ABSTRACT
Children’s ability to manipulate language is a measure of their ‘linguistic intelligence’ (to use a term coined by the psychologist Howard Gardner.) Gardner’s wellknown ‘multiple intelligences’ model of the mind provides powerful insights that can guide our classroom practice. Gardner asserts that we are born with a number of potentials or talents and that these are innate in us and hard-wired in the brain. Children’s ability to become more linguistically intelligent depends upon the richness of their language environment (at home and at school), and their preparedness to explore words and the effects of language in a playful way, driven by curiosity and a sense of adventure and fun.
