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on her listening skills as a way to function within a preschool classroom. A child who has cognitive challenges might learn to listen for a completely di erent reason: it may serve as a cue to help him function in the everyday world. On the other hand, a child with a hearing loss may need to rely on her residual (le over) hearing abilities to understand what is being said. In short, listening is a fundamental skill that when properly developed enables children with special needs to communicate e ectively and become more independent. Oral language development A strong vocabulary is the next building block that plays a key role in literacy. e components of oral language include vocabulary, grammar, and, ultimately, being able to communicate e ectively in a variety of situations. e size of a child’s vocabulary is one of the most accurate predictors of how successful that child will be when she encounters formal reading instruction. e most fertile time for language development is from birth to age 5. Five-year-olds typically will have acquired 60 percent of the vocabulary they’ll build during their lifetime. e more vocabulary-building opportunities young children are given, the greater the likelihood that they will increase their word bank and learn to master the correct usage of those words. Considering that it is easier for teachers to communicate using more words and complex sentences with children who are more articulate, it is particularly important to spend extra time working on the vocabulary development of a child with a speech and/or language delay. O en, because of their delays, these children do not have the same opportunities to develop their language skills as their typicallydeveloping peers. Opportunities for children to improve their vocabulary skills occur throughout the day in the classroom — during group discussions, while singing, or while listening to a story. Constantly being alert to these opportunities is a big part of becoming more intentional and purposeful in our teaching. Modeling correct sentence structure and grammar and encouraging children to make necessary adaptations will also help them to develop their skills. When children hear the correct use of grammar, they eventually modify their own use of it to relay information about needs, wants, ideas, and so forth. Your role is to coach them gently by restating their questions and responding in a way that doesn’t embarrass them or create too much fuss about their errors. Children with cognitive or severe language delays need even more help. Unlike their typically-developing peers, they have di culty learning from modeling and watching what others do. Instead, they need speci c and direct instruction on how to use language, and they also need extra practice. For these children, it is important to break down new information or instructions into smaller steps and practice each step with the child before moving to the next one. Phonological awareness e third building block is phonological awareness, or sensitivity to sound. For preschool children, sound discrimination activities include recognizing both sounds that are the same and those that are different, playing with onomatopoeia words, matching rhyming word pairs, and identifying the repetitive sound in an alliterative phrase or sentence. e foundation for sound discrimination is wired in the brain during the rst year of life, as a neuron is assigned to every sound in a baby’s native language (44 phonemes in English). e more the child is spoken to, sung to, and read to, the more discriminate the neurons become. During the rst year, a child’s brain is capable of wiring sounds for as many different languages as it experiences. Again, some techniques to develop phonological awareness include focusing on alliteration (or the repetition of the same sounds or of the same kinds of sounds at the beginning of words or in stressed syllables, such as Franklin and his friend frightened poor Frieda); onomatopoeia words (or words that imitate the sounds they denote, such as buzz or splat); and rhyming word patterns in songs, books, and activities. Become more intentional and purposeful in your instruction by watching for opportunities to use these approaches and turning them into lessons. O en, children with special needs do not develop an awareness of the sounds they hear, because they are unable to develop a phonological system that helps them decode words. A child who is deaf, for example, will not learn how to sound things out and combine sounds in order to read words. Instead, it is important that the child learns how to use words in context rather than in isolation. Children with language delays need extra practice to develop their phonological awareness. It is very important that these children develop this skill because there is a direct relationship between phonological awareness and future success with reading. is is also true for children with cognitive de cits. Research has shown that breaking down a task into small steps and allowing the child extra time to practice each step can help that child learn the skills necessary to build phonological awareness. Letter knowledge and recognition Letter knowledge and recognition is the ability to recognize all 26 letters of the alphabet in both uppercase and lowercase forms and to understand that letters are the foundation of words. It is important to teach the alphabet to children in such a way that they understand that the letters can be used in a number of combinations and orders. 28 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES Back-to-School 2008 THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION
is concept is o en hampered by the fact that children learn the alphabet song early in life and sing it over and over again, always in the same order. e initial wiring for letter knowledge gets connected and reinforced in a low-functioning part of the brain, far away from the place where it will be needed when used in rational thought. When children continually say or sing the alphabet starting with A and ending with Z, they tend to think of the alphabet as linear — that it always starts with A and ends with Z. is can create a challenge when they begin to move from letters into words. To help children understand that the alphabet is not linear, teachers can teach children to sing the alphabet song forward and backward. Children also need to be taught to think of letters as independent components that can be organized in many di erent ways. is is especially true for children with special needs, who o en do not generalize information well. In other words, although a child might be able to participate in singing the alphabet song, she may not understand that letters are combined to make individual words. For children who cannot see letters, it is important that they learn what letters look like by other means, such as touching letter cutouts. It is also imperative that children with special needs learn new concepts in meaningful context. So while learning letters in isolation may have little meaning for a child with cognitive challenges, learning the letters in his name and the sound that each letter makes is a meaningful and functional skill that will help the child as he is learning to read. Print awareness Print awareness is the knowledge that printed words move from le to right and from top to bottom. It is also the awareness that print has many functions, including labeling items, creating lists, conveying information in newspapers, telling stories in books, identifying exits and entrances, and so on. You can see print awareness begin to emerge when children start to identify their favorite restaurant or store by its logo or sign. is is referred to as environmental print. Around this time, some children also begin to combine letters to make words, usually starting with their own name. Others will pretend to write a message using pretend letters Research has shown that children with special needs require more visual cues (such as pictures) to help them learn to recognize print when they see it around them, and they o en need additional opportunities to practice print awareness. Group lessons may need to be repeated and expanded, and plenty of opportunities should be given enable children to practice what they learn in a variety of settings in order to reinforce their development of print awareness. Comprehension Comprehension involves the internalization of a story. It develops when children have an opportunity to retell stories in their own words, act out stories, and listen to stories that are not accompanied by illustrations. And it is through comprehension skills that children are able to make up a story on their own. Children who are able to understand the concept of “story” can use language to predict story events, cognitively organize story ideas, and involve themselves in the storyline while actively listening to a story that is being told or read to them. ese skills, in turn, strengthen their comprehension while listening. Understanding how authors describe settings, develop characters, and organize the storyline also helps young children cra their own stories. Because children with special needs may not have the same internalization skills as their peers, it is important to look for ways to help them get involved in the storyline. Short attention spans o en interfere with the development of critical listening skills. In addition, children who have a limited language repertoire need implicit instructions as well as multiple opportunities to understand what words mean and how they are used in context. Because comprehension involves both seeing pictures and printed words and hearing spoken words, it is especially important that children with vision or hearing impairments receive specialized instruction. Stories and activities should be adapted in a way that these children can understand, so that they have the same opportunities as their peers to learn through comprehension. THE MAGAZINE OF THE NATIONAL HEAD START ASSOCIATION Back-to-School 2008 CHILDREN AND FAMILIES 29
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