolers� vocabularies grow fast: 18-24 months: expressive vocab goes from 50 to 200-300 words By 36 mos of age, children will have expressive vocabularies of 900-1,000 words At 5 years, by kindergarten, they should be using 2,100-2,200 words

10: By 6 years of age�

11: Montgomery 2011:

12: B. Word Learning Fast mapping �a hypothetical process where children associate a word and its referent after the first or initial exposure Extended mapping �new words are gradually expanded and modified as additional experiences become available

13: For example: A child might learn the word �horse� when he goes on a merry-go-round with his dad Then, he extends his understanding as he sees horses in pastures and reads about them in books

14: Extended mapping �behind�

15: Children learn new words more quickly when these words� Are composed of phonemes that the child can produce (�bug� vs. �jugular�) Are object words as opposed to action words Are reduplicated syllables (mama)

16: We can help children learn new words faster by:

17: For example, let�s say you want to teach �pig;� you�d want to make sure it was the only new word in that context

18: What are some other ways to help children learn new words faster?

19: C. Development of Relational Terms These terms express relationships in domains such as color, location, size, family roles, and temporal sequences These terms can be hard because they are often relative For example, whose mom is the skinniest? Whose dad is the tallest?

20: D. Dimensional Words These words are adjective pairs that indicate dimensions of objects E.g., big/little, wide/narrow Usually, big/little is the first pair to be mastered (3 yrs.)

21: E. Spatial Words

22: F. Color Words By 4-5 years old, most preschoolers can name blue, red, yellow More subtle color shades are acquired later

23: G. Temporal Words

24: H. Kinship Words The first ones to develop usually refer to immediate family�mother, father, sister, brother Then, children gradually learn other layers of relatives

25: III. PRAGMATIC DEVELOPMENT A. Introduction

26: B. Private and Socialized Speech Children may use monologues, instances of private speech where they talk to themselves Eventually, preschoolers start using socialized speech, where they increasingly acknowledge their partners� utterances and are more concerned about actually transmitting information

27: C. Play Behavior In symbolic play, the child allows one thing to represent another For example, a stick may represent a gun A kleenex may represent a doll�s blanket Symbolic play is closely associated to the development of words, which are symbols which stand for things

28: In solitary play�

29: In parallel play�

30: In cooperative play�

31: Dore�s Conversational Acts Page 273 to the middle of p. 275 are not on the test Begin reading at the heading �Discourse Skills�the Conversational Game�

32: D. Discourse Skills Discourse, or conversation, is a series of consecutive utterances shared by at least 2 people Cohesion refers to the relatedness of successive utterances in discourse

33: E. Behaviors that contribute to cohesion:

34: 2. Presupposition

35: Presuppositional skills include use of: a. Anaphoric reference, or the role pronouns play in referring back to words that occurred just prior to them My dad called, and he asked me to come home. I saw Susan, and she said to tell you hello.

36: Because of anaphoric reference, you would not say things like: �The new Harry Potter movie rocks, and I�m so glad I got to see this movie.� �The actors have grown up so much, and the actors are super.�

39: d. Style shifting �this aspect of presupposition involves having the speaker modify how something is said based on the status of the listener Preschoolers as young as 3 years of age can use please, could you, would you.

40: 3. Turntaking Some researchers say that even preschoolers rarely interrupt their partners because they are sensitive to the need for turntaking during conversation 2-3 year olds typically have 1-2 turns per topic Older preschoolers may have up to 5 turns per topic

41: 4. Topic maintenance

42: Aspects of topic maintenance include:

43: F. Preschoolers� Storytelling

44: The setting provides the context and characters The goal provides the characters� motivation The episode describes the events related to the goal The outcome provides the conclusion and states whether or not the goal was attained

46: G. Narrative Levels PRIMITIVE NARRATIVES/CENTERING�4 yrs.�there is an identifiable theme and elements are conceptually related to the core topic (p. 286) ? SEQUENCES/CHAINING�3 yrs.�elements of story are related to a central topic, but are not necessarily chronologically sequenced (p. 286) ? HEAPS�30 mos.�collections of unrelated utterances (p. 285)

47: IV. EMERGENT LITERACY One way to enhance preschoolers� emergent literacy skills is through print referencing This occurs when an adult uses verbal and nonverbal cues to direct a child to the features of written language during shared storybook reading

48: When adults are reading with children, they can

49: If young children are fairly hyper and don�t sit well during book reading:

50: Bliss, McCabe, & Mahecha 2001:

51: According to Hulit et al. 2011:

52: Turnbull & Justice 2012 describe print awareness: Young children develop interest in and appreciation for print

53: 1. They recognize that print exists in the environment and in books 2. Understand that print conveys meaning and has a specific function 3. develop understanding of print conventions (e.g., left to right, top to bottom) 4. Learn language that describes print (e.g., letters, words)

54: Research has shown that� When adults don�t reference print, preschoolers attend to it about 5-6% of the time But when adults reference it, children attend to it more Children show really ? literacy skills when adults reference print