Language Development

[Unkotare]

A fascinating area of research in linguistics is the development of first language(s) skills in infants and young children. A great deal can be learned about language itself and the function of the human brain by studying youngsters who are acquiring their first language(s). As you might expect, it can get pretty technical pretty fast, but here is a quick intro to the topic for those interested:

Speech and Language Developmental Milestones

 

[Unkotare]

It’s fascinating to see a baby developing with the knowledge of what’s going on in mind.

 

[OldLady]

Maybe or maybe not you've heard of the 30 million word gap? Poor kids supposedly hear 30 million less words by age 3 than kids with professional parents. Economics/poverty affects their vocabulary, which affects their later academic achievement as well. It was a pretty eye opening and shattering study.
http://www.wvearlychildhood.org/resources/C-13_Handout_1.pdf

Now people have picked themselves up off the floor and are pushing back. Studies show that perhaps the differences are not that dire. But there is definitely an academic achievement gap, on average, based on socio economic status.
Is There Really a 30 Million Word Gap? | Reading Rockets

Anyway, teaching older kids, I did not learn of this until a month or so ago, and I found it even more important to tell ALL of my students to READ to your kids, start reading and telling stories to your baby during 5 a.m. feedings, talk to you child as if she/he understands you. Drown them in language. We can all get kids books out of the library for free.

You're right it's a fascinating subject.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Maybe or maybe not you've heard of the 30 million word gap? Poor kids supposedly hear 30 million less words by age 3 than kids with professional parents. Economics/poverty affects their vocabulary, which affects their later academic achievement as well. It was a pretty eye opening and shattering study.
http://www.wvearlychildhood.org/resources/C-13_Handout_1.pdf

Now people have picked themselves up off the floor and are pushing back. Studies show that perhaps the differences are not that dire. But there is definitely an academic achievement gap, on average, based on socio economic status.
Is There Really a 30 Million Word Gap? | Reading Rockets

Anyway, teaching older kids, I did not learn of this until a month or so ago, and I found it even more important to tell ALL of my students to READ to your kids, start reading and telling stories to your baby during 5 a.m. feedings, talk to you child as if she/he understands you. Drown them in language. We can all get kids books out of the library for free.

You're right it's a fascinating subject.

Only problem is, there aren't 30 million words in the English language.

How many words are there in the Engli... | Oxford Dictionaries

The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of exclamations, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. And these figures don't take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective).

This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.

 

[Unkotare]

What you’re talking about is called enriched input, and it involves quite a few factors and functions.

 

[OldLady]

Maybe or maybe not you've heard of the 30 million word gap? Poor kids supposedly hear 30 million less words by age 3 than kids with professional parents. Economics/poverty affects their vocabulary, which affects their later academic achievement as well. It was a pretty eye opening and shattering study.
http://www.wvearlychildhood.org/resources/C-13_Handout_1.pdf

Now people have picked themselves up off the floor and are pushing back. Studies show that perhaps the differences are not that dire. But there is definitely an academic achievement gap, on average, based on socio economic status.
Is There Really a 30 Million Word Gap? | Reading Rockets

Anyway, teaching older kids, I did not learn of this until a month or so ago, and I found it even more important to tell ALL of my students to READ to your kids, start reading and telling stories to your baby during 5 a.m. feedings, talk to you child as if she/he understands you. Drown them in language. We can all get kids books out of the library for free.

You're right it's a fascinating subject.

Only problem is, there aren't 30 million words in the English language.

How many words are there in the Engli... | Oxford Dictionaries

The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of exclamations, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. And these figures don't take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective).

This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.

LOL No one said they were each a different word.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Maybe or maybe not you've heard of the 30 million word gap? Poor kids supposedly hear 30 million less words by age 3 than kids with professional parents. Economics/poverty affects their vocabulary, which affects their later academic achievement as well. It was a pretty eye opening and shattering study.
http://www.wvearlychildhood.org/resources/C-13_Handout_1.pdf

Now people have picked themselves up off the floor and are pushing back. Studies show that perhaps the differences are not that dire. But there is definitely an academic achievement gap, on average, based on socio economic status.
Is There Really a 30 Million Word Gap? | Reading Rockets

Anyway, teaching older kids, I did not learn of this until a month or so ago, and I found it even more important to tell ALL of my students to READ to your kids, start reading and telling stories to your baby during 5 a.m. feedings, talk to you child as if she/he understands you. Drown them in language. We can all get kids books out of the library for free.

You're right it's a fascinating subject.

Only problem is, there aren't 30 million words in the English language.

How many words are there in the Engli... | Oxford Dictionaries

The Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary, published in 1989, contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, and 47,156 obsolete words. To this may be added around 9,500 derivative words included as subentries. Over half of these words are nouns, about a quarter adjectives, and about a seventh verbs; the rest is made up of exclamations, conjunctions, prepositions, suffixes, etc. And these figures don't take account of entries with senses for different word classes (such as noun and adjective).

This suggests that there are, at the very least, a quarter of a million distinct English words, excluding inflections, and words from technical and regional vocabulary not covered by the OED, or words not yet added to the published dictionary, of which perhaps 20 per cent are no longer in current use. If distinct senses were counted, the total would probably approach three quarters of a million.

LOL No one said they were each a different word.

Sorry, but when people start using "truthful hyperbole", it kinda irritates me, because "truthful hyperbole" is another term for lie you hope others believe.