A study of the language development of five year old children attending the Chilcotin Indian Day School and the Redstone Indian Day School
Date
1982
Authors
Hosgood, Kathleen Marie
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Abstract
The purpose of the study was to determine whether fluency in the Chilcotin Native language had a relationship to the acquisition of the English language in the early childhood kindergarten children of Chilcotin Indian Day School on the Anaham Reserve, and Redstone Indian Day School on the Redstone Reserve.
Thirteen kindergarten children (nine female and four male) were selected from the Chilcotin Indian Day School kindergarten to take part in the study and nine kindergarten children (four female and five male) were selected from Redstone Indian Day School kindergarten to take part in the study (September 1981 - June 1982).
The children participated in the kindergarten programme offered by the two schools chosen as sites for the study. They also participated in the Chilcotin Language programme which was a part of the kindergarten curriculum at both schools. Informal periodic visits of observation were made to both schools, by the investigator, when the kindergarten programme and the children's progress in it was discussed with the classroom teacher.
In the fall term, 1981, and in the spring term, 1982, the children selected at both schools were tested with the Peabody Picture. Vocabulary Test (P.P.V.T.) and the Chilcotin Auditory Comprehension Test (C.A.C.T.). The former was administered by the investigator, the latter was administered by two Chilcotin speaking teacher aides. The test results were analyzed through covariance. The kindergarten children at both schools made significant gains in their acquisition of English as measured by the English measure of the C.A.C.T. There was a significant increase in the vocabulary scores for Form A and Form B of the P.P.V.T for children from the Chilcotin Indian Day School and for Form A for Redstone Indian Day School. The kindergarten children at one school made gains in their acquisition of Chilcotin.
The results of this study would seem to invite further research with other populations and larger samples. The results would also seem to indicate that further research is needed to refine and expand the instrumentation used to assess the language ability of young Native children.