Improving Language Skills

By age 5, most children are ready to head off to kindergarten. The real question is whether or not they are ready to learn.

Jeanne Wilcox directs ASU’s Infant Child Research Program. She and her colleagues work with teachers to better develop language skills in at-risk preschoolers. The idea is to provide children with the language tools necessary for success in school.

Much of learning is based on language, says Wilcox, a professor of speech and hearing science. Beyond vocabulary, people need language to describe and understand the worlds around them.

Abstract thinking is a language-based skill. So are concepts such as understanding sequences and the ability to describe and explain events. Without adequate language skills, a child may have a difficult time making it through school.

Wilcox says that children most at risk are from lower income families, and those learning English as their second language.

Since 1997, Wilcox has focused on teachers working in 26 Head Start classrooms throughout the Phoenix metropolitan area. The goal is to devise methods that improve the language learning environment for children.

To date, the ASU researchers have developed a series of language-based activities that are integrated within typical preschool activities. They also created a teacher self-assessment help identify and monitor implementation of classroom language goals.

The next stage will be to put the program into action in more schools. —Gary Campbell