Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-qsmjn Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T05:40:05.777Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Input to interaction to instruction: three key shifts in the history of child language research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 July 2014

CATHERINE E. SNOW
CATHERINE E. SNOW*
Affiliation:
Harvard Graduate School of Education
*
*Address for correspondence: Catherine Snow, HGSE, Larsen Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA. e-mail: snowcat@gse.harvard.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In the early years of the Journal of Child Language, there was considerable disagreement about the role of language input or adult–child interaction in children's language acquisition. The view that quantity and quality of input to language-learning children is relevant to their language development has now become widely accepted as a principle guiding advice to parents and the design of early childhood education programs, even if it is not yet uncontested in the field of language development. The focus on variation in the language input to children acquires particular educational relevance when we consider variation in access to academic language – features of language particularly valued in school and related to success in reading and writing. Just as many children benefit from language environments that are intentionally designed to ensure adequate quantity and quality of input, even more probably need explicit instruction in the features of language that characterize its use for academic purposes

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Child Language , Volume 41 , Issue S1: Reflections: 40 years of JCL , July 2014 , pp. 117 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Catherine Snow was supported during the writing of this paper by the Institute of Education Sciences, US Department of Education, through Grant R305F100026 to the Strategic Education Research Partnership as part of the Reading for Understanding Research Initiative. The opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views of the Institute or the US Department of Education.

References

Austin, J. (1962). How to do things with words. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Beck, I. & McKeown, M. (2007). Increasing young low-income children's oral vocabulary repertoires through rich and focused instruction. Elementary School Journal 107, 251–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Biemiller, A. & Boote, C. (2006). An effective method for building meaning vocabulary in primary grades. Journal of Educational Psychology 98, 44–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, R. & Bellugi, U. (1964). Three processes in the child's acquisition of syntax. Harvard Educational Review 34, 133–51.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Camarata, S., Nelson, K. & Camarata, M. (1994). Comparison of conversational-recasting and imitative procedures for training grammatical structures in children with Specific Language Impairment. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 37, 1414–23.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Campbell, F. A. & Ramey, C. T. (1994). Effects of early intervention on intellectual and academic achievement: a follow-up study of children from low-income families. Child Development 65, 684–98.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Carter, A. (1975). The transformation of sensorimotor morphemes into words: a case study of the development of 'more’ and 'mine’. Journal of Child Language 2, 233–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coyne, M., McCoach, B., Loftus, S., Zipoli, R. & Kapp, S. (2009). Direct vocabulary instruction in kindergarten: teaching for breadth versus depth. Elementary School Journal 110, 1–18.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cross, T. (1977). Mothers’ speech adjustments: the contribution of selected child listener variables. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition, 151–88. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Hart, B. & Risley, T. (1995). Meaningful differences in the everyday experiences of young American children. Baltimore, MD: Brookes.Google Scholar
Hauser-Cram, P., Pierson, D., Klein Walker, D. & Tivnan, T. (1991). Early education in the public schools: lessons from a comprehensive birth to kindergarten program. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Henrichs, L. F. (2010). Academic language in early childhood interactions: a longitudinal study of 3- to 6-year-old Dutch monolingual children. (Doctoral dissertation) University of Amsterdam, Boxpress.nl.Google Scholar
Hoff, E. (2003). The specificity of environmental influence: socioeconomic status affects early vocabulary development via maternal speech. Child Development 74, 1368–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Huttenlocher, J., Vasilyeva, M., Cymerman, E. & Levine, S. (2002). Language input and child syntax. Cognitive Psychology 45, 337–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Hymes, D. H. (1972). On communicative competence. In Pride, J. B. & Holmes, J. (eds), Sociolinguistics: selected readings, 269–93. Harmondsworth: Penguin.Google Scholar
Kurland, B. F. & Snow, C. E. (1997). Longitudinal measurement of growth in definitional skill. Journal of Child Language 24, 603–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Leffel, K. & Suskind, D. (2013). Parent-directed approaches to enrich the early language environments of children living in poverty. Seminars in Speech and Language 34, 267–78.Google ScholarPubMed
Leseman, P., Scheele, A., Mayo, A. & Messer, M. (2007). Home literacy as a special language environment to prepare children for school. Zeitschrift fur Erziehungswissenschaft 10, 334–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieven, E., Pine, J. & Baldwin, G. (1997). Lexically-based learning and early grammatical development. Journal of Child Language 24, 187–219.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Litowitz, B. (1977). Learning to make definitions. Journal of Child Language 4, 289–304.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nelson, K. E., Carskaddon, G. & Bonvillian, J. (1973). Syntax acquisition: impact of experimental variation in adult verbal Interaction with the child. Child Development 44, 497–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ninio, A. & Snow, C. E. (1996). Pragmatic development. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Olds, D. L., Holmberg, J., Donelan-McCall, N., Luckey, D., Knudtson, M. & Robinson, J. (2014). Effects of home visits by paraprofessionals and by nurses on children: follow-up of a randomized trial at ages 6 and 9 years. JAMA Pediatrics 168, 114–21.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pan, B., Rowe, M., Singer, J. & Snow, C. (2005). Maternal correlates of growth in toddler vocabulary production in low-income families. Child Development 76(4), 763–82.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pine, J. & Lieven, E. (1997). Slot and frame patterns and the development of the determiner category. Applied Psycholinguistics 18, 123–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Remick, H. (1971). The maternal environment of language acquisition. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation) University of California, Davis.Google Scholar
Rowe, M. L. (2008). Child-directed speech: relation to socioeconomic status, knowledge of child development, and child vocabulary skill. Journal of Child Language 35, 185–205.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rowe, M. L. (2012). A longitudinal investigation of the role of quantity and quality of child-directed speech in vocabulary development. Child Development 83, 1762–74.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Rowe, M. L., Pan, B. A. & Ayoub, C. (2005). Predictors of variation in maternal talk to children: a longitudinal study of low-income families. Parenting: Science and Practice 5(3), 285–310.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rowe, M. L., Raudenbush, S. & Goldin-Meadow, S. (2012). The pace of vocabulary growth helps predict later vocabulary skill. Child Development 83, 508–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sanders, M. R. (1999). Triple P-Positive Parenting Program: towards an empirically validated multilevel parenting and family support strategy for the prevention of behavior and emotional problems in children. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 2, 71–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Schleppegrell, M. J. (2004). The language of schooling: a functional linguistics perspective. Mahwah, NJ: Erlbaum.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, J. (1969). Speech acts: an essay in the philosophy of language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Silverman, R. D. (2007). Vocabulary development of English-language and English-only learners in kindergarten. Elementary School Journal 107, 365–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1972). Mothers’ speech to children learning language. Child Development 43, 549–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1977). Mothers’ speech research: from input to interaction. In Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds), Talking to children: language input and acquisition, 31–49. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. (1990). The development of definitional skill. Journal of Child Language 17, 697–710.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, C. E. (2010). Academic language and the challenge of reading for learning. Science 328, 450–2.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Snow, C. E., Arlman-Rupp, A., Hassing, Y., Jobse, J., Joosten, J. & Vorster, J. (1976). Mothers’ speech in three social classes. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 31, 424–44.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E. & Ferguson, C. A. (eds) (1977). Talking to children: language input and acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Snow, C. E., Lawrence, J. & White, C. (2009). Generating knowledge of academic language among urban middle school students. Journal of Research on Educational Effectiveness 2, 325–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Snow, C. E. & Uccelli, P. (2008). The challenge of academic language. In Olson, D. & Torrance, N. (eds), The Cambridge handbook of literacy, 112–33. New York: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Theakston, A., Lieven, E. & Tomasello, M. (2003). The role of input in the acquisition of third person singular verbs in English. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research 46, 863–77.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Uccelli, P., Barr, C. D., Dobbs, C. L., Phillips Galloway, E., Meneses, A. & Sanchez, E. (2014). Core academic language skills (CALS): a proposed construct and a novel instrument to chart school-relevant language proficiency in pre-adolescent and adolescent learners. Applied Psycholinguistics online: CJO2014. doi:10.1017/S014271641400006X.Google Scholar
Uccelli, P., Meneses, A., Phillips Galloway, E. & Barr, C. (2012). To define nouns: an academic challenge that reveals later-language development in adolescent students. Paper presented at the Society for Text and Discourse Conference, Montreal, July.Google Scholar
Wasik, B., Ramey, C., Bryant, D. & Sparling, J. (1990). Longitudinal study of two early intervention projects: project CARE. Child Development 61, 1682–96.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed