1. ENB6 AOs (CLA) AO1 Accurate and clear written expression
Use of terminology
linguistic terms CLA terms
AO3ii Analysis of language using frameworks
Evaluation of frameworks
incl. grammar, cohesion, pragmatics
which f’works are most useful/relevant, here?
AO4 Knowledge of how children’s language typically develops
Reference to relevant theory/research; only if relevant
Explaining how various factors have affected language
developmental stage/G/A/P
AO5 Explaining how contextual factors have affected language
objective with the most weighting

2. Stages of Child Language Development
One Word (Holophrastic) one word serves for complete
Stage utterance; reliance on adult
richly interpreting using intonation
and context
Two Word Stage two word utterances; some
semantic roles therefore omitted
Telegraphic Stage like a telegram; mostly content
words, with grammatical words
appearing gradually
It’s important to remember that progress is not smooth - a child might
speak in a full sentence and then make a two word utterance a minute
later.

3. Halliday’s functions
These are NOT stages, but some functions are used earlier and others
later.
Instrumental getting essential needs met
Regulatory getting other people to do things
Interactional language used for social purposes; phatic talk
Personal expressing personal preferences, likes and dislikes
Referential giving and asking for information
Heuristic language used to learn
Imaginative using imagination, e.g. in make believe play, role
play & storytelling

4. Dore’s functions (devised to describe children’s language)
Labelling simply naming or identifying a person, object
or experience
Repeating echoing something spoken by an adult
Answering giving a direct response to an utterance from
from another speaker
Requesting demanding food, drink, a toy, assistance,
action etc.
Calling attracting attention by shouting
Greeting self evident
Protesting objecting to requests, etc.
Practising using and repeating language when no adult is present

5. Features of the One Word Stage
Holophrastic One word used to express a whole sentence
utterances meaning
Need for rich intonation, gesture & context provide clues
interpretation
Semantic food, drink, family members, animals, animal
categories noises, body parts, toys, household objects
Overextension, may be common
Underextension
Or mismatch
Content mainly concrete nouns, with some verbs,
words and adjectives
Homophones different words may be pronounced identically
Functions mainly instrumental, interactional, regulatory,
some referential

6. Types of Immature Pronunciation
Deletion missing out consonant, often the final consonant
Substitution substituting one sound for another
Addition adding a sound, especially an extra vowel
after the final consonant
De-voicing taking the voice out of /b/, /d/ /g/ to produce
/p/, /t/ or /k/
Voicing the opposite of the above
Assimilation one consonant or vowel becomes similar to
another, e.g. ‘gog’ for ‘dog’
Reduplication repetition of a whole syllable, e.g. ‘snowowman’

7. Stages in Pronoun Use (Ursula Bellugi 1971)
Stage 1 Pronouns not used, e.g. ‘Adam go home’
Stage 2 Uses subject pronoun at start of sentence,
elsewhere uses object pronoun
e.g. ‘Why me spilled it?’
Stage 3 Uses subject and object pronouns correctly
Subject pronoun – refers to agent/subject (person doing the action)
Object pronoun – refers to affected/object (person who has something
done to her/him)
Subject pronouns – I, you, he, she, we, they
Object pronouns – me, you, him, her, us, them
There are also possessive pronouns – My/mine, Your/yours, his, her/hers,
our/ours, their/theirs

8. Forming Y/N Questions I can do it. He ate it.
Can I do it? Did he eat it?
Invert subject and auxiliary OR Add ‘do’ auxiliary in required tense
and change main verb to infinitive.
Children’s early Y/N questions
Simply add a question mark to a statement:
‘I have it?’
(2) Use auxiliaries but use wrong person/tense:
‘Does lions walk?’
or leave main verb in its original tense:
‘Did I caught it?’

9. Forming WH- Questions Children’s WH- questions
Put WH- word at front of sentence, followed by auxiliary verb
(add ‘do’ if no other auxiliary verb is used), followed by the subject, then the main verb in the infinitive:
You went Why did you go?
WH-word do subject main verb in infinitive
at front aux.
added
Children’s WH- questions
WH- word used alone at One Word stage:
e.g. Where?
WH- word usually placed correctly at front at Two Word stage:
e.g. Where that?
Telegraphic stage: auxiliary omitted:
e.g. Where my spoon goed?
Later Telegraphic stage: auxiliaries present but subject and auxiliary not
reversed:
e.g. What I did yesterday?
Children may confuse the meaning of the different WH- words.

10. Rough order of acquisition of grammatical words and inflexions (Brown)
-ing
prepositions
plural –s
irregular past tense (broke, fell)
possessive -’s
uncontractible copular verb (This is hot)
articles
-ed
3rd person singular regular present tense (He sees me)
3rd person singular irregular present tense (He has some)
Uncontractible auxiliary verb (She was running)
Contracted copular verb (I’m hot)
Contracted auxiliary verb (She’s running)

11. Methods of Word Formation
Compounding:
Plate-egg (fried egg)
Affixation:
I’m gooder than him - adds comparative suffix
Conversion:
I’m souping (eating soup) – converts noun to verb
How do you sharp this - converts adjective to verb
It is common to see ‘virtuous errors’ when children
start to actively make words. They are ‘virtuous’ because
they indicate the child’s knowledge of the rules of English
morphology.

12. Features of Child-directed Speech
Slow and clear
Pauses
Higher pitch
Exaggerated intonation and stress
Use of personal names instead of pronouns
Repeated sentence frames
Repetition of adult’s own words
Frequent questions and commands
Simpler sentence constructions
Use of concrete nouns
Use of diminutives (e.g. ‘doggie’)
Expansion (expanding child’s utterance into a full sentence)
Recasting (using child’s words/phrase in a new sentence)

13. Pragmatic Development
Conversation skills
Learning to take turns
Speaking relevantly
Beginning to help sustain conversation
Supporting other speakers, e.g. backchannelling, asking questions,
using tags or fillers like ‘you know’
Conventional ways of ending conversations
Understanding and using pragmatic meaning
Learning to understand implied meanings (e.g. ‘You’ve had two biscuits
already’ means ‘no’)
Learning to express requests indirectly/politely (e.g. ‘Would you like to
play, Daddy?’
Politeness
Using polite formulae & politeness markers
Learning to protect another’s Face
Parents teach turn-taking, even to pre-verbal babies, treating their noises,
gestures or expressions as turns.
Parents explicitly teach politeness and correct impoliteness (Gleason &
Weintraub)

14. Theories of Language Acquisition
Behaviourist Skinner – language is learnt by imitation and
reinforced by reward (e.g. praise)
Innatist Chomsky – language-learning ability is built into our
brains (the Language Acquisition Device (LAD))
Social Bruner – importance of input from adult; LAD works
Interactionist with help of Language Acquisition Support System (LASS),
often during reading with a caregiver
Cognitive Piaget – concepts have to be acquired before the words
for them can be used/understood.
Children engage in ‘egocentric’ speech (speaking
to themselves when alone)
Language Vygotsky – we think in words (e.g. during lone play or
& thought while doing a task); therefore words precede concepts
Critical period Lenneberg – need social interaction input and practise
hypothesis before the age of 11 in order to master language

15. Bruner’s LASS
Get child’s attention
Ask question
Label
Praise

16. Other CLA Theorists Gleason – wug test
Gleason & Weintraub 1976 – parents teach politeness
Ninio & Bruner 1978 – book reading by mothers aids
language development
Patricia Kuhl – parents exaggerate vowel sounds which helps
babies to hear words
Ursula Bellugi 1971 – stages of pronoun use
Brown – order of acquisition of grammatical elements

17. Key Terms for Phonetics and Spelling (Orthography)
Phoneme – a sound (as distinct from a letter)
Schwa /ə/ – the final vowel sound in ‘butter)
Fricative – f, v, th, sh, ch (babies find these more difficult)
Consonant cluster – more than one consonant phoneme
together, e.g. st, sp, sk, tr, pr, sm, sn, cl etc.
Digraph – two letters indicating a single phoneme, eg. sh, ch, th,
CVCV – consonant/vowel/consonant/vowel pattern:
Young children seem to prefer these and will add sounds to
Change words to this pattern, e.g:
balu (blue)
CVCV

18. Methods of Teaching Reading
Real books/whole word/look and say
Books read for pleasure and words learned by sight
Books are more varied and exciting and are genuine stories
Encourages reading for pleasure
‘Real books’ often use phonological and literary devices that
are fun and engaging to young children and which teach
phonic awareness indirectly
No real method to teaching child to decode so they may end up unable
to read unfamiliar words (those not already learned by sight)
Phonics:
Synthetic phonics – building words from letters and digraphs
Analytic phonics – breaking words down into their constituent phonemes
Systematically teaches child to decode words
Books are limited by need to use phonically simple vocabulary and can
be boring
Graded readers are not reading for pleasure
Children may decode words without paying attention to the meaning
and so not enjoy the story
Synthetic phonics is currently the method used in English primary schools.

19. Features of Graded Readers (books like Biff and Chip series)
Repetition of key words
Words with simple spellings/high frequency ‘sight’ words
Words with same phonic and spelling patterns
Concrete nouns
Repeated sentence constructions
Simple sentences
Simple verb phrases
Active verbs
Few adjectives
Speech tags not inverted (Dad said, not said Dad)
Pictures provide context

20. Kroll’s Stages of Writing Development
Stage 1: PREPARATORY STAGE
Masters the basic motor skills needed to write
Learns the basic principles of the spelling system.
Stage 2: CONSOLIDATION STAGE (age 6-8)
Writes as she speaks.
Uses mainly short declarative sentences.
Much use of simple coordinating conjunctions (‘and’, ‘but’) to form compound sentences
Stage 3: DIFFERENTIATION STAGE (age 8-teens)
Shows awareness of difference between speaking and writing, e.g. starts to vary syntax, use complex sentences etc.
Can adapt writing style for different genre e.g. letter, essay.
Stage 4: INTEGRATION STAGE (teens upward)
Develops a personal ‘voice’.
Can write in a variety of styles according to genre, audience and purpose.
As with the stages of oral language development, these are not progressed through smoothly. A child’s writing may have features of more than one stage.