Academic Language

You will hear teachers say a lot about 'academic language'.  Academic language is just using the correct term for things.  For example, I was doing a training the other day and I was asked when did we stop teaching the diamond shape and start calling it a rhombus?  Well, the funny thing is is that there is no geometric shape called the diamond, it is and has been a rhombus.  The participant replied that rhombus is very confusing and hard for a child.  Actually research shows that children are capable of learning the correct terminology.  Children have to learn the term diamond, so let's let them learn the term rhombus.  

It is particularly important when reading books to young children.  As parents, we typically call everything we read a story.  But everything we read is not a story.  A story has literary elements that make it a story.   A story has characters, a setting and a problem and solution.

A book giving us information about bears is not a story.  It doesn't have characters, a setting, a plot, it has information.  It is an nonfiction or expository or informational text.

Now, while it would be wonderful as we read to refer to each type of text correctly, it would be a start to only call legitimate stories, a story and other books nonfiction.   When it's time to read, just say, let's read a book.  As your child grows, you can start asking why do you think the author wrote this book? Author's typically write stories to entertain us.   They write nonfiction or informational books to inform us or to teach us something.

Studies done on children who are successful in school indicate that it's the academic language that sets children apart.  So if we are going to talk to children anyway, let's use the language that will help them later in school.  If they can learn the names of dinosaurs and Power Rangers, they can learn the terms rhombus and informational books.