The latest theories in developmental psychology and psycholinguistics explain early or emergent literacy as a process that begins in the early periods of child development and in which child language plays an important role. Vygotsky (1978), whose theory especially highlights the important role of language and culture in child development, understands early literacy as an interconnection of thought and language processes. During the development and learning process, children internalize various aspects of a culture and its sign system, which has developed within the culture and between cultures for centuries. Therefore during infancy, and later during toddlerhood and early childhood, it is important that children have significant exposure to a symbolically rich environment: adult-child social interaction, responsive and sensitive communication and conversation, parents reading to children, joint reading of children's books, and symbolic play. This chapter of the book focuses on the findings of Slovenian studies that examined factors in child language (especially components such as vocabulary, communication skills, metalinguistic awareness, and storytelling) that are also significantly linked with the development of early literacy during early childhood. We explain the effect of preschool teachers systematically reading to children in preschool (reading frequency and quality) on children's language development (general language devlopment and storytelling) and we clarify the importance of free symbolic play (in contrast to routine or plannes preschool activities) for the development of language comprehension and expression among preschool children. Special attention is also directed toward the quality of the family environment (types of parental encouragement and their quality; e.g., the frequency and manner in which parents read to children, the number of children's books in the family, attending cultural events together, familiarizing children with letters and other symbols, characteristics of parents' speech when communicating with children) and how this relates to children's general language development, language comprehension, expression, and storytelling ability.
COBISS.SI-ID: 40357730
Storytelling is an important aspect of child's language competence, which largely depends on her/his understanding and expression of a decontextualised content and develops rapidly in the period between the second and sixth year of life. The purpose of this study was to examine age differences in children's storytelling in the period between the third and sixth year of age. In addition, we considered the effect of gender on storytelling of children of different ages. The sample included 156 children aged from 3 to 6 years, who were divided into 3 age groups, namely children, aged 3, 4 and 5 years. Child's storytelling competence was assessed with the Little Glove Storytelling Test. Children's stories told by a standard set of illustrations were analyzed in terms of criteria, designed to assess the developmental level of the stories. The criteria refer to the words, included in the story, the grammatical structure and the content of the story. The obtained results suggested that several important changes in the development of storytelling occur within the period of early childhood. The 5-years-old children told longer stories with a more complex grammatical structure and a coherent content as the 3-years-old children. Children's achievements on the individual criteria for assessing the developmental level of the stories progressed relatively steadily through all three age groups. The results also showed that gender had no significant effect on the storytelling of children of different ages.
COBISS.SI-ID: 44335970
Storytelling represents an aspect of childrenʼs general language competence. The characteristics of the home literacy environment, especially joint reading between parents and children, have a significant effect on childrenʼs storytelling. The purpose of this study was to explore the age differences in the storytelling of three- to six-year-old children. In addition, the goal was also to determine the effect of parental education, parentsʼ knowledge of childrenʼs books, as an indirect measure of joint reading in the home environment, and childʼs gender on childrenʼs storytelling ability. The sample included 156 children aged three- to six-years-old and their parents. The childrenʼs storytelling competence was assessed using the Little Glove Storytelling Test. The stories that the children told using a standard picturebook were analyzed in terms of several criteria connected with the words in the story and the structure of the story (grammatical structure and contents). Parentsʼ knowledge of childrenʼs book was assessed using a Checklist of childrenʼs books. The results showed that the period between the ages of three and six is important for the development of childrenʼs storytelling; parental education and parentsʼ knowledge of childrenʼs books have a significant effect on childrenʼs storytelling. In addition, specific important differences were established between boysʼ and girlsʼ stories: the girls told stories using a greater number of words, whereas no major gender-related differences were determined with regard to the structure of the stories told. The results obtained were interpreted from the viewpoint of both developmental psychology and selected environmental factors.
COBISS.SI-ID: 49961058
The family literacy environment is reported to be an important predictor of a child's language and early literacy development. This study examined the relations between various aspects of family literacy environment and different measures of children's language, assessed in three different settings, namely in a structured test situation, at home and in preschool. The sample included 80 preschool children, randomly selected from 13 preschools, aged approximately 4 years. The quality of family literacy environment was estimated by mothers, using the Home literacy environment questionnaire. Children's language development and storytelling ability was assessed by a testator, while their spontaneous language was assessed by their mothers and preschool teachers. Family literacy environment was found to be an important factor of the child's storytelling ability and the complexity of his spontaneous language, used at home and in preschool. Maternal education proved to be associated with the quality of the family literacy environment and also related to all measures of the child's language except for maternal assessment. The findings have implications for understanding the role of family environment in the development of different aspects of a child's language and the importance of assessing the child's language in various settings thus obtaining a complete estimation of his language ability.
COBISS.SI-ID: 46015330
The present study explored gender differences in emerging language skills in 13,783 European children from 10 non-English language communities. It was based on a synthesis of published data assessed with adapted versions of the MacArthur-Bates Communicative Development Inventories (CDIs) from age 0.08 to 2.06. The results showed that girls are slightly ahead of boys in early communicative gestures, in productive vocabulary, and in combining words. The difference increased with age. Boys were not found to be more variable than girls. Despite extensive variation in language skills between language communities, the difference between girls and boys remained. This suggests that the difference is caused by robust factors that do not change between language communities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 45891426