The process a child undergoes to learn to speak, read, and write is interesting to consider in light of how oral and written language have evolved throughout history. Our little kids will master the basics of written language in three or so years. Yet it took tens of thousands of years for humans to create a written language. Then, it took another 5,000 years of human history to develop a written language that was both easy to read and accessible to the average student/citizen. Below, I have outlined a brief history of language and provided suggestions on how parents can support their child’s literacy skills.
~
Long before the first written language, around 3,000 BC, humans must have been developing an oral language. They needed language to communicate about food, shelter, stories from the past, and ideas for obtaining food, among other things. No one knows this for certain because it wasn’t recorded, but it makes sense that oral languages existed long before written language.
Examples of activities that can be fostered to support oral language development include talking as much as possible with family and friends, engaging in music, reading, and asking reading comprehension questions during stories.
~
One of the first records of a written language is from Sumeria (modern-day Iraq). Sumeria was a trade crossroads between Asia and the Mediterranean, situated between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. To facilitate trade, the Sumerians developed an early writing system using pictograms on clay tablets. Soon after, pictogram writing developed in Egypt and China. Forming a written language was significant because it allowed people to communicate with others over time and at a distance. To be literate, though, one had to memorize hundreds or thousands of pictures, and therefore, it was inaccessible to the average person. Pictograms changed into ideograms, but something new was needed.
Helping children understand that written language is oral language encoded: drawing and painting, exposure to print in books and the environment, and writing down a child’s stories while the child watches.
~
Later, the Phoenicians, on the eastern Mediterranean shore, developed the first phonic alphabet. To become literate, one only needed to learn twenty-two written letters and their corresponding sounds to decode words. Due to the Phoenicians’ geographic location and their maritime trade economy, the concept of the alphabet spread to places such as Greece and Rome. The Greeks added vowels.
Examples of activities that can help a child learn the alphabet include playing with the letters in the child’s name, using a Montessori movable alphabet or magnetic letters, using sandpaper letters, skywriting letters, and finding letters while reading to the child.
~
Words still had no spaces between them, and the writing went left to right and then back right to left like an ox plowing a field. It wasn’t till Charlemagne that spaces were added. Examples of how to teach spaces between words and that print goes left to right: point out spaces between words and that words go left to right while reading or while writing down your child’s stories.
~
Lower-case letters had not been invented yet, perhaps because the writing surface of stone and hard clay made for a more linear letter form in places such as Egypt. However, by the 8th century AD, the use of wax made it easier to create curvilinear letter figures. Problems with standardizing letters still arose. As each monk transcribed texts and added their own creative flair, the letters would begin to change their shape to the point that an “a” in 800 AD might look very different from an “a” in 1200 AD. This changed with the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. Our letters today bear a striking resemblance to those used during the time of the first printing press. Examples of how to teach letter writing: Since there are many components to writing, this skill is broken down into subsets. Pencil grip is developed by holding the knobs on cylinder blocks or holding small pieces of chalk. Proper application of pressure is learned through activities such as table washing, chalkboard writing, and coloring. Letter shapes are formed with gross arm movements, starting with sandpaper letters. General hand strength and dexterity are developed through activities such as working with playdough and clay, finger painting, and sewing.
~
It was very complicated for early people to create a written system and then refine it. Clearly, putting spaces between words, having letters correspond to one sound as opposed to a whole word, reading from left to right, etc., aren’t easily thought of or mastered by the human brain. We must recognize, as educators and parents, the inherent difficulties of reading and writing, and then strive to make these tasks as easy as possible.
REFERENCE
Montessori, M. The Fourth Great Lesson: Story of Writing.
