Communication and Language Development
Communication and language development has many elements in this area: The 4 main elements are
- Listening and Understanding
- Speaking
- Reading
- Writing
When children come into preschool it is important for teachers to focus on the first 2 elements before moving on to reading and writing. Focusing on developing readiness will ensure successful reading and writing development later.
Listening, Understanding and Speaking
- Listens to adults and sometimes to peers in a group conversation
- Listens intently and recalls stories
- Anticipates what comes next in familiar stories
- Can shift focus from first listening and then doing
- Can follow more than one instruction e.g. Go bring a pen and then write your name.
- Understands the use of tools e.g. pen to write, scissors to cut, brush to paint etc.
- Shows understanding of prepositions or positional language e.g. under, over, behind, in front of etc.
- Beginning to understand “why” and “how” questions
- Speaks more complex statements by using “and”, “because” etc.
- Speaks about an incident that has happened at home
- Can talk/predict about “what will happen next” in a story
- Asks questions using “who”, “where”, “what”, “why”
- Uses simple tenses e.g. “I play”, “I played”
- Sings some rhymes and songs recalling the correct words
- Uses more vocabulary during pretend play/ role play
- Uses objects as something else and uses self-talk during the play e.g. takes a wooden block and pretends it is a phone and pretend talks to someone
Reading and Writing
- Listens to and sings some favourite songs remembering the right words
- Joins in during circle time to sing and dance, listen to stories with one on one and with all the children
- Tries to retell a story in order of sequence
- Makes suggestions and guesses how the story might end
- Identifies the main characters in the story
- Handles and looks at books with interest
- Holds book correctly and turns pages
- Attempts to describe the illustrations in the book
- Recognizes familiar sign boards like “stop, exit” and recognizes own name
- Knows that print conveys meaning and script is read from left to right and top to bottom
- Scribbles and has something to say about the scribbles
- Makes marks and has meaning to those marks
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