This post will finish the discussion of the component - Expressive Language. Remember I am taking my information from the Tennessee Early Learning Developmental Standards (TN-ELDS).
We will start with the learning expectation - Uses words and some conventions of speech to express thoughts and ideas. The first performance indicator is: Puts together two or more words to make simple sentences. As early childhood professionals we are often counting words to see when this age group will start putting two or more words together. When I first started childcare 15 years ago, children reached this milestone rather easily. I noticed with every passing year that more and more children struggled with first simple sentences and then words in general. For a long time I blamed lack of exposure to oral reading activities as the culprit, but as the years passed it took more and more intervention to pull these children up. Now, I am almost convinced that environmental chemicals in our food supply and overall environment may be causing slow detrimental harm to our children. I wish someone would start asking serious hard questions about the "science" that we have been fed as "safe." Our children seem to be in a fog. I have had enough chemistry and biology to understand that we may be altering the developmental trajectory of an entire generation.
The second performance indicator is: May use pronouns incorrectly. Nowadays, most teachers would be thrilled beyond belief to have the children use pronouns at all before the age of three. Many, many children barely talk at all before two and a half these days. If a child this age uses pronouns, count yourself blessed whether they use them correctly or not. If you see a child beginning to seriously lag at this age, you might want to begin not just speech intervention but maybe purging processed food from their diet. As childcare providers you also might want to look at removing as many chemicals from your environment as possible. Many more natural options for cleaning are available. It makes a bigger difference than you realize.
The third performance indicator is: Demonstrates through actions the understanding of action verbs like "run," "hit," "jump," "climb." Oral recognition of words develops faster than spoken speech. Therefore, more children conquer this one as opposed to the spoken speech indicators. However, I have still seen about 25% of children that lag in oral understanding of words. These are the children that truly seem to live in a constant fog until closer to their third birthday or beyond. If you find that your children seem to need extra practice in oral language, make sure you tell oral stories that involve lots of action words letting the children act out those actions.
The next performance indicator is: Begins to use social conventions such as "please" and "thank you." Instead of going off this time about lagging language development, I want to talk about the destruction that too much choice has done to manners. Basic social manners has all but faded from public discourse, and a great causation of that involves making children believe that they do not have to do anything that they do not want to do. It takes a certain amount of coercion to teach children that they need to say "please" and "thank you." A great deal of them will not do it without gentle coercion. In today's crazy politically correct society, adults are not allowed even gentle coercion anymore. This is ridiculous. Teach the children in your care to say "please" and "thank you" when they do begin to talk. Be a part of the solution to our mess and not another crazy addition to the mob that keeps telling us we cannot expect anything of children anymore. Everyone that comes into contact with your children will thank you.
The last performance indicator is: 50% of what the child is saying is understood by unfamiliar listeners; familiar listeners understand more. Wow! I have seen many four year olds that cannot be understood by strangers. If I see a two to two and a half year old nowadays that can be understood by strangers, I take note and ask questions. That is how rare it is. My own biological children were nearly speaking in paragraphs by the age of two and a half but that was nearly 30 years ago. So much has changed. Maybe someday we will get these metrics going in a good direction.
I hope you have enjoyed this post. Goodbye and God bless!!
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