Language Development 30-36 Months
My Favorite Developmental Stage
Language development 30-36 months: At this age your child's language
skills are growing crazy fast.
You may start
to watch what you say more often because...
...you never know what your child will repeat.
My favorite story about my daughter at this age...
One day Hollie and I were talking and she came up to me and said,
"Dad, they don't understand what they're doing."
Word for word. I kid you not. I laughed so hard.
Then I asked her who she was talking about and she replied, "I don't know."
Let's be honest. Kids say the best things. I don't even watch Comedy Central anymore. I don't need to with my daughter around.
Expressive Language / What the Child Says
- Spoken Vocabulary Size: about 546 words
- Names common objects
- Names familiar actions (kiss, hug, hold, tickle)
- Names familiar basic concepts (hot, cold, up,
down)
- Says "WHERE?"
- Asks "WHY?"
- Says "big", "little"
- Sentences are simple declarations or
descriptions of events. Child
can't tell a story/narrative yet (24-36 months)
- MLU (Mean Length of Utterance/Average Sentence
Length)
= 2.5 words
Uses These Grammar Parts/ Brown's Morphemes:
- "Plural -S, -IES" on the ends of words (24-33
months)
Examples"Shoes on feet."
"Kittiesrunning.
- "Irregular Past Tense" words
(when child knows that something happened in the past so they use the correct form of the word to show it) (25-26 months)
Examples: came, broke, sat, went, fell
Example:"Spoon in
cup."
Example:
"Ball on couch."
- "Possessive S" on the ends of words (26-40
months)
Example: "Mommy's shoes."
- "Uncontractible copula" (27-39 months)
Examples: "Here
it
is."
"There it
went."
- Articles "A" and "The" (28-46 months)
Examples: "I
see a
kitty."
"Throw the
ball."
- "Regular Past Tense -ed" (26-48 months)
Examples: "He
pushed
me."
"She walked
fast."
- "3rd Person Singular" (26-48 months)
Examples: "Mommy
jumps."
"He smiles
a lot."
- "Contractible copula" (29-49 months)
Examples: "That's mine."
"He's
big."
Receptive
Language / What The Child Understands
- Understands pronouns "mine", "yours"
- Responds to "big", "little"
- Understands action words: jump, kick, kiss,
throw, etc.
- Beginning
to follow 3-step directions
- Understands "WHY?" questions
- Understands gender: boy, girl
- Understands 3 word sentences, but context and
past experience
determine the meaning, don't understand word order yet
(responds by
doing the what was mentioned in the most familiar, probable location,
and in the most familiar, probable way, and just fills in the missing
information with their existing knowledge)
- Follows 2-step related directions
Examples:
"Go get your shoes and put them on."
"Get
your bear and give him a hug."
Emergent
Literacy Skills
- Looks at, listens to, and shows appreciation of
books
Phonological Awareness
- Awareness of rhyming emerges
Social/Play
- Uses toys functionally
- Seeks adults' help
- Initiates interactions using signs, symbols, or words
- Enters play groups with adult assistance
- Plays for at least 10 minutes
- Gives up a toy easily when they are done with it
- Attends during group activities
- Symbolic Play Level increases rapidly,
pretending improves
Level
3 (24-36 months) - Extends pretending to involve objects
of
action
or other people/dolls
Examples: Feeds
doll.
Pretends to sweep the
floor.
Moves
car/block and makes car sounds.
Level 4 (24-36
months) - Pretends to do actions, followed by doing
it
on others, and then by related actions
Examples: Combs own
air, then combs mom's hair.
Drinks from bottle, then feeds
the doll.
Kisses doll, puts it to bed,
puts blanket on.
Stirs in the pot, feeds doll,
and washes
dishes.
Level 5 (24-36
months) - Plans ahead what actions
to do and tells
you
with words or gestures
Example: Finds the
iron, sets it down, searches
for the cloth,
tossing
aside several objects. When
cloth is found, irons it.
Picks up the bottle, says "baby", then feeds the doll and covers it with a cloth.
Expressive Language / What The Child Says
Uses These
Grammar Parts/ Brown's Morphemes:
- "Possessive S" on the ends of words
(26-40 months)
Example:
"Mommy's shoes."
- "Uncontractible copula" (27-39 months)
Examples: "Here it is."
"There it
went."
- Articles "A" and "The" (28-46
months)
Examples: "I see a kitty."
"Throw the
ball."
- "Regular Past Tense -ed" (26-48 months)
Examples: "He
pushed
me."
"She walked
fast."
- "3rd Person Singular" (26-48 months)
Examples: "Mommy
jumps."
"He smiles
a lot."
- "Contractible copula" (29-49 months)
Examples: "That's mine."
"He's
big."
- “Irregular 3rd person” (28-50 months)
Examples: does, has
- “Contractible auxillary” (30-50 months)
Examples: “Daddys
drinking juice.”
“Joey's
my best friend.”
Sentences
Become More Complex With These Forms
- gonna, havta, let's, let me
- to + verb = want to jump
- like to play
- and, but, or
- know, wonder, think, pretend, hope,
show, forget
Receptive Language / What The Child Understands
- Prepositions: beside, in,
in-front-of, next-to, on,
over, out, under
- Understands hard/soft and hot/cold
- Answers yes/no questions correctly
- Answers basic "who", "what", "where", "whose", and "why" questions
- Understands basic color words
- Understands basic kinship terms (aunt/uncle, grandma/grandpa, brother/sister)
- Understands basic shapes (circle, square, triangle)
- Follows 2-step unrelated directions, in order (ability to follow more complex directions increases rapidly over the
next year)
Example: Go get the ball
and knock on the door.
- Understands difference between single and
plural words
Examples:
You say, "Get the cup," and they get one cup.
You say, "Get the cups"
and they
get all of the cups.
- Understands "Same/Different"
Example: You say,
"Get the socks that are
different," and they
will
choose the socks that don't match.
Example:
You say, "Get the crayon that is not red,"
and they
choose
a crayon of a different color.
Example:
You say, "Get his shoes," and they will choose
the
boy
shoes.
- Answer "what" questions that require inference (using
facts they already know or see to make their
"best guess")
Example: You
ask, "What do you think happened to that boy's
knee?"
while looking at a
picture of a boy with a hurt knee standing next to a bike.
Child answers,
"He fell off his bike."
- Knows the functions of objects and can answer
questions about the use of objects
Example:
Ask "What do we do with scissors?"
They
answer, "cut..."
Examples:
Puts all the "big" toys here and "small" toys there.
Divides clean laundry in to "Daddy's, Mommy's, and Mine"
Narrative Development
- Stories are mainly descriptions or they explain
in order (sequence)
how something happened. They label and describe events around a
character/person but there is no plot.
Example:
and then... and then... and then... and then...
Phonological
Awareness
- Rhyming increases
- Alliteration begins (aware of
words beginning
with the same letter)
Examples: "Mommy made magic
marshmallows"
"Daring daddy dove deep"
- Segmentation, blending, and manipulating of
words and syllables begins
Examples: Put the
words "butter" and "fly" together and you
get..."butterfly"
Take "room" off of "bedroom" and you get... "bed"
Change "cat" to a new word by putting "p" in the front and it
becomes... "pat"
Take the "t" off the end of "cat" and you have... "ca"
Put "s" on the end of "cat" and you have... "cats"
- Letter sounds and written
letter/symbol awareness begins
(grapheme/phoneme awareness)
Example:
"S" is the name of the letter, it makes the "ssssss"
sound, and it looks like this...S.
Emergent Literacy Skills
- Looks at, listens to, and shows appreciation of
books
- Begins to develop an understanding of the following:
Print Functions - entertainment, self-expression, obtaining
information,
carrying out daily affairs, communicating messages, problem solving
Print
Forms and Conventions - letter names/sounds,
linear
arrangement
of
letters, words separated by spaces, book handling skills (right-side-up
or up-side-down, front/back), punctuation, difference between print and
pictures, differences between letter, sound, word, and sentences
Structure of books and
stories - cover, title, beginning, middle, end,
problem
and what is
going to happen
Social/Play
- Plays with 2 or 3 children at a time
- Seeks out a consistent friend and plays with them
- Responds to peers requests
- Participates during group activities with an adult leader
- Gives and takes turns with other children
- Gets another child's attention before commenting to them
- Encourages or praises peers
- Accepts reasonable compromise from adults
- Uses toys to represent different things
Example: Pretends a small
square block is a cell phone, holds
it
to their ear, talks on it, and puts it back in pocket or purse
- Makes comments related to play theme
Examples:
"This soup is hot!" (while pretending to stir
soup)
"Quiet! Baby is sleeping." (to partner
while rocking baby)
Examples:
"Get me the blanket."
"Come upstairs."
"Put the truck in here."
- Makes requests of others in more ways (Can
you…?, Would you…?) and direct requests begin to be replaced by
indirect requests
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