Language research over the past two decades has revealed that language is not something children "acquire," but rather a system they build. A key factor in this linguistic construction is children's interaction with parents or other caregivers. The studies reveal further that children's repeated interactions with books and stories and…

Discusses the importance of providing opportunities for children to learn through talk with an adult and contains excerpts from transcripts of parent-child and teacher-student conversations. (DF)

Three recent studies have focused upon prereading children's concepts of written language, what they think words are, and how they understand the concept of a word. These explorations of young children's early attempts to understand and produce writing have important implications for the preschool and primary classroom. R. D. Morris found that…

Drawing from experiences in teaching kindergarten teachers in Saudi Arabia to conduct "sharing time" or "show and tell" sessions, discusses the activity's affective and cognitive value, indicating that teacher and peer feedback promotes language development and the growth of curiosity and inquisitiveness. Makes practical…