The role of language games in infants’ language development during their early years is significant. This became apparent in the 1980s due to the research conducted by Bruner, who studied and was able to demonstrate and prove the social nature of language learning (Grazzani & Brockmeier, 2019). Since then, this field of knowledge has been researched extensively, with new studies confirming the importance of language games and building upon Bruner’s ideas. There are multiple ways language games help facilitate children’s language development. For instance, due to language games, children internalize the meaning of terms and develop phonological awareness of the words (Kjeldsen, 2019). There are numerous games that can be used to develop children’s conversational skills.
One of the examples of such games implies reading stories to children that have a lot of mental state terms in them. At the end of the stories, children are involved in conversational language games. Adults read specific sentences from the story that contain mental state terms, and children have to create associations with these words and use them to create new sentences. Such a game was used in an experimental study conducted in 2011, where it demonstrated a significant impact on children’s abilities to internalize the meanings of words (Grazzani & Brockmeier, 2019). Subsequently, children’s vocabulary has become richer and their speech more effective in terms of expressing emotions associated with the terms mentioned. While the game itself proved to be effective, it is vital for adults to play it correctly. This implies demonstrating the relevant actions, behavior, and emotions associated with the mental state terms from the story while reading it. Subsequently, such a course of action allows children to better understand the context and meaning, stimulates them, and sets an example for later conversations.
References
Grazzani, I., & Brockmeier, J. (2019). Language games and social cognition: Revisiting Bruner. Integrative Psychological & Behavioral Science, 53(4), 602–610.
Kjeldsen, A. (2019). The Nordic model: Language games promoting literacy skills – a 10-year phonological intervention follow-up from kindergarten to grade 9. Åbo Akademi University.