The best way to help children develop language skills

Education programs on television (TV) cannot help children learn words because they need an out-of-life dialogue for language development, a new study says. Children will choose words from adults when they talk, scientists think that learning from TV screens makes it difficult for children.

Researchers from the US have tried to teach new words to two-year-old children in three different ways.

Some children have face-to-face talks with adults, some children use video chat like Skype and the other kids watch a movie, including one who guides other children through the screen.

TV shows do not help children learn new words

The research results are published in Child Development Research magazine, children learn new words only when talking to adults face to face or via video chat.

They do not learn any new words through video tutorials because there is no interaction between children and instructors.

Children who learn from two realistic social interaction environments even use new words to describe their actions, said researchers at the University of Washington, Temple University and the University of Delaware.

Children need to have face-to-face conversations with adults to develop language

Research co-author Kathy Hirsh-Pasek of Temple University, Philadelphia, said words can be learned through the screen but only by two-way interaction and direct learning with real-life cases that result in a conclusion. best results.

She said: 'The study emphasizes the importance of reflective interaction in language learning. Interaction allows adults and young children to interact with each other in topics of conversation ".

Professor Hirsh-Pasek said that these findings serve as an important guide for language teaching for children.