THE PROCESS IN WHICH CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE(COMMUNICATION)

2.5     THE PROCESS IN WHICH CHILDREN LEARN LANGUAGE

          Children’s brain are wired to study the patterns of speech that they hear and discern the rule that are used by the people who are speaking. Children learn these rules and learn to apply them as they create their own speech. The process of learning language involves repetitive and complex learning that occurs through regular interaction, according to physician Bruce D. Perry, writing for the scholastic website Smenyak (2013). The followings are the various ways in which children learn language.

2.5.1  LANGUAGE PROGRESSION

          As child language progresses, the child will work through several stages of speech. From birth to about one year, children are in the pre language stage. At about three months of age, cooing and babble begins official. Children are also practicing ,their receptive language during this time. After pre-language stage, the child will enter, the holophrases, or one word phrase. Telegraphic speech, at around 18 to 22 months the child enters the stage of the development of two words.

          As the child move from one-to two word sentences, the parent can help encourage language growth by repeating back their words in a longer sentence. For example, if the child says “Book mana” you would interpret back to him “you would like mama to read you a book ?”

2.5.2  BUILDING CONVERSATION SKILLS

          Interaction with others is the most important way that children learn language. Talk to a child about what you are seeing, what you are doing and how things feel. By talk with the child and interacting with the child, the parent is building the child’s language and social skills, according to the PBS website, one also strengthen the bond between the child and the parent with regular conversation.

2.5.3  READING AND LANGUAGE

          Reading aloud to a child helps build language skills, while reading, children listen and match words with objects and ideas which can enhance play or interaction. As the parent reads with the child, point to pictures and name what you see. As the child gets older, ask him/her to point to object in the pictures.

2.5.4  CONSIDERATIONS

          Children learn best from live speakers rather than recorded voices. Television and computers have their place, when combined with parental interaction. However, it is the interaction that is the key to language acquisition. Word drills and flash cards do not hold children’s attention, the best way to teach a child about language is by interacting with him/her. Talk about things he/she is interested in. play games and elaborate on child’s attempts it language make language and words a natural part of the child’s life.

2.6     THE ROLE OF PARENT IN CHILDREN’S COMMUNICATION     AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DEVELOPMENT

          Parenting is as old as the human race and many people believe it to be instinctive, so why bother discussing it and learning new things about it? People tend to believe that they know what parenting is all about. Parenting is an intricate complex of practical activities, skills, thoughts, relationship and feeling. As essential as it is, it remains one of many parent identities and has to compete with other roles that parents play as partners, professionals, society members, and individuals. Parenting is also a lifelong process: from the early years as children observing their own parents, through the initial views on having or not having children of their own, .through the preparation for parenting, pregnancy, childbirth, the various growth phases of the child, and right through determining the relationship with the grown children UNICEF, (2009).

          As children develop from infants to teens to adults they go through a series of developmental stages that are important to all aspects of their personhood including physical, intellectual, emotional and social. The proper role of the parent is to provided encouragement, support and access to activities that enable the child to master key developmental tasks. A parent is their child’s first teacher and should remain their best teacher throughout life. Functioning as a coach, the exposes a child to age appropriate challenges to encourage development as well as to experiences that allows the child to explore in their own and learn from interacting with their environment, Child Development Institute (2013).

          The key to helping young children to speak, listen, read, write and socialize better lies in encouraging parents and careers to talk to their children more and to respond to their attempts to communicate. All parents wish to do their best for their children, but often lack the confidence or knowledge  to implement powerful parenting practices, such as attentive listening, singing songs, playing rhyming games and sharing books. Parents need to be empowered to recognize their valuable contribution to their child’s ability to make sense of the world, through encouraging communication at every opportunity, Worcestershire, country council and Worcestershire (2011).