ABSTRACT
Ask someone what they think of as ‘language development’ and vocabulary is likely to be one of the first things they mention. When I ask new students – or children – why we learn to read, frequently the first reason either group give is ‘to learn new words’ (from the children) or ‘to increase our vocabulary’ (might be the way the students put it). When I look at the aims listed in the language policies of some schools, I often see the same priority. Here is a typical policy:
As language is so important when working with young children our aims are to:
These are all worthwhile language aims, but I would like to turn them round a bit and to combine the elements in different ways.1 The sixth point holds the key to it all.
