School-Age Language Development: Application of the Five Domains of Language across Four Modalities

Language in the school-age years is complex for two reasons. First, language abilities across all five domains (phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatics) continue to develop through the high school years. For example, although all speech sounds are achieved by 8 years old, children need to use phonological abilities to learn to read and spell. Likewise, although children have all sentence types by the time they are 8, how they comprehend and produce sentences for academic purposes continues to grow. Second, academic demands require language skills across four modalities—listening, speaking, reading, and writing—with an emphasis on the explicit teaching and development of the latter two skills. It is important to consider the relationships between spoken (listening, speaking) and written (reading, writing) forms of language during the school-age years. The purpose of this chapter is to extend foundational knowledge in language development and contextualize it for older children. To understand how language is applied into and through the school-age years, one must consider the context of language use. From birth to 5 years of age language development is contextualized to the home, parents, primary care providers, daycare centers, and preschools. This means that when children communicate with parents, primary care providers, and preschool School-Age Language Development: Application of the Five Domains of Language across Four Modalities