Rethinking How Our Kids Learn New Words
AdventureDad | February 6We all know that kids learn stuff with amazing speed but often we have no idea how it actually happens. This is especially true with languages, we’re supposed to talk to our children and they automatically learn as they grow older. But how do they learn?
It has been assumed that children learn one word at the time, that’s often how we approach teaching. But new research out of Indiana University suggests children might instead be able to learn large groups of words by using “data mining”.
Data mining is a fancy word for looking at large of amounts of data and try to make some sense out of it. I don’t think this is very surprising, children have amazing talent to pick up on new things.
Yu and Smith say it’s possible that the more words tots hear, and the more information available for any individual word, the better their brains can begin simultaneously ruling out and putting together word-object pairings, thus learning what’s what.
I unconsciously subject my kids to lots of data mining since they are being taught three languages at once (read more on progress here). The children hear three words instead of one for everything and seem to be making sense of it all without problems although we’ve occasionally seen some slight delays on verbal development.
It’s kind of frightening we know so little about teaching our kids languages. What has opened my eyes the most is how we fail to realize just how much and how fast children can learn. Three languages, like in our case, is a breeze. Studies have shown the little ones can learn six languages at once without barely trying. I think that shows there must be better way to learn than one word at the time.
What’s interesting about the seemingly boring study is how we can improve the way we teach our kids languages. Schools are hardly known for being able to change teaching methods quickly and with ease. If this research proves correct in the future, can schools adapt? Perhaps there is room for some serious school alternative sooner than we think?
And where can Bossy buy some of this Data Mining?
Nothing is likely to change as long as the gov’t is holding the purse strings. Remember, everything they do must ultimately comform to meet the lowest common denominator.
Here in Georgia though, our Charter schools are really picking up and although getting the up-front funding is tough, it’s worth it in the end.
But I’m fascinated about the three languages though. Wish I knew another to teach mine…(maybe we could learn together).
Being an educator, I have to agree there are better methods to teach our kids many things, but the power is in the state allowing these methods to be used. We already have many programs in effect that aren’t benefitting all our students, yet we are bogged down with mandates from things like “No Child Left Behind” that to some extent script and fill our day…not leaving much time for arts and language learning programs.
This was very interesting to read as we just received a card in the mail today from a local university, asking if we were interested in having our two year old participate in a child development study to see how children learn new words. I’m considering it just because it sounds interesting and it only takes 45 minutes.
Awesome that your little ones are learning three languages at once, I wish I spoke other languages and could teach them to my child.
Interesting post, AD. We’re raising Erik to be bi-lingual in our family (English & Cantonese). He’s 22 months old now and when he talks to me, he’ll speak in Cantonese and when he talks to Chhimi, he’ll speak in English. Basically knowing the boundaries.
With him also being a “DORA the Explorer” Fanatic, I’m also noticing him speaking in Spanish as well. Example: I’ll ask him to open the door in Cantonese and in the video, Dora and her friends will say “Abre” for open…Erik will do that as well. When the door closes, he’ll say “Cierra”. Very interesting to see!
His next 2 year old room will have a Spanish speaking teacher so he’ll get exposure to Spanish as well so we’re looking forward to that one. :)
I just need to figure out how to introduce written Chinese to Erik properly.