LANGUAGE AND LITERACY DEVELOPMENT
A Literature Review
Presented to Mr. Romnick Gildore of the Bachelor of Technology and
Livelihood Education Major in Home Economic 1 Department
Southern Philippines Agri-business and Marine Aquatic School of
Technology, Malita, Davao Occidental
A Qualitative Article based on the Group Report as a Requirement in
EDUC 111 (Literature Review)
1st Semester, SY 2022 – 2023
Group 2
Katrhrina A. Babiera
Seth Nicus Susas
Jian Carl Agravante
Kristelle Rose Joseph
Mailyn Mona
UJ Ugsang
Froilan Divinagracia
Marielle Lapena
I. INTRODUCTION
As the world drastically changing its paces, field of language and literacy
changed as well. This relevance to teaching and learning medium helps individuals
to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of language and literacy, and to learn
a range of ways of analyzing and assessing one’s identity with the different kinds of
language in context and theories presented by known philosophers.
Language and Literacy development are major domains of early childhood
development. They involve development of the skills used to communicate with
others through languages (language development), as well as the ability to read and
write (literacy development). An example of language and literacy development in
childhood learning is to speak the native language of one’s parents and read basic
words in that language. This type of development begins from birth, even though
babies are not yet able to speak using language.
Language has been defined as “a system of symbols that is used to
communicate”. In relates to this, the bilingualism is the ability to speak at least two
languages. Though children are born with the brain capacity to learn language
because it is an innate feature of the human brain. The brain regions are responsible
for language development are Broca’s area, which controls speech production, and
the Wernicke’s area, which controls the understanding and cognitive processing of
language.
Language develops through children’s interactions with other people around
them. Which the more they are socially active in the environment, the more they
learn and grow with it. Thus, it encourages a child to imitate what the people did like
sounds, movements, thinking, and habits that he or she hears over time.
Furthermore, the baby will quickly learn which words and development are
connected to certain objects or people, and which words may produce particular
responses from others.
Literacy is defined as the ability to read and write like language; literacy develops
through the interactions a child experiences with others. Thus, it is very important
that adults do not attempt to force adult levels of reading onto children in their early
development, as this is considered developmentally-inappropriate and may actually
work against healthy development. For example, a child who is pushed to learn to
write too soon may come to connect the activity of writing with failure and
disappointment. Hence, this will all lead to a spontaneous development that later
affects and connects people in the society.
Therefore, language and literacy obviously important because of its dual
educational role as both the “medium” in the relevance to developmental theories
that assess one’s personal identity. Though it was separately been proved, the
conclusion itself drove individuals to come up with same values and learnings that
are efficiently better in one’s growth and development.
II. BODY OF THE DISCUSSION
CHOMSKY’S NATIVISM: A CRITICAL REVIEW
Is grammar innate? Noam Chomsky holds that it is, or, more accurately, that
the hypothesis that it is innate is the only coherent and plausible one that has yet
been proposed to account for the acquisition of language. Extrapolating to broader
issues, he has championed a retreat from behaviorism and empiricism to cognitivism
and rationalism, from approaches that seek to determine the relationship between
an organism's behavior and the environment to those that wish to discover the
organism's" essential nature," of which behavior is an incomplete expression. His
arguments, which are detailed, polemical, and persuasive, are evidently inspiring to
a thriving school of linguists and to many laymen with an interesting language and
philosophy. It is important to assess his position carefully, not only because he
conludes that little is to be gained by pursuing the analysis of verbal behavior with
the assumptions and methodology of radical behaviorism but because he claims to
have achieved considerable success with very different assumptions and
methodology.
BROFENBREENNER'S ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS THEORY LITERATURE
REVIEW
American psychologist Urie Bronfenbrenner was critical of previous theories of
child development. He argued that studies of children in unfamiliar laboratory
environments with one other person, usually a stranger, were ecologically invalid
(See Mary Ainsworth’s 1970 experiment of the ‘Strange Situation’). Bronfenbrenner
(1974) claimed most earlier studies were ‘unidirectional’, meaning that the
laboratory studies observed the influence of A on B (e.g. a stranger/mother with a
child), rather than looking at the possible influence of the child on the
stranger/mother, or any other third party’s influence. Bronfenbrenner divided the
person's environment into five different systems: the microsystem, the mesosystem,
the exosystem, the macrosystem, and the chronosystem.
Bronfenbrenner recognized there are multiple aspects of a developing child’s
life that interacts with and affects the child. His work looked beyond individual
development, taking into account wider influencing factors and the context (or
ecology) of development. He proposed the ‘Ecological Systems Theory’ based on
these dynamic interactions that the environments have on the developing child.
Bronfenbrenner’s (1974) perspective has some resemblance to the works of Albert
Bandua’s social learning theory and Lev Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory in which the
environment is explicitly or implicitly considered as a crucial mechanism in
development. Bronfenbrenner (1977) suggested that the environment of the child is
a nested arrangement of structures, each contained within the next. He organized
them in order of how much of an impact they have on a child. He named these
structures the microsystem, mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem and the
chronosystem. Because the five systems are interrelated, the influence of one
system on a child’s development depends on its relationship with the others. The
microsystem is the first level of Bronfenbrenner's theory, and are the things that
have direct contact with the child in their immediate environment, such as parents,
siblings, teachers and school peers. The mesosystem encompasses the interactions
between the child’s microsystems, such as the interactions between the child’s
parents and teachers, or between school peers and siblings. The exosystem is a
component of the ecological systems theory developed by Urie Bronfenbrenner in
the 1970s. It incorporates other formal and informal social structures, which do not
themselves contain the child, but indirectly influence them as they affect one of the
microsystems. The fifth and final level of Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory
is known as the chronosystem. This system consists of all the environmental
changes that occur over the lifetime which influence development, including major
life transitions, and historical events.
Bronfenbrenner’s theory is useful when it comes to the development of
immigrant children. A limitation of the Ecological Systems Theory is that there is
limited research examining the mesosystems; mainly the interactions between
neighborhoods and the family of the child (Leventhal & Brooks-Gunn, 2000).
Therefore, it is unclear the extent to which these systems can shape child
development. For instance, it is not true to say that all people who grow up in
poverty-striken areas of the world will develop negatively. Similarly, if a child’s
teachers and parents do not get along, some children may not experience any kind
of negative effect from this if it does not concern them. As a result, people need to
take care not to make broad assumptions about individuals using this theory.
COOLEY AND MEAD’S INTERSECTIONISM THEORY
Charles Horton Cooley, was a symbolic interactionist who taught at the
University of Michigan, believed that we are who we are because of, our perceptions
of how others view us, our perceptions of how others judge us, and our response to
how we think we are being judged. Others are like a mirror. We look into that mirror
and it reflects back to us who we are. In other words as we see our face, figure, and
dress in the glass, and are interested in them because they are ours, and pleased or
otherwise with them according as they do or do not answer to what we should like
them to be; so in imagination we perceive in another's mind some thought of our
appearance, manners, aims, deeds, character, friends, and so on, and are variously
affected by it.
George Herbert Mead, another symbolic interactionist who taught at the
University of Chicago, added that play is critical to the development of the self. He
believed that we learn to take on the roles of others in our play, and this is very
important as it helps us put ourselves in other shoes, to try to understand how
someone else feels and thinks and to anticipate how that person will act.
HOLDAWAY’S THEORY OF LITERACY DEVELOPMENT
Don Holdaway is the inventor of the Shared Book approach to education and
the author of The Foundations of Literacy. Most state curriculum materials, teacher
education courses, and in-service courses have embraced his concepts. His open-
mindedness and love for children and their liberty as learners struck interviewees.
After educating Maori and other Polynesian youngsters in inner-city schools, Don
Holdaway published The Foundations of Literacy. When it came to learning to read
and write, these youngsters with a culture distinct from that of the school were
frequently seen as failures. Traditional literacy education was punishing to them. He
emphasized the significance of family story-reading time. Holdaway studied the cycle
of behaviors typical of bedtime storybook sharing time and designed a teaching
technique that could be employed with a class of young children based on this and
his expertise of spoken language development. The "shared book experience" was
developed as a result. Holdaway and his New Zealand colleagues created a cycle of
teaching and learning activities to help youngsters build their reading skills over the
first few years of school. That cycle, particularly the daily input session with its
predictable structure, should be extremely recognizable to instructors who employ
shared book experiences on a regular basis.
Author William Holdaway is a pioneer in the field of "shared hook experience,"
which entails selecting and producing texts to be shared in a larger format. The
widespread adoption of the shared book strategy has resulted in a significant
increase in book publishing. His thoughts on the teacher's role in selecting high-
quality material are especially pertinent. The concepts lay the groundwork for the
transformation of education and the protection of children in a world of stress and
conflict.
VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
The continuous process of human recognition has been explained by different
schools of psychology. Among them, social constructivism emphasizes the
importance of social environment, culture, and social interaction with others, in this
process. This study aims to highlight the role of using effective techniques and
strategies that allow the possibility to study with the help and interaction with others
in the pre-school age. The knowledge and application of the scaffolding technique
within the Zone of Proximal Development helps accelerate the cognitive
development of the child, making the learning process more dynamic and the child
more active. The idea of dialog is very important, and every child should feel as an
integral part of social interaction. The efficient use of these techniques shows an
optimization of the child’s achievement. The process of transforming spontaneous
concepts into scientific ones, is facilitated, and accelerated. It is important for the
help to be offered in an individual way, when and where needed. Also, it is required
that the educators and teachers be trained for the successful use of these
psychological mechanisms.
According to Vygotsky, although the biological factors constitute the
necessary preconditions for the natural elementary processes to appear and
develop, the sociocultural factors are also important. The following questions need
to be addressed Does the curricula and philosophy on which it is based, offer the
chance to use the socio-cultural constructivism theory in preschool classes? Do
teachers know the advantages of this learning model? Are teachers capable to make
the necessary social adjustments in order to optimize the understanding and
possession of different concepts and behaviors by children? From the observations
made in several preschool educational institutions in our city Elbasan, it is observed
that not all teachers know the main concepts of this model. Even in cases when they
have the necessary knowledge about these concepts, they face difficulties in the
efficient practical use of the specific instruments which help children accelerate their
psycho-social development. It is necessary to know researches done about this
model, the results of the studies, and their application when practicing education.
Also important are the suggestions and necessary techniques which teachers and
educators need to know in order to use them efficiently.
III. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
CONCLUSION
Early literacy development may be hampered by poverty, difficulties with
hearing, speech and language, vision, and learning, among other factors. Without a
question, literacy and language development are important aspects of a child's entire
development. It encourages your child's capacity for expression, comprehension,
and communication of feelings. Additionally, it fosters your child's capacity for
thought and aids in their ability to form and sustain relationships.
Recommendations
Include reading and books in daily rituals, such as a child's bedtime routine.
Keep in mind that small children might not have the attention span necessary to sit
through lengthy novels; reading only a portion of a book is still beneficial. When
reading to children, use all verbal expression techniques, such as singing, talking
about the books' contents, and reading. Describe the child's life in relation to the
book's stories. As your baby gets older, read aloud while pointing out the words and
asking them questions while they read or allowing them tell stories will keep kids
interested in what they are reading.
IV. REFERENCES
CHOMSKY’S NATIVISM: A CRITICAL REVIEW
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1974). Developmental research, public policy, and the ecology
of childhood. Child development, 45(1), 1-5.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1977). Toward an experimental ecology of human development.
American psychologist, 32(7), 513.
Bronfenbrenner, U. (1995). Developmental ecology through space and time: A future
perspective.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Evans, G. W. (2000). Developmental science in the 21st
century: Emerging questions, theoretical models, research designs and empirical
findings. Social development, 9(1), 115-125.
Bronfenbrenner, U., & Ceci, S. J. (1994). Nature-nurture reconceptualised: A bio-
ecological model. Psychological Review, 10(4), 568–586.
References
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Tele Caster Follow. (n.d.). Chap. 5 theories of literacy development. Share and
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VYGOTSKY’S THEORY
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