Strategies for Enhancing Language Development as a Necessary Foundation for Early Childhood Education

Abstract

This study investigates the strategies for enhancing language development as a factor and a necessary foundation for early childhood education. Survey research design was adopted in carrying out the research and a total of seventy-one teachers were randomly sampled for the study. Three research questions guided this study. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation. The study revealed that enhanced strategies for language development are crucial for the educational attainments of children in early childhood education. Factors such as inadequate number of specialist language teachers, lack of resources/materials, wrong models, among others constitute a barrier to the processes of enhancing the language development of children in early childhood education. The findings show that teachers have a significant role to play in the development of the linguistic competences of children in early childhood education. Among other things, they should plan a variety of activities in order to catch children’s interest and keep them eager to learn.  Based on the findings, it was recommended that government should match policies with action in order to address some of the challenges children face in language development at the early childhood level.

Keywords: Language, development, acquisition, foundation, early childhood, education