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In this episode
1.17听I'm specifically looking at what are some of the variables that impact on child language development, and particularly within a New Zealand context, to give us some up-to-date and relevant research for our own country.
1.51聽my research is looking at kindergarten teachers in New Zealand and what are their beliefs about language development and what are their practices?
3.11聽how many words a child has when they start school is actually directly related to how they might do at school four years later.
4.14听the best way to think of language is that it's a really cognitive process and it requires so many incredible skills, and again there's a whole science of learning to read. But one of those skills is you need to understand the words and the world around you.
5.15听children need all this beautiful wealth of language as a foundation for them in order to be able to go and learn to read, and to read well.
5.58聽traditionally, if you look at the Western lens of research, it has just taken one focus, and that tends to be the predominant Western lens. Whereas in New Zealand, we're so fortunate that we have a much wider perspective.
8.33聽teachers were seeing more and more children who were coming into kindergarten without the words behind them, not the vocabulary, and not the understanding of communication. So, that was really the motivating factor.
9.59聽it's just exciting doing something new, I guess, discovering new things and you know, the essence of science, we're wanting to find out understand the world around us.
10.50聽because it's one of those things that we tend to take for granted 鈥 "Oh yeah everyone talks, you know鈥 鈥 we don't really give it the mana that it deserves.
10.54听in an ideal world, that the world would get really excited about language and give it a lot of mana, therefore we'd be able to help grow language in our children and young people.
Catherine Sivertsen
Catherine is a Master鈥檚 student聽and Speech and Language Therapist, supporting children to develop speech and language. She is passionate about improving child language development as a prerequisite to literacy.
"In an ideal world, the world would get really excited about language and give it a lot of mana, and therefore we'd be able to help grow language in our children and young people."
Molly Magid
Molly Magid聽is an MSc student at UC. A recent graduate of Brown University, Molly is working on research in conservation genomics with Associate Professor Tammy Steeves from the School of Biological Sciences. Molly is passionate about finding ways to communicate science to the public in a clear, novel, and engaging ways. Most recently, Molly worked as the lead student producer on the podcast聽,听which answers listener's questions about sustainability using relevant science research.
