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Language Milestone |
What it means |
Links to Literacy |
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Retells personal experiences Retells personal experiences in a more organised manner with practice |
Four year olds with normal communication skills are able to retell their
experiences, giving the main details, but often the sequence will be mixed
up, such as telling about the most exciting or personally relevant bits
first. As 4 year olds their skills will be quite basic, but great improvements will occur once they have been in school a while and have practiced the skill daily in 'morning talks' or 'news'; or when the are sharing their happenings with their friends. Expect your 5 or 6 year olds to go into more specific detail, to be more fluent, and to get everything in the correct sequence. |
Retelling personal experiences fluently is a sign of excellent language
development.
Young learners with advanced language skills are advantaged in learning to
think, read and write.
When retelling
children need to organise their thoughts
beforehand and hold that sequence throughout their talk. This highly
organised thinking builds essential skills for writing and reading tasks
too. Writers rely upon their language structures and vocabulary to form the basis of their work. Sentences are rehearsed in the head before writing; similar ideas are grouped into paragraphs; and main ideas are sequenced into stories.
Readers recognise and are comfortable with sentences which match their ways of
speaking. This is evident in the reader who reads, Children with advanced vocabularies and grammar have less trouble reading challenging texts because they recognise and understand its language structures, and can follow and recall the sequence of events more easily.
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