Baby talk! Isn’t it
great?
Among the milestones we parents mark are the ways in which
our children learned words, and then strung them together into sentences. Parents record the first word a child says. Many parents even save some of the precious
pronunciations a child makes. We still
joke about our daughter saying CHIK-UMP for chipmunk. Somehow, it seemed like a suitable
renaming.
A few years ago, I entertained the thought of pursuing a doctoral
degree. We live near a campus of the
Penn State University, which offers a doctoral program in adult education. Now, while I didn’t actually enroll in classes, I
started to generate ideas for a possible dissertation topic. And I came up with one.
I have been fascinated with the way we teach children
language by reading or saying nursery rhymes to them. Many of these rhymes are silly and sometimes
nonsensical. But they do help teach
language by repetition, alliteration, rhyming.
So the topic I had in mind was to evaluate the correlation between
exposure to nursery rhymes and language acquisition. Of course, I did not get to a stage of
collecting data, so I don’t know if there is a statistically valid
correlation. It stands to reason that
the more culturally rich a child’s environs are when she is learning to speak,
the quicker her language skills will develop.
For now, my hypothesis about nursery rhymes playing a
critical part in language development will have to go unresearched, but maybe I
can do a mini-experiment. You can bet
that I plan to get our granddaughter some edition of Mother Goose Nursery
rhymes. And, that I will most certainly
read them aloud to her every chance I get.
Can’t wait to hear more baby talk.
9 comments:
Sounds like a fascinating idea! I'm sure you will enjoy your mini-experiment. We are enjoying lots of babbling at our house.
I remember when you were a baby teaching yu "This little piggy" etc. and when we came to your little toe, "This little piggy said wee wee wee all the way home" you reached down, took hold of your little toe and sais. "wee, wee, wee". Father "C"
We have that same book. :)
I think my kids all preferred Dr. Seuss.
How lucky you are to be a grandmother in these high-tech days. What fun to see each little milestone. We have that Mother Goose book too. In fact, we have four boxes of children's books stored away. Hope we will have a grandchild one day who will love them as much as our own children did.
It's a whole new lease on life with a baby in the picture. It will be interesting to watch the progress ... keep us in the loop.
When your child does not learn incidentally, and language has to be taught with repetition, things like this are invaluable. Glad with today's technology, you get to share in milestones like this even if you can't "be there." :c)
Could be. I think it would be difficult to research.
I remember this "subject" well with two sons... And I see your reading Flight Behavior. I did love that book. What a terrific writer...:)
I suspect that having an adult use the language in exciting and dramatic ways with a child is more important that the content of nursery stories.
In English we have such wonderful nursery rhymes I have tried to find out if other languages (cultures) have any and as many.
Another language interest of mine is school yard chants. This seems to be the last of an oral tradition in our society. Children seem to learn these without being taught. I wonder if the electronic toy era will see these disappear. I did find a French Canadian woman who has written about these in French.
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