How do children acquire language? What does it have to do with reading?

The first article on wiki, gave a nice understanding of various theories in regards to how we aquire language. Something that I never really thought about was how when infants make noises, that is
One theory that is mentioned is Social-interactionists, that adults have a major impact on a child's langugage. Children are always listening to what adults are saying. Children imitate what the adults and other children are doing around them. One of the major example is when the person who was obeserving class on Wed (sorry forgot her name) mentioned that her daughter is always saying "actually". The daughter may not truly know what that word means but she does use it in appropriate contexts.

2nd Article: Learning Languages

I found this article interesting and something I could somewhat relate to. My sister and brother-in-law recently moved to the Netherlands, because he is in the US Army and works for NATO. They will most likely be there for three years and hoped to learn the language while over there. Before my sister moved over there she thought she should start researching the language and maybe try to learn some key words. Well they have been there for maybe a year and they have finally learned some of those key words. They try to speak Dutch to the natives and they always reply in English. When they go over to Germany again they try to speak a little German and everyone replies in English. It is interesting that the natives must know that they speak English and it is probably easier to respond in English.
This article explains how learning other languages can be challenging. Some important things to consider.
1. It doesn't always work out that you can look up a word in the dictionary and have it translate into the meaning that you mean.
2. Verb tenses are just difficult
3. Polite forms of a language, you never know what form to use when talking to people you don't ever want to offend somebody.

The third article:Mama teached me talk
Some key notes from this article for me in regards to how children acquire language. We learn our native language from our parents we hear what they say and try to copy them. Children are always repeating adults..or try to repeat what adults say. The article suggests that there is a critical period between the ages of 2 and 6 that a child learns whatever language they here. They provided examples of when two children were not exposed to any language and they never fulling learned to speak.


The second question that we have to answer here is: What might this have to do with reading? Well language I believe can be spoken or written. Children learn to speak before they can read or write. Children learn the basics of learning to speak at home between the critical period of ages 2-7. When they enter school they learn the other ways to communicate through written language. While children leanr to read they are also expanding on their language.