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From: J Scott Yaruss
Date: 09 Oct 2008
Time: 22:21:01 -0500
Remote Name: 96.235.31.54
Hi Quintin - Thanks for the kind words! Yes, I use analogies to talk about all sorts of complicated topics with the little ones. For example, you can talk about the process of planning and producing speech using the analogy of a train. Here's how it works: most current models of language planning and speech production postulate a series of related modules that each have a role to play. For example, using Levelt's (1989) blueprint as an example, we can identify the conceptulizer, formulator (for grammatical and phonetic encoding), articulator, audition, and speech comprehension systems. Each has a job to do -- one comes up with the idea, the next puts that idea into words and ultimately sound forms, the next produces it, the next hears it, and the next understands it. In order to communicate, you have to have all of these components working together. Well, all that's too complicated for kids to understand... but you can show the child how a train is composed of different cars, each of which has a job to do. There's the locomotive that provides the power, the coal car that provides the fuel, the dining car with the food, the passenger car with the people, the baggage car with the luggage, and the caboose. (I always make a joke that I don't really know what cabooses do, but they're cute so I always put one on my trains.) Okay, so each car has a job to do and in order for the train to go you need each car. When you put all those together, the train works and can go from place to place. The child certainly understands that. Then, I relate it back to speech to help him see how he has different tasks that are part of communicating. The kids get it almost as a "matter-of-fact" understanding. You can tell kids almost anything if you put it in language they can understand... It's part of the great fun (and challenge) of working with the preschoolers ;-) Hope this helps. S