Tuesday, March 14, 2017

Morgan Leslie-Waksman Learning Language

My granddaughter is going through games with her parents; for example looking at a picture book and saying "where is the duck?" and answering "there is the duck" (while pointing). And then "where is the pony?", etc. Soon Morgan can play the game and answer correctly. Then her parents play a more complicated game of "what sound goes the duck make?" "quack, quack". And "what sound does the pony make" "neigh, neigh".
So the game gets more complicated and each game can build on top of the last. So at first she may be learning the word "duck" and noticing the similar patterns of duck on the page or in different contexts where the word is used. She also learned the word "where is" and learned about pointing. In the next game she learned to connect the word "duck" to a different kind of pattern for the "quack" sound.
Some things Morgan needs to learn these games are: an ability with pointing; an ability to see similarity; and a desire to imitate. In the process she acquires the language of animal names, their sounds, their appearances, as well as the game words themselves "where" and "what sound". Possibly she picks up words like "the", "and", "a" - imitating the overall form of expressions she hears.
Then Morgan begins two word sentences. For example she says "Two cars" or "Two boats" but does not use the word "three". Her use of "two" may be related to a desire she has for symmetry - when I draw on one of her hands, she wants me to also draw on the other. Two word sentence like these are a description (to this adult observer).
She also says "Bye Pete" and "Bye ..." to describe something going out of view or changing its relation to her (to this adult observer).

1 comment:

  1. The way parents teach their kids may not be how the kids actually learn.

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