Language and Early Childhood Education

According to Cheatham & Ro (2010), as children listen to or participate in conversations, they develop ideas about how language works. Even in a nonverbal period, they listen to and study the new language, trying to understand which rules apply (Cheatham & Ro, 2010). Research has shown that predictions for reading success can be made in children as young as age 3 (as cited in López, 2012) and that children’s language development thrives in preschool and is well developed by 5 (as cited in López, 2012). Therefore, linguistic environments in early childhood have an immense impact on one’s language development. In school, teachers should have high expectations for their young students and try to support their language development by using effective instructional methods.

Phonological awareness plays an important role in early-literacy development (Lopez, 2012) and Coleman & Goldenberg (2010) state that in the earliest stages of learning to read—when the focus is on sounds, letters, and how they combine to form words that can be read—progress by English Learners might be expected to be roughly comparable to that of English speakers. In addition, learning a second language earlier in life increases one’s ability to produce L2 phonemes more accurately (Morrow, Goldstein, Gilhool, Paradics, Schuele & Brice, 2014). Therefore, I strongly recommend that instruction should focus on phonological skills and try to connect the phonological knowledge to reading and writing in early childhood education.

My recommendations reflect what we do in our school. The school is an international kindergarten in Japan and one of its goals is to provide the children with the solid foundation of English skills. I currently teach Japanese and Indian children aged four and five and focus on English phonics. I see them become able to spell words using the sounds they have learned every day. Actually, the school is different from traditional Japanese kindergarten, most of which also started to provide English lessons but they usually teach only some English words and songs once a week. I like working in the school because it promotes bilingual education. This is one of the reasons why I changed my workplace from a traditional Japanese high school, whose English education pays little attention on English sounds, while focusing a lot on grammar.    

I have experiences related to this topic both as a learner and a parent. Since I started to learn English when I was 12 years old, it took me a long time to acquire English sounds. I still sometimes need to be careful about palatal movement when I speak English because the Japanese language is much more phonetically simple. Therefore, I strongly believe that phonological awareness should be acquired in early childhood and sent my daughters to international kindergartens. They seem to pronounce English sounds almost effortlessly.   

References

Cheatham, G.A., & Ro, Y. E. (2010). Young English learners’ interlanguage as a context for language and early literacy development. YC Young Children, 65(4), 18-23

Coleman, R., & Goldenberg, C. (2011). Promoting literacy development: Using interactive and direct techniques, classroom teacher can help English language learners develop their English reading and writing skills. The Education Digest. 76(6), 14-18.

López, L. M. (2012). Assessing the phonological skills of bilingual children from preschool through kindergarten: Developmental progression and cross-language transfer. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 26(4), 371-391. doi:10.1080/02568543.2012.711800

Morrow, A., Goldstein, B. A., Gilhool, A., Paradisc, J., Schuele, C. M., & Brice, A. (2014). Phonological skills in English language learners. Language, Speech & Hearing Services in Schools, 45(1), 26-39. doi:10.1044/2013_LSHSS-13-0009