ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a broad spectrum to the study of language development and it will provide people with an understanding of how children acquire their first and second languages. It explores the importance of literacy development, emergent literacy, and different methods for teaching young children reading. Behavioral theorists believe that actions are shaped by responses to other individuals’ performances so that behaviors that are reinforced become reinforced, and behaviors that are punished become inhibited. A strong advocate of the nativist theory is Noam Chomsky (1965), who believed that children are “prewired” for language, and that language is a process of normal human development. The interactionist contemplates certain functions of language to be a combination of maturational and genetically determined. In other words, there is an interaction between the child’s innate language abilities and the child’s environment in order for language development and reasoning to occur.
