Child Language Acquisition - Reading and Writing - A Level Unit

A 10 lesson unit comprising a 70 slide PowerPoint and 10 different worksheets exploring the topic of child language acquisition (reading and writing) and a summary terminology and theory sheet. The first 2 lessons are about reading and the final 8 are about writing. This unit can be used for any exam board.

Each lesson includes a starting discussion prompt which acts as a learning objective, detailed notes on the theories and terminology listed below, a worksheet containing examples of writing or a transcript (or revision cards for lesson 10), and a homework task. The following theories and terminology are covered:

• Early literacy – Shirley Brice Heath (1983)
• Stages of Reading Development – Jeanne Chall (1983)
• Features of reading schemes
• Language Acquisition Support System – Jerome Bruner (1983)
• Synthetic phonics
• Stages of writing development – Barry Kroll (1981)
• Emergent writing
• Stages of writing development – Kathy Barclay (1996)
• Emergent literacy – Marie Clay (1975)
• Initial literacy – Yetta Goodman (1985)
• Ascender/descender graphemes, cursive handwriting and different types of join
• The impact of touchscreen technology on children’s writing – Dunn and Sweeney (2018)
• Homophones, graphemes and digraphs
• Stages of spelling - Bear, Invernizzi, Templeton & Johnston (2004); Bear & Templeton (1998); Gentry (1977; 1982)
• Categories of spelling errors
• Functions of punctuation – David Crystal (1995)
• Learning About Punctuation – Nick Hall and Susan Robinson (1996)
• Playful punctuation – Andrew Burrell and Roger Beard (2022)
• Genre theory in children’s writing – J.R. Martin and Jean Rothery (1981)
• How genre is linked to schoolwork – Frances Christie (1987)
• Modes of children’s writing – James Britton (1982)
• Chronology in texts – Katherine Perera (1984)

The final lesson is a consolidation activity complete with guided revision cards. Alternatively, you could use an app such as Quizlet so that the students could produce digital revision resources.

Check out my other English Language resources:
Language and Gender
Language and Region
Language and Power and Occupation
Language and Global and World Englishes
Language Change
Language and Technology
Language and Ethnicity
Language and Social Groups
Language Discourses
Analysing Spoken Language
Child Language Acquisition - Speech