Language Skills

Children between the ages of 8 and 10 love language. They use it constantly and delight in playing word games.

EXPRESSIVE LANGUAGE

(see full Glossary)

Children at this age can:

• include many details when describing their experiences;
• delight in playing “morphology” games, such as finding the opposites (tall is the opposite of short), synonyms (small and little mean the same thing) and homonyms (the word skip has two different meanings: to jump and to miss out)
• engage in complex and long conversations with adults and peers (if appropriate to do so, in their culture);
• give complex but clear directions;
• summarize a story;
• use the regular and irregular past tense correctly;
• use the regular and irregular plural correctly;
• use figurative speech quite frequently.

RECEPTIVE LANGUAGE

(see full Glossary)

Children at this age can:

• identify opposites (tall is the opposite of short), synonyms (small and little mean the same thing) and homonyms (the word skip has two different meanings: to jump and to miss out)
• understand figurative speech ;
• understand irony ;
• follow complex multi-step directions.

PRAGMATIC LANGUAGE

(see full Glossary)

Children at this age can:

• begin and end a conversation appropriately;
• understand non-verbal (nodding one’s head in agreement) and para-verbal cues (saying: hmmm);
• stay on topic during a conversation;
• keep comfortable distance between self and others (if appropriate to do so, in his or her culture);
• establish and maintain eye contact with others (if appropriate to do so, in his or her culture);
• modify language, to accommodate audience (e.g. will often use much simpler language when speaking to younger children and pets).

ARTICULATION

(see full Glossary)

Children at this age can:

• pronounce all sounds in their native language. A referral to a speech and language pathologist should be made if your child makes any sound substitutions in his or her speech.

see References