Two Theories of Literacy Development

The third stage is the Concrete Operational Stage, which occurs around age seven to age eleven. This stage marks the beginning of logical or operational thoughts for the child. Their thinking becomes less egocentric, and the child can now understand that although the appearance of something changes, the “thing” itself does not. For example, if a child decided to spread out a pile of blocks, they know there are still as many blocks as there were before, even though it looks different.

The teacher could place two cups that have the same amount of liquid in the cups but because one of the cups is taller than the other the child is going to think the taller glass has more liquid in it. The third stage is the concrete operational stage which occurs during ages seven to eleven. The term concrete operational means the child can reason only about tangible objects presents. So the child can conserve and think logically but only with practical aids. Thinking becomes less egocentric with increased awareness of external events. The fourth and final stage is the formal operational stage which occurs during ages eleven to fifteen. This stage focuses on hypothetical thinking and scientific reasoning. Piaget believed that only children can learn when they are ‘ready’ to learn. He also believed that development couldn 't be ‘sped up.’ Piaget believed that children learned through the resolution of disequilibrium (self discovery, active participation). He believed that teachers should ‘bend’ to children’s needs, provide an appropriate environment, promote self discovery, exploratory learning, self-motivated learning, and set challenges to existing schemes.

Language development deals with how a child develops his/her language skills during their growth period. Language development has been an issue debated among language experts over a long period of time. Experts have opposing views on how a child acquires/learns language. There are four main theories of language development and they all have different thoughts on the acquisition of language. Behaviorists (Skinner) believe that language is learned. Nativists (Chomsky) believe that language is innate and unique to humans. Cognitive theorists (Piaget) believe language is not innate but a product of cognitive development. Finally, social interactionists

There are three main theories of development that I shall discuss in this assignment, 'Cognitive', the main theorist being, 'Piaget', (1896 - 1980), The, 'Psychosocial Theory', 'Erikson', (1902 - 1994), and, The 'Psychosexual', of, 'Freud', (1856 - 1939).

Both Vygotsky and Piaget thought that language had some effect on childhood development. Both Piaget and Vygotsky highly contributed to the field of education and how their theories apply to the teaching and learning environment. In Berk (2014), Piaget gave a basic framework for teachers to follow by elaborating on “discovery learning, sensitivity to children’s readiness to learn, and acceptance of individual differences” (p. 233). Following Piaget’s guidelines, teachers allow children to learn by exploring their environment and in turn, finding new problems and tasks to solve. They also incorporate activities that are applicable to all children and

| Piaget's second stage of cognitive development in which the preschool child learns to use language as a means of exploring the world

“According to Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development, it states that all children go through specific stages as their brain matures. It also stated that these stages are completed in a fixed order within all children, according to their range of age (Atherton).” In other words, one cannot expect a two month old baby to solve simple math problems as that of a five year old. There are four stages in which Piaget grouped the development of a child according to their age groups, in which children interact with people and their environment. The sensorimotor stage (birth until age 2) children use their senses to explore their environment. During this stage, children learn how to control objects, although they fail to understand that these objects if not within their view continue to exist. The preoperational stage (2 until age 7) children are not able to see other's viewpoints other than their own. In other words, if the same amount of water is poured into a short wide glass and then a tall thin glass the child will perceive that the taller glass has more water because of the height. The concrete operational stage (7 until 12) children begin to think logically, but only with a practical aid. The last stage of Piaget’s cognitive theory is the formal operation stage (12 through adulthood) in which children develop abstract thinking and begin to think logically in their minds (Piaget).

However, it can be argued with (Bruner 1964) that social interaction doesn’t explain all the complexities of language acquisition. Almost every day the language we hear is often incorrect, poorly defined, incomplete and full of hesitations, mispronunciations and other errors, and yet despite this we still learn to talk following the correct grammatical rules. Again this indicates the idea of Chomsky’s (1968) LAD model that children are born ‘hard-wired’ with the innate knowledge of linguistic rules and so these rules help the baby make estimations and presumptions about the language it is hearing. From these estimations and presumption the child can work out grammatical sets of rules and when more language is exposed to them, the more their language develops. Even within Chomsky’s (1968) LAD theory, undoubtedly he believed the role and promotion of the ‘nature’ aspect is the core foundation on which language can develop. But his theory also requires the role of nurture

The article For the Love of Language by Geoffrey Cowley was published by Your Child's First Steps on October 2000. The author focuses on the importance of language and how children develop their language skills. Cowley states that the journey towards language starts in the womb and that babbling is the first step towards fluent speaking. Children also start associating names with objects around age one and children around two years old start to connect noun phrases with verb phrases. And lastly, children around seven months do not just seek out associations between words, but also extract principles governing word order. Cowley also uses terms like cochlear implant, mimicry, simple conditioning, operant conditioning, and specific language impairment (SLI).

The fourth and final stage is the phase where children entering puberty begin to think abstractly and create meaning from available data. This critical stage is responsible for creating global problem solvers and creative thinkers who can analyze a situation and not be confined by concrete ideas or previously accepted logic.(www.lifescript.com)

There is no doubt that Jean Piaget’s theory raises many questions. However, his contributions are still worldwide recognized and still researched. One of Piaget’s proposals is that language was a reflection of the degree of children’s cognitive maturity. Piaget believed that action-based interaction with the environment increase formation of object concepts, separation of self from the external world, and mental representation of reality by mental images, signs, and symbols (language), (Piotrowsky, 2005). This suggestion seems to be accurate even with deft children. A study conducted by Courtin (2000) with 150 deft children, ages 5 to 8, showed that early exposure to language independently of its form, verbal or sign language plays a significant

Further issues with Piaget’s (1923) theory suggests that if certain levels of cognitive development are required to assist language ability, then his notion of object permanence should precede the acquisition of concepts and objects Xu (2002) research found opposite results to Piaget’s (1923) ideas which demonstrate how a child as early as 9 months old was capable of distinguishing between two objects. Because of this conflicting information, it is difficult to assign a causal relationship between language and thought within this framework (Xu, 2002, cited in Green, 2010).

From a baby 's first word to their first complete sentence, there 's a lot to debate with their language development. The average child has a vocabulary of up to six-thousand words by the time they turn five years old (Brighthubcom, 2016). Language development is one of the most critical roles for an educator in both early childhood and primary settings. It is this ability of language development that is particularly interesting in the nature vs nurture debate. In order for educators to provide effective communication, it is important that they have the knowledge and understanding of the four key concepts of language, such as phonological, syntactic, semantic and pragmatic development and the underlying theoretical perspectives that explain the processes of language acquisition and development.

In the sensorimotor stage the child discovers the environment through physical actions such as sucking, grabbing, shaking and pushing. During these first two years of life children realize objects still exist, even if it is out of view. This concept is known as object permanence. Children in the preoperational stage develop language skills, but may only grasp an idea with repeated exposure. As Piaget describes in the next stage, children draw on knowledge that is based on real life situations to provide more logical explanations and predictions. Lastly, in the formal operational stage children use higher levels of thinking and present abstract ideas.

According to Zukowski (2013), language development refers to the process of learning in early life where infants acquire various forms, meaning and word usage. In addition, language refers to the different utterances in regards to linguistic input. Language development in childhood focuses on major arguments in