A Study On The Sentence Level Of 3-6 Years Old Children

Early childhood is the critical period of the first language development, not only for the outbreak of the vocabulary, but for the development of the sentence. Language as the tool of communication and thought, involves many aspects of language ability, and the sentence development is the core of language. Researching the preschool age characteristics of sentence level is very valuable,however, the published researches and reports doesn’t mention the testing tools of preschool sentence level.Based on the relevant literature,three dimensions, including correctness of expression and comprehension, richness and vividness, are chosen as the criteria for the sentence level evaluation.90 3-6 years old kids are selected and tested respectively and a series of experiments are launched and conducted to investigate their sentence level.Firstly,sentence repetition and sentence comprehension test are employed to investigate correctness of expression and comprehension respectively.Secondly,modifier extension and metaphor extension test are employed to investigate richness and vividness of sentences respectively. Using the SPSS to analysis 3-6 years old kids’sentence level.Draw the following conclusions:(1)Sentence level is significant difference between the participants of three age groups which mainly is reflected on three dimensions of correctness,richness and vividness.(2) Sentence correctness is significant differences between the three groups of participants which is reflected on two aspects of expression and comprehension.Sentence length and sentence structure’s complexity affect the performance of sentence-repeating test. The sentence-repeating errors reveal obvious age characteristics. Participants of the lower age group are more likely to go wrong when their repeat sentences and tend to omit sentences’ modifiers to keep sentence structure accurate. Participants give priority to substitute sentence constituents to keep sentence meaning integrated. Participants of three age groups perform differently in different sentence pattern.(3) Sentence richness reveals obvious age characteristics which is reflected onquantity rather than variety.Participants tend to not only use "general-all-purpose"word (GAP) but use creative words as modifiers.(4)Sentence vividness reveals obvious age characteristics.Participants of the lower age group are significant less than the older age group in mastering metaphors and similarities. Participants tend to choose shape, color, dynamic state successively as similarities.Early language education should attach importance to both the true and the beautiful of sentences,so that the structure can be correct and semanteme can be rich and vivid.In the education practice, education workers and parents can speak sentences of different length and complexity for kids of different age.Their can show different sentence pattern of different difficulty levels for kids of different age,and enrich kid’s life experiences, deepen kid’s understanding.