PRESCHOOLERS DEVELOPING MORPHOSYNTACTIC SKILLS Power Point Outline I

PRESCHOOLERS’ DEVELOPING MORPHOSYNTACTIC SKILLS

Power Point Outline** • I. Mastering Grammatical Morphemes • II. Developing Syntactic Elements • III. Basic Sentence Structure

I. MASTERING GRAMMATICAL MORPHEMES** • Around 18 mos. of age, when children start putting two words together, we see grammatical morphemes emerge • For the test, please know Table 9. 1 on page 280

Morpheme Age of Mastery

To assess children’s morphosyntactic skills:

Words vs. morphemes** • We wanted to eat cookies. • 5 words • 7 morphemes • The PRAXIS always asks you to count the # of morphemes in an utterance

How many morphemes? ** • The three boys wanted five candies. • We played all day with my friend’s toys. • He’s going to cook eggs and bacon.

Count the morphemes in Mark Mc. Kibbin’s utterances: ** • (2. 5 yrs old) “I need to get my shoes and socks on because the stones will hurt my feet. ” • (3 yrs old) “I will give my old pillow to the poor children so they can sleep better. ” • (3 yrs. old) “Madame Blueberry was sad because they didn’t have happy hearts at the Stuffmart. ”

II. DEVELOPING SYNTACTIC ELEMENTS** • A. Basic Sentence Constituents • 1. Phrase—a group of words that is structurally related • “tall man” “pretty lady” • “orange carrot” “fast horse”

2. Clause

3. Sentence

4. Noun phrase

5. Verb phrase

• **The little red hen • NP • The students • NP was eating corn. VP are taking notes. VP The leaves NP were falling down. VP The baby NP was laughing at the dog. VP

Youtube • Weird Al Yankovich grammar

B. Noun Phrase Elements** • 1. Determiners –precede and modify nouns • Demonstratives (this, that, these, those) • Ordinals (first, second, third) • Adjectives (blue, old, fuzzy, cool) • Possessives (my, his)

• 2. Pronouns— a group of forms** that can replace nouns or entire noun phrases • I, he, she, we, you, it, they (and variations of those) • Common errors: me/I, him/he, her/she, them/they • 3. Noun suffixes • comparatives, superlatives, derivationals; preschoolers begin to use these accurately between 3 -5 years of age

• Comparatives • Superlatives

The derivational noun suffix – er** • Changes a verb into a noun that names the person who engages in that action • Teacher, painter, singer, runner, farmer, plumber

C. Verb Phrase Elements

Copula verbs– to be verbs that serve syntactically as the main verbs in sentences

More examples of copula verbs: ** • He is a boy scout. • They were in their car. • I am happy.

• State verbs —express** static or unchanging condition. (The building stands next to the tree. ) • Process verbs —internal activity or gradual changes in people or things (thinking, hearing, stressing, growing, digesting, learning)

By 5 years of age…** • Children have mastered most verb forms

Youtube examples… • 8 year old with mixed expressive language disorder

III. BASIC SENTENCE STRUCTURE (review) • A. Types of Sentences • 1

3. Passive

4. Negative

B. Complex and Compound Sentences** • Independent or main clause—can stand alone • Dependent or subordinate clause—cannot stand alone

• 1. Complex sentence: Has indep. clause and dependent clause** • We will go to the party if it is not raining. • (main/indep. clause) (subordinate/dep. clause) I talked to the boy (main/indep. clause) who has red hair. (subordinate/dep.

• 2. **Compound sentence: 2 independent clauses are linked together by a conjunction • We ate cookies and they were good. • (main/indep. clause) • John liked her but she didn’t like him. • (main/indep. clause)

Coordinating conjunctions:

Examples of sentences using coordinating conjunctions in compound sentences: ** • I wanted to get an A on the test, so I studied hard. • We could eat popcorn or we could have Doritos. • She wanted to go shopping, but she didn’t have any money.

** • Rescorla, L. , & Turner, H. L. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, 58, 434 -444. • This study looked at late talkers (at age 2) in comparison to typically-developing children • Late talkers usually understand what they hear, but they are late in developing expressive language

The study found:

Hammer et al Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research

Thus…** • Early intervention should occur as young as possible

Power Point Outline** • I. Mastering Grammatical Morphemes • II. Developing Syntactic Elements • III. Basic Sentence Structure