Children are vocal but not all talk leads to success. When children talk with each other during play, they vocalise their thoughts. A complex play situation is associated with a similarly complex thinking process. To reach higher levels of language and cognition, children need to extend their repertoire of experiences from the familiar to the unfamiliar.
There are two types of languages, the social and the academic. They have different features with regards to context, cognitive demand, and required language as follows:
1- Context: While the social language focuses on familiar topics from the immediate environment, the academic language helps interpret unfamiliar subjects that are not within the immediate circle of the child.
2- The cognitive demand: The social language is based on what is concrete and personal while the academic language extends to abstract learning.
3- Language used: The social language relies on everyday familiar words that are understood in the immediate environment of the child. The academic language, on the other hand, can capture a diverse audience and be technical.
Educators play an important role in the future linguistic trajectory of children as the academic language can be enhanced by the type of questions that educators ask during daily activities.
Blank (as cited in Fellowes & Oakley, 2014) developed four levels of talk that tap into increasing levels of cognition.
• The first level is “Matching” where children are asked to respond to information by describing, observing, or touching something in front of them.
• The second level is “Selective Analysis” where children respond by focusing on specific information or categories presented to them.
• The third level is “Reordering Perception” where children need to predict an outcome or a solution based on the presented information.
• The fourth level is “Reasoning” where children have to respond to “What if” questions. They need to draw from the text and their personal experiences to justify their answers. The answer is not directly provided to them.
Educators who do not help children travel the path from the social to the academic language are failing those children. Children need to succeed in a global world full of complex layers where higher levels of language and cognition will be extremely helpful to achieve success.
Reference:
Fellowes, J. & Oakley, G. (2014). Language, literacy and early childhood education (2nd ed.). South Melbourne, VIC: Oxford University Press.
Future Global Children 