Dictionaries for Kids: Vegetables Names (meaning of words - early reader edition Book 2)

More recently, Dymphna Lonergan suggested that the word comes from Irish word bromaigh , the plural form of the word for a young horse, or colt. A fine grazing block, lightly timbered, and for which the lessee would expect to draw a thousand pounds for his goodwill, without a hoof upon it, by a singular species of transition is suddenly metamorphosed into a mass of scrub, only fit for a mob of 'Brumbies'.

The country's rotten with brumbies. A forlorn hope; no prospect whatever. One explanation for the origin of the term is that it comes from the name of the convict William Buckley, who escaped from Port Phillip in and lived for 32 years with Aboriginal people in southern Victoria.

A second explanation links the phrase to the Melbourne firm of Buckley and Nunn established in , suggesting that a pun developed on the 'Nunn' part of the firm's name with 'none' and that this gave rise to the formulation 'there are just two chances, Buckley's and none'. This second explanation appears to have arisen after the original phrase was established. For an earlier discussion about the origin of the term buckley's chance see the article 'Buckley's' in our Ozwords newsletter. In our sporting columns, in the Fitzroy team appears the name of Bracken.

It should have been Buckley. Olympus explains that he altered it because he didn't want the Fitzroy men to have 'Buckley's chance'. If I lose this job I've got Buckley's chance of getting another one.

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A pair of close-fitting male swimming briefs made of stretch fabric. The Australian term is probably a variation of the international English grape smugglers for such a garment. The term is a jocular allusion to the appearance of the garment. Budgie smugglers is first recorded in the late s. For a more detailed discussion of the word see our Word of the Month article from December Nothing stands between you and a continent made entirely of icebergs except the Southern Ocean.

That, and a thin pair of Speedos so figure-hugging you can see every goosebump - flimsy togs that are known not-all-that-affectionately by us Brown boys as budgie smugglers! A kind of fine powdery dirt or dust, often found in inland Australia. Roads or tracks covered with bulldust may be a hazard for livestock and vehicles, which can become bogged in it. It is probably called bulldust because it resembles the soil trampled by cattle in stockyards.

The word can also be used as a polite way of saying bullshit. Both senses of the word are first recorded in the s. Motoring across Lake Eyre This 'bull' dust might be about two feet deep, and cakes on the surface, so that it is hard to penetrate. Cleary Climate of Courage: When a stretch of loose bulldust appeared too daunting, Joe would gun the engine down and go at a speed that didn't give us time to bog down. He knew that the horse, trainer and rider were O. I told him that nothing would get within a 'bull's roar' of Agricolo to interfere with him, and such was the case.

Again, through no fault of the sometimes-too-helpful McGuire, no recent contestant has come within a bull's roar of winning a serious amount of cash. The term is often found in this phrasal form where it now has several meanings: These figurative senses of bung emerged in the late 19th century. He was importuned to desist, as his musical talent had 'gone bung' probably from over-indulgence in confectionery. Sydney boy Scott Reed was the name on every recruiter's list, but he has been taken to hospital with a bung ankle.

An amphibious monster supposed to inhabit inland waterways. Descriptions of it vary greatly. Some give it a frightful human head and an animal body. Many descriptions emphasise its threat to humans and its loud booming at night. It inhabits inland rivers, swamps, and billabongs. The word comes from the Aboriginal Wathaurong language of Victoria. Bunyip is first recorded in the s. For a more detailed discussion of this word see the article 'There's a Bunyip Close behind us and he's Treading on my Tail' in our Ozwords newsletter.

On the bone being shown to an intelligent black, he at once recognised it as belonging to the 'Bunyip', which he declared he had seen. Everyone knows bunyips live in the Wingecarribee Swamp, problem is, there are quite a few different theories about this elusive animal and it all seems to turn on how much grog visitors to the swamp have had before they hear the distinctive roar. Venture an attempt; give something a try. This is an Australian alteration of the standard English phrase give it a whirl. Give it a burl is first recorded in the early years of the 20th century.

Should be some fish out there I say. We'll give it a burl, eh? I've never been on a boat cruise. We wanted to give it a burl and see how it went. We'd do it again. What do you think this is, bush week? These senses of bush week go back to the early 20th century. The phrase originally implied the notion that people from the country are easily fooled by the more sophisticated city slickers.

The speaker resents being mistaken for a country bumpkin. I get smart alecks like you trying to put one over on me every minute of the day. What do you think this is? They had already been warned about the breastfeeding business Beat it, you two! The act or process of criticising the Australian Government and its bureaucracy. Canberra , the capital of Australia, has been used allusively to refer to the Australian Government and its bureaucracy since the s.

The term Canberra bashing emerged in the s, and is also applied in criticisms of the city itself. For a more detailed discussion of the term see our Word of the Month article from February Even Federal Liberal MPs from Tasmania feel that their electoral standing is increased by regular outbursts of 'Canberra bashing'. While Canberra bashing has always been a national sport, it is fair to say it has rarely, if ever, been played so artfully and with such dedication as in the past two to three years.

Politicians on both sides have shown a willingness to put the boot into a national capital. In a political context a decision made by a party leader etc. This term also takes the form captain's call. Captain's pick is derived from sporting contexts in which a team captain has the discretion to choose members of the team. The political sense emerged in Australian English in For a more detailed discussion of this term see our Word of the Month article from January Ms Peris, who as of yesterday was yet to join the Labor party, is set to become the first indigenous ALP representative in federal parliament with an assured top place on the NT Senate ticket in what Ms Gillard described as a 'captain's pick'.

What Abbott's stubbornness missed, however, was that it was the public and his own MPs more than the media or Labor who were disgusted by his intransigence in refusing to remove his captain's pick Speaker. To die; to break down; to fail.

Also spelt kark , and often taking the form cark it. The word is probably a figurative use of an earlier Australian sense of cark meaning 'the caw of a crow', which is imitative. Nelson Petrol, Bait, Ammo and Ice: The offside rule has carked it, and good on the refs. The resulting play is five stories from the morgue, monologues by people who have recently carked it and have 'woken up' in the morgue. A derogatory term for a person who espouses left-wing views but enjoys an affluent lifestyle. It is modelled on the originally British term, champagne socialist , which has a similar meaning.

The term chardonnay socialist appeared in the s, not long after the grape variety Chardonnay became very popular with Australian wine drinkers. I'm going to keep charting their perturbations.. Maybe if these rorts are dispensed with, instead of getting failed businessmen, unionists who couldn't get work elsewhere and lawyers who are nothing more than chardonnay socialists and see life as an MP a cosy way to feather their nests, we'll see people in Parliament who have a genuine wish to do something for this country.

A checkout operator at a supermarket. This term usually refers to female checkout operators hence chick , an informal word for a young woman , but with changes in the gender makeup of the supermarket workforce the term is occasionlly applied to males. Checkout chick is first recorded in the s. For a more detailed discussion of the term see our Word of the Month article from May The checkout chick is too busy taking money to tell you how to operate your cut-price, multi-purpose, plastic encased kitchen magician.

This gormless dude started arguing with the checkout chick and held up a line of about 30 people.

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A domestic fowl; a chicken. Chook is the common term for the live bird, although chook raffles , held in Australian clubs and pubs, have ready-to-cook chooks as prizes. The term has also been transferred to refer to other birds, and often in the form old chook it can refer to a woman. See our Word of the Month articles 'chook run' and 'chook lit' for further uses of chook. A man was found in the cow-shed of Government House Was he looking after the housemaid or the little chookies? We have chooks at our farm in Bena, an hour and a half out of town.

This expression recalls an earlier time when many Australians kept chooks domestic chickens in the backyard and the dunny was a separate outhouse. Maybe when Mr Keating has finished educating the judiciary, he might have a go at the politicians and bureaucrats, starting with arithmetic. Although I must say this is a very cunning, contrived piece of legislation, if that is what they set out to do.

May their chooks turn into emus and kick their dunnies down. Chunder possibly comes from a once-popular cartoon character, 'Chunder Loo of Akim Foo', drawn by Norman Lindsay for a series of boot polish advertisements in the early s. It is possible that 'Chunder Loo' became rhyming slang for spew. Chunder , however, is the only form to be recorded.

The earliest evidence is associated with Australian troops in action to the north of Australia during the Second World War. Shute A Town like Alice: The way these bloody Nips go on. Back at least 20 years - to a land where women glow and men chunder. Something that is largely illusory or exists in name only; a poor substitute or imitation. For a more detailed discussion of the word see our blog 'The evolution of a word - the case of Clayton's'.

So who's the press secretary working out of the NSW Parliament whose press-gallery nickname is Clayton.. Pung Growing up Asian in Australia: My bikini top is crammed so full of rubbery 'chicken fillets' I'd probably bounce if you threw me. These Clayton's breasts jiggle realistically when I jump up and down on the spot. In the pastoral industry an animal that has not been branded with a mark identifying the owner can easily be stolen or lost. The word is first recorded in the s. There are several transferred and figurative senses of cleanskin that evolved from the orgininal sense.

In the first decade of the 20th century cleanskin began to be used to describe 'an Aboriginal person who has not passed through an initiation rite'. From the s cleanskin was also used of 'a bottle of wine without a label that identifies the maker, sold at a price cheaper than comparable labelled bottles; the wine in such a bottle'. These are branded by the owners of such herds, who know all the while that they do not belong to them, on the assumption that they have the best right to these 'clean skins', and that, after all, they are more likely to be their property than that of anyone else.

Keenan The Horses too are Gone: In the rangelands an unbranded calf becomes a cleanskin and cleanskins belong to the first person capable of planting a brand on the rump. A friend, a companion. It is likely that these terms, as well as cobber , found their way into London slang especially from the Jewish population living in the East End , and from there, via British migrants, into Australian English. Cobber , now somewhat dated, is rarely used by young Australians. Our service was restored at about A small-scale farmer; in later use often applied to a substantial landowner or to the rural interest generally.

Cocky arose in the s and is an abbreviation of cockatoo farmer. This was then a disparaging term for small-scale farmers, probably because of their habit of using a small area of land for a short time and then moving on, in the perceived manner of cockatoos feeding. Removing the stereotypical image of farmers being whinging cockies is also important. A person sentenced in the British Isles to a term of penal servitude in an Australian Colony.

The foundations of European settlement in Australia are based on the transportation of tens of thousands of prisoners from the British Isles. While in America convict is still used to refer to a prisoner, in Australia it is now largely historical. For a further discussion of this word see our blog 'A long lost convict: The convicts on both sides are distributed in huts. Angas Description of the Barossa Range: No convicts are transported to this place, for South Australia is not a penal colony.

Originally a call used by an Aboriginal person to communicate with someone at a distance; later adopted by settlers and now widely used as a signal, especially in the bush; a name given to the call. The iconic call of the Australian bush comes from the Aboriginal Sydney language word gawi or guwi meaning 'come here'. Cooee is recorded from the early years of European settlement in Sydney. It is often found in the phrase within cooee meaning 'within earshot; within reach, near'.

In calling to each other at a distance, the natives make use of the word Coo-ee , as we do the word Hollo , prolonging the sound of the coo , and closing that of the ee with a shrill jerk. If I ever see you within coo-ee of my boat again, I'll drown you. These Games are no longer some village competition with a hometown audience that you can please with a cooee and a wobbleboard. The word is a borrowing from Yuwaaliyaay and neighbouring languages , an Aboriginal language of northern New South Wales. In the earlier period it was was spelt in various ways, including coolabah , coolobar , and coolybah.

It is term for any of several eucalypts, especially the blue-leaved Eucalyptus microtheca found across central and northern Australia, a fibrous-barked tree yielding a durable timber and occurring in seasonally flooded areas. Coolibah is first recorded in the s. The country consists of open plains, with myall and coolabah. With its dead coolibah trees, sun-bleached cattle bones and screeching galahs, Howard Blackburn's back paddock could be anywhere in Australia's drought-ravaged grazing lands. Bad, unpleasant or unsatisfactory: Things were crook on the land in the seventies.

Crook means bad in a general sense, and also in more specific senses too: All senses are recorded from the s. Clune Roaming Round the Darling: My cobber, here, used to sing in opera. He's a pretty crook singer, but he'll sing for you. I was feeling crook at the Ipswich races and over the weekend. Used to indicate the need for a rest in order to settle down, solve a problem, etc. The phrase now often with some variations was originally the title of a a revue at the Phillip Street Theatre in Sydney Catholic Church officials once thought child-sex abuse victims just needed a 'cup of tea, a Bex and a good lie down' to get over crimes committed against them by paedophile clergy.

These terms are now obsolete. These were called currency. Let the currency lads and lasses turn Arcadian shepherds and shepherdesses if they choose. The answer of the simple Currency Lass will suit our purpose, who, when asked if she would like to visit England, said, no! An unfashionable person; a person lacking style or character; a socially awkward adolescent, a 'nerd'.

These senses of dag derive from an earlier Australian sense of dag meaning 'a "character", someone eccentric but entertainingly so'. Ultimately all these senses of dag are probably derived from the British dialect especially in children's speech sense of dag meaning a 'feat of skill', 'a daring feat among boys', and the phrase to have a dag at meaning 'to have a shot at'.

Dag referring to an unfashionable person etc. Has it helped them feel more relaxed with the boys in their PD group. Christian, while your budget may appear to be reasonable.. Never ever wear a striped suit, a striped shirt and a striped tie together - just dreadful You look like a real dag. Hurry up, get a move on. When a daggy sheep runs, the dried dags knock together to make a rattling sound. The word dag originally daglock was a British dialect word that was borrowed into mainstream Australian English in the s. C'mon Mum, rattle yer dags - the old girls are hungry!

Rattle yer dags, woolclassers, time's running out to re-register yourselves with the Australian Wool Exchange. To pull down or remove the trousers from a person as a joke or punishment. Dak derives from another Australian term daks meaning 'a pair of trousers'. The term is first recorded from the early s but is probably much older than that. For a more detailed discussion of dak see our Word of the Month article from July We played footy together, but his recognition was going on to play for Footscray; I was the little fella so mine was getting dakked every pie night.

His family didn't know about it until he was dacked during a game this year. A simple kind of bread, traditionally unleavened and baked in the ashes of an outdoor fire. Because it was the most common form of bread for bush workers in the nineteenth century, to earn your damper means to be worth your pay. There is at this moment many a poor settler up the country, buried in the bush..

We made damper out of flour and water, squeezed it around green sticks to cook over the coals. A commemorative ceremony held at dawn on Anzac Day. Anzac Day, April 25, is a national public holiday in Australia commemorating all those who have served and died in war. While commemorative services have been held on April 25 since , the term dawn service is not recorded until the s.

Ahead of us, already drunk in preparation for an Anzac Sunday, three old mates, Les, Norm and Billy, a rolled flag between them, zigzag toward the Dawn Service. Cruise Express's Legends of the Mediterranean package will cruise the waters off the Turkish coast at dawn on April 25 and the official dawn service ashore will be broadcast on the ship. The didgeridoo is a wind instrument that was originally found only in Arnhem Land in northern Australia.

It is a long, wooden, tubular instrument that produces a low-pitched, resonant sound with complex, rhythmic patterns but little tonal variation. In popular understanding many Australians probably believe that this is an Aboriginal word. Subsequent research has cast doubt on this etymology, and in the following statement was made in Australian Aboriginal Words in English: The name probably evolved from white people's ad hoc imitation of the sound of the instrument'. This argument is supported by two of the earliest pieces of evidence for the term:.

It produces but one sound - 'didjerry, didjerry, didjerry -' and so on ad infinitum. First recorded in this sense Australian Soldiers' Magazine February: About the origin of this word 'Digger' It came to France when the sandgropers gave up digging on the goldfields of W. They include a major who planned an 'unprecedented operation' to capture a rogue Afghan sergeant who murdered three Australian diggers.

Reliable; genuine; honest; true. This word is a shortening of fair dinkum which comes from British dialect. The adjective is first recorded in Australia from the s. For a more detailed discussion of dinkum see the article 'The Story of Dinkum' on our blog. I'll tell you, sir, what happened, and I tell the dinkum truth. The electorate is better educated than ever before, people are more financially successful and they see through the paradox that governments promise more and more but can achieve less. The starting point is to make the debate more dinkum. The phrase was first recorded in This may give a clue to the source of the phrase.

If you are done like a dinner , you are completely and efficiently demolished. Bride Letters from Victorian Pioneers: The horse swam for a quarter of a mile down the river with the cart after him.. Keep going the way they are and they will be done like a dinner for many elections to come.

To inform upon someone ; to incriminate someone. The word is probably related to British dialect dob meaning 'to put down an article heavily or clumsily; to throw down', and 'to throw stones etc. Dob is first recorded in the s. For a more detailed discussion of this term see the article 'The Story of Dob' on our blog. He came to me and dobbed in one of the carpenters for talking. He used to sell single cigarettes to kids, and although it was common knowledge, he had never been busted and no one ever dobbed on him.

This example illustrates the way the origins of words and phrases can be lost with changes in technology.

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The expression has several variants including fed up to dolly's wax , and its meaning does not always denote being 'full' with food. First recorded in the early 20th century. There are books on this and books on that about past, present, and future international relations all deadly dull And I am fed up to dolly's wax with them.

Tiffany Mateship with Birds: In a preferential system of voting a vote recorded by allocating preferences according to the order in which candidates' names appear on the ballot paper; such votes viewed collectively. First recorded in the early midth century. In previous Senate elections about 2 per cent. In South Australia this vote - the 'donkey vote' - will go to the Anti-Communists. Although happy to top the ballot in Warringah, Greens candidate Keelah Lam said the only donkey votes in Warringah would come from people with no interest in politics.

A parliamentary question asked of a Minister by a member of the party in government to give the Minister the opportunity to deliver a prepared reply. It comes from Dorothy Dix , the pen-name of Elizabeth Gilmer , an American journalist who wrote a famous personal advice column which was syndicated in Australia. Her column came to seem a little too contrived, as if she was writing the questions as well as the answers. For a discussion about the use of Dorothy Dixer in rhyming slang see the article 'Dorothies and Michelles' in our Ozwords newsletter.

There were many questions on trade and finance matters. One of those came from Mr Hutchin, and there were cries of 'Dorothy Dix' when he asked it When a Minister is anxious to make some information available, or to answer some outside criticism, he will often get a private member to ask a question on the subject. And it was not her husky voice or hair or makeup that stopped traffic, but the rows and rows of pearls..

In traditional Aboriginal belief a collection of events beyond living memory that shaped the physical, spiritual, and moral world; the era in which these occurred; an Aboriginal person's consciousness of the enduring nature of the era. The term also takes the form dreaming. Dreamtime is a translation of alcheringa - a word from the Arrernte Aboriginal language of the Alice Springs region in central Australia.

Attenborough Quest Under Capricorn: Although the Dreamtime was in the past, it is also co-existent with the present, and a man, by performing the rituals, can become one with his 'dreaming' and experience eternity. It is to seek this mystical union that the men enact the ceremonies. Australia, old as the dreamtime, From your sun-warmed dust I grew, The molecules that make me, All have been part of you.

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A fool, a simpleton, an idiot. There is also a bird called a drongo. The spangled drongo is found in northern and eastern Australia, as well as in the islands to the north of Australia, and further north to India and China. It is called a drongo because that is the name of a bird from the same family in northern Madagascar. The spangled drongo is not a stupid bird. It is not a galah. One book describes it thus: There is one odd story about the drongo, however: Some have suggested that this is the origin of the association of 'stupidity' with the term drongo.

But this seems most unlikely. So what is the true story? There was an Australian racehorse called Drongo during the early s. It seems likely that he was named after the bird called the 'drongo'. He wasn't a an absolute no-hoper of a racehorse: He often came very close to winning major races, but in 37 starts he never won a race.

In a writer in the Melbourne Argus comments: He is improving with every run'. But he never did win. Soon after the horse's retirement it seems that racegoers started to apply the term to horses that were having similarly unlucky careers. In the s it was applied to recruits in the Royal Australian Air Force. It has become part of general Australian slang. Buzz Kennedy, writing in The Australian newspaper in , defines a drongo thus:.

A drongo is a simpleton but a complicated one: In an emergency he runs heroically in the wrong direction. If he were Superman he would get locked in the telephone box.

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So he is a drongo. The origin of the term was revived at Flemington in when a Drongo Handicap was held. Only apprentice jockeys were allowed to ride. The horses entered were not allowed to have won a race in the previous twelve months. Goode Through the Farm Gate: I can't believe my drongo of a father is asking such ridiculous questions. A jocular name for an imaginary animal similar in appearance to a koala, with very sharp jaws and teeth, that is said to devour tourists etc. The term is often associated with the fooling of gullible international tourists, and has accordingly been used this way in television advertisements.

There are suggestions that the term drop bear emerged in the Second World War period see quotation below but the first record is from the s. Keesing Lily on a Dustbin: The 'drop bears' are creatures of a tall story - they were invented during World War II for the benefit of gullible American servicemen. It is alleged that 'drop bears' are a dangerous kind of koala and that they drop out of trees on the heads and shoulders of bush walkers and hug them to death. Participants are advised to choose their start time carefully to ensure they are finished before it gets dark and the drop bears come out at 6.

The other Harry has got a head like a drover's dog and always wears a hat. We'd heard Nancy say he'd come back like a drover's dog all prick and ribs. Look out - female approaching! A warning cry from a male as a signal to other men that a woman is approaching a traditionally all-male environment. It is a reminder that the men should modify their language and behaviour to avoid giving offence.

It was first used in shearing sheds, but is now heard in other places, especially in a pub. While the first written evidence comes from the early s the phrase probably goes back several decades earlier. I remember well enough years ago hearing them yell 'Ducks on the Pond! The pathetic and increasingly unwatched Footy Show on Channel Nine whipped up another 'ducks on the pond' furore over the proposal to include the outspoken Rebecca Wilson on their panel. Fatty Vautin and Peter Sterling reportedly held angry meetings with their producer declaring they would not speak to Wilson if she was hired.

The dunny was originally any outside toilet. In cities and towns the pan-type dunny was emptied by the dunny man , who came round regularly with his dunny cart. Dunny can now be used for any toilet. First recorded in the s but dunnekin is attested in Australian sources from the s. The scourge of the summer festival-goer has to be the crusty dunnies. To subject a person to a torrent of words; to talk at great length to; to harangue. While not a physical beating of the ears, most people can sympathise with a person who has sustained a long taking to an ear-bashing by a boring or obnoxious windbag an earbasher.

The verb is first recorded from the s, and possibly comes from Australian military slang of the Second World War period. Most Australians are surprised to discover that this is an Australian term. First recorded from the s. The second strand of Labor thinking on agricultural policy can be described as economic rationalism.

The ALP contains many influential spokesmen who advocate disengagement of governments from existing agricultural assistance measures.. The ideals of higher education are being compromised by economic rationalism. The act or process of picking up litter; a group of people doing this; the act or process of searching an area of ground for something. This term developed out of an earlier verbal form recorded in the s , emu-bob , meaning 'to pick up pieces of timber, roots, etc.

By the s the verb had developed a more specific sense: By the s the verbal form had developed into the noun. What a vision splendid is Mr Sim's - a nation-wide 'emu bob' of dole-bludgers, singing no doubt as they retrieve the excreta of civilisation. Maybe the Government could give the prisoners something useful to do and do emu bobs.

A portable insulated container in which food and drink are kept cool. A common sight at barbecues, beaches, parks, and camping grounds in the summer months. Take your 'refrigerator' to the picnic or tour. The Esky Auto Box keeps drinks and food cold and fresh wherever you go. Will fit in the boot of any car. They have a folding table and esky out here on the sand beside the fire. A prison for the confinement of female convicts.

Also known as a female factory. The first such factory was established in at Parramatta in New South Wales. It was a place of punishment, a labour and marriage agency for the colony, and a profit-making textiles factory where women made convict clothing and blankets. There were eight other factories in the Australian convict settlements. The lass I adore, the lass for me, Is a lass in the Female Factory. A reasonable chance, a fair deal: Australia often sees itself as an egalitarian society, the land of the fair go , where all citizens have a right to fair treatment. This word book also help to learn English to Hindi Translation.

It is like small English to Hindi or hindi to English Dictionary. This work book also help you to speak or spoken in english. This word book also helpful kid or kids to learn simple words. Here you also get most common words or daily necessary words or vocabulary. In this app you will get many types of words like. Added too many new features.

This becomes an important reading skill after first grade, when text meaning is less likely to be supported with pictures. Construction of sentences with passive voice and other complex, decontextualized word forms are more likely to be found in books and stories than in directive conversations with young children.

An experimental study illustrates the role of exposure to syntactic structures in the development of language comprehension Vasilyeva et al. Four-year-olds listened to stories in active or passive voice. After listening to ten stories, their understanding of passages containing these syntactic structures was assessed.

Although students in both groups understood and could use active voice similar to routine conversation , those who listened to stories with passive voice scored higher on comprehension of this structure. Literacy skills follow a developmental trajectory such that early skills and stages lead into more complex and integrated skills and stages Adams, Seminal theories and studies of reading describe an inextricable link between language development and reading achievement e.

Early oral language competencies predict later literacy Pearson and Hiebert, Not only do young children with stronger oral language competencies acquire new language skills faster than students with poorly developed oral language competencies Dickinson and Porche, , but they also learn key literacy skills faster, such as phonemic awareness and understanding of the alphabetic principle Cooper et al.

Both of these literacy skills in turn facilitate learning to read in kindergarten and first grade. Vocabulary development a complex and integrative feature of language that grows continuously and reading words a skill that most children master by third or fourth grade Ehri, are reciprocally related, and both reading words accurately and understanding what words mean contribute to reading comprehension Gough et al.

Because comprehending and learning from text depend largely upon a deep understanding of the language used to communicate the ideas and concepts expressed, oral language skills i. For example, children with larger speaking vocabularies in preschool may have an easier time with phoneme awareness and the alphabetic. Each word a child knows can influence how well she or he understands a sentence that uses that word, which in turn can influence the acquisition of knowledge and the ability to learn new words.

A stronger speaking and listening vocabulary provides a deeper and wider field of words students can attempt to match to printed words. Being bogged down by figuring out what a given word means slows the rate of information processing and limits what is learned from a sentence. Thus, differences in early vocabulary can have cascading, cumulative effects Fernald et al.

The transition from speaking and listening to reading and writing is not a smooth one for many children. Although a well-developed vocabulary can make that transition easier, many children also have difficulty learning the production and meanings of words. Longitudinal studies of reading disability have found that 70 percent of poor readers had a history of language difficulties Catts et al.

The oral language and vocabulary children learn through interactions with parents, siblings, and caregivers and through high-quality interactions with educators provide the foundation for later literacy and for learning across all subject areas, as well as for their socioemotional well-being. The language interactions children experience at home and in school influence their developing minds and their understanding of concepts and ideas.

The daily talk to which children are exposed and in which they participate is essential for developing their minds—a key ingredient for building their knowledge of the world and their understanding of concepts and ideas. In turn, this conceptual knowledge is a cornerstone of reading success. The bulk of the research on early linguistic experiences has investigated language input in the home environment, demonstrating the features of.

The evidence accumulated emphasizes the importance of the quantity of communicative input i. This research has particularly relevant implications for educational practices discussed further in Chapter 6. The language environment of the classroom can function as a support for developing the kind of language that is characteristic of the school curriculum—for example, giving children opportunities to develop the sophisticated vocabulary and complex syntax found in texts, beginning at a very early age Schleppegrell, ; Snow and Uccelli, Moreover, advances in cognitive science suggest that it is not enough to be immersed in environments that offer multiple opportunities for exposure to varied and rich language experiences.

Rather, the process also needs to be socially mediated through more knowledgeable persons who can impart their knowledge to the learner; again, social interaction is a critical component of cognitive development and learning. Early childhood settings and elementary classrooms thus not only present opportunities for exposure to varied language- and literacy-rich activities whether written or spoken , but also provide a person who is expert in mediating the learning process—the educator.

For example, Huttenlocher and colleagues found greater syntactic skills in preschoolers exposed to teachers who used more syntactically complex utterances. Another study found for monolingual English-speaking children that fourth-grade reading comprehension levels were predicted by exposure to sophisticated vocabulary in preschool. In classroom studies focused on the linguistic environment, the level of analysis has involved broad measures of language use, such as amount of talk i. Dickinson and Smith, ; Jacoby and Lesaux, ; Smith and Dickinson, , or instructional moves made by the teacher e.

Children are better prepared to comprehend narrative texts they encounter in school if their early language environments provide more exposure to and opportunities to participate in extended discourse. This is because extended discourse and narrative texts share similar patterns for communicating ideas Uccelli et al. Engaging groups of children in effective extended discourse involves asking and discussing open-ended questions and encouraging turn taking, as well as monitoring the group to involve nonparticipating children Girolametto and Weitzman, In addition to using interactive storybook and text reading as a platform for back-and-forth conversations often referred to as interactive or dialogic reading, as described in the preceding section Mol et al.

These findings are consistent with the notion that to promote language learning, different inputs are needed at. Children benefit from hearing simplified speech during very early word learning Furrow et al. With more exposure to language and more advanced vocabulary development, they benefit from speech input that is more complex i. Hoff suggests that if input is too complex, children filter it out without negative consequences—as long as sufficient beneficial input is available to them. An important consideration in light of these findings is that recent research in early childhood classrooms serving children from low-income backgrounds suggests that daily high-quality language-building experiences may be rare for these children.

For example, in a Head Start organization serving large numbers of Latino children a recent observational study found a preschool environment lacking in the frequent and high-quality teacher—child language interactions that are needed to support language and literacy development Jacoby and Lesaux, Literacy instruction was highly routine based and with low-level language structures. Extended discourse was infrequently used; only 22 percent of observed literacy-based lessons included at least one instance of extended discourse between a teacher and a child or group of children.

Instead, teachers asked questions that yielded short answers or linked only to the here and now e. What is the weather today? These features of infrequent extended discourse and predominantly routine-based literacy instruction were remarkably stable across teachers and classrooms. Other research investigating teacher talk in Head Start preschool classrooms has produced similar findings e.

This is consistent with findings that there are sizable cultural and socioeconomic differences in high-quality language-promoting experiences in the home and in the classroom environment in early childhood Dickinson, ; Dickinson and Porche, ; Dickinson and Tabors, ; Raikes et al. At the same time, for children from low-resource backgrounds oral language skills show an even stronger connection to later academic outcomes than for children from high-resource backgrounds.

Given these findings, rich linguistic experiences at early ages may therefore be especially important for these children. Even small improvements in the literacy environment can have especially strong effects for children who are raised in low-income households Dearing et al. Improving language environments for young children requires daily learning opportunities that focus on the diversity and complexity of language used with young children.

Extended discourse can take place throughout all activities and in specific interactions, especially using book reading as a platform for back-and-forth conversations. Such studies could advance existing research in at least two ways. In particular, it could further elucidate how language-based social processes in the classroom affect literacy development for the many students who enter schools and other care and education settings with limited proficiency in English.

The majority of published studies focused on language-based interactions are focused on English-only learners, despite the fact that social processes can be experienced differently by different groups, even within the same setting Rogoff and Angelillo, ; Tseng and Seidman, In addition, prior research has measured a two-way process in a largely unidirectional manner—measuring speech only from parent to child or educator to student. More specifically, Justice and colleagues suggest that future research examine teacher—child language interactions in a multidimensional way to explore how syntactic complexity, cognitive demand, and even linguistic form e.

Finally, greater understanding is needed of the ways in which the classroom language processes described in this section might act as a foundational mediator of the efficacy of interventions focused on learning outcomes in other domains and subject areas. This study also found that children with advanced language skills will receive greater benefits from interacting with peers who also have advanced language skills Mashburn et al. In order to achieve these benefits, however, the preschool classrooms need to be designed so that peers can interact with one another, and include activities such as reading books and engaging in play together.

Children with teachers who organize the day with optimal amounts of time for peer-to-peer interactions may achieve greater language growth Mashburn et al. For children whose home language is not the predominant language of their school, educators and schools need to ensure the development of English proficiency. At the same time, children can be helped to both build and maintain their first language while adding language and literacy skills in English Espinosa, In support of this as a long-term goal are the potential advantages of being bilingual, including maintaining a cultural and linguistic heritage and conferring an advantage in the ability to communicate with a broader population in future social, educational, and work environments.

Additionally, an emerging field of research, albeit with mixed results to date, explores potential advantages of being bilingual that are linked more directly to cognitive development, starting in early childhood and extending to preserving cognitive function and delaying the symptoms of dementia in the elderly Bialystok, ; de Bruin et al. Bilingual or multilingual children are faced with more communicative challenges than their monolingual peers. A child who frequently experiences failure to be understood or to understand may be driven to pay more attention to context, paralinguistic cues, and gestures in order to interpret an utterance, and thus become better at reading such cues.

The result may be improved development of theory of mind and understanding of pragmatics Yow and Markman, a,b. In addition, the need to continually suppress one language for another affords ongoing practice in inhibitory or executive control, which could confer advantages on a range of inhibitory control tasks in children and helps preserve this fundamental ability in aging adults Bialystok, ; Bialystok and Craik, ; Bialystok et al. One challenge in the education of dual language learners is that they sometimes are classified along with children with special needs.

One reason for this is the lack of good assessment tools to help distinguish the nature of the difficulties experienced by dual language learners—whether due to a learning disability or to the fact that learning a second language is difficult, takes time, and develops differently in different children Hamayan et al. More information about this study can be found at www.

Mathematics knowledge in preschool predicts mathematics achievement even into high school National Mathematics Advisory Panel, ; NRC, ; Stevenson and Newman, Mathematics ability and language ability also are interrelated as mutually reinforcing skills Duncan et al. Indeed, mathematical thinking reaches beyond competence with numbers and shapes to form a foundation for general cognition and learning Clements and Sarama, ; Sarama et al.

Mathematics therefore appears to be a core subject and a core component of thinking and learning Duncan and Magnuson, ; Duncan et al. Given its general importance to academic success Sadler and Tai, , children need a robust foundation in mathematics knowledge in their earliest years. Multiple analyses suggest that mathematics learning should begin early, especially for children at risk for later difficulties in school Byrnes and Wasik, ; Clements and Sarama, Well before first grade, children can learn the skills and concepts that support more complex mathematics understanding later.

Particularly important areas of mathematics for young children to learn include number, which includes whole number, operations, and relations; geometry; spatial thinking; and measurement. Children also need to develop proficiency in processes for both general and specific mathematical reasoning NRC, If given opportunities to learn, young children possess a remarkably broad, complex, and sophisticated—albeit informal—knowledge of mathematics Baroody, ; Clarke et al.

In their free play, almost all preschoolers engage in substantial amounts of premathematical activity. They count objects; compare magnitudes; and explore patterns, shapes, and spatial relations. Preschoolers can also, for example, learn to invent solutions to simple arithmetic problems Sarama and Clements, High-quality mathematics education can help children realize their potential in mathematics achievement Doig et al. However, without such education starting, and continuing throughout, the early years, many children will be on a trajectory in which they will have great difficulty catching up to their peers Rouse et al.

As discussed further in Chapter 6 , early childhood classrooms typically are ill suited to helping children learn mathematics and underestimate their ability to do so. In some cases, children can even experience a regression on some mathematics skills during prekindergarten and kindergarten Farran et al. Mathematics needs to be conceptualized as more than. Without building a robust understanding of mathematics in the early years, children too often come to believe that math is a guessing game and a system of rules without reason Munn, Both education and experience can make a difference, as evidenced by data from the latest international Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study, which added data collection on early mathematics education Mullis et al.

Students with higher mathematics achievement at fourth and sixth grades had parents who reported that they often engaged their children in early numeracy activities and that their children had attended preprimary education and started school able to do early numeracy tasks e. Those children who had attended preschool or kindergarten had higher achievement, while the 13 percent who had attended no preprimary school had much lower average mathematics achievement Mullis et al.

Children move through a developmental progression in specific mathematical domains, which informs learning trajectories as important tools for supporting learning and teaching. Box illustrates the concept of a developmental progression through the example of subitizing , an oft-neglected mathematical goal for young children. Research shows that subitizing, the rapid and accurate recognition of the number in a small group, is one of the main abilities very young children should develop Palmer and Baroody, ; Reigosa-Crespo et al.

Through subitizing, children can discover critical properties of number, such as conservation and compensation Clements and Sarama, ; Maclellan, and develop such capabilities as unitizing and arithmetic. Subitizing is not the only way children think and learn about number. Counting is the other method of quantification. It is the first and most basic mathematical algorithm and one of the more critical early mathematics competencies Aunola et al. Chapter 6 includes examples from a complete learning trajectory—goal, developmental progression, and instructional activities—for counting Clements and Sarama, For example, very young children possess approximate number systems ANSs that allow them to discriminate large and small sets, determining, for example, whether there are more white or gray dots in the figure below.

Six-month-olds can discriminate a 1: Subitizing involves determining and explicitly identifying the exact number of items in a small set. Subitizing ability develops in a stepwise fashion. Between 35 and 37 months, they differentiate between 1 and 2, but not larger numbers. A few months later, at 38 to 40 months, they can identify 3 as well. After about 42 months, they can identify all numbers that they can count, 4 and higher, at about the same time. However, research in natural, child-initiated settings shows that the development of these abilities can occur much earlier, with children working on 1 and 2 around their second birthday or earlier Mix et al.

Babies in the first 6 months of life, and even earlier, can discriminate 1 object from 2, and 2 objects from 3 Antell and Keating, ; Wynn et al. Thus, even infants can discriminate among and match small configurations of objects, only for these small numbers. Because children cannot discriminate 4 objects from 5 or 6 until the age of about 3 years, some researchers have suggested that infants use an automatic perceptual process that people, including adults, can apply only to small collections up to around 4 objects Chi and Klahr, A developmental progression moves from foundational but pre-explicit quantification to explicit naming of small quantities.

This initially involves only perceptual subitizing Clements, ; Kaufman et al. From their second to third birthdays, most children can name sets of 1 and 2, and then 3 soon thereafter Mix et al. Larger sets are perceived, quantified, and quickly named as the child gains experience. Perceptual subitizing also plays the role of unit-.

Then a qualitative advance is made as conceptual subitizing develops. This involves similarly quantifying 2 parts separately and then combining them, again, quickly, accurately, and without being explicitly aware of the cognitive processing Clements, ; see empirical evidence for such processes in Trick and Pylyshyn, Many theories have been advanced to explain the subitizing process Baroody et al. A synthesis suggests the following model. The ANS serves as a transition between general, approximate notions of number and one based on an exact, abstract, mental model. Infants quantify collections of rigid objects not sequences of sounds or materials that are nonrigid and noncohesive such as water Huntley-Fenner et al.

These quantifications begin as an undifferentiated, innate notion of amount of objects. Object individuation, which occurs early in preattentive processing and is a general, not numerical-only, process , helps lay the groundwork for differentiating discrete from continuous quantity.

For example, by about 6 months of age, infants may represent very small numbers 1 or 2 as individuated objects. To compare quantities, they process correspondences. Initially, these are inexact estimates, depending on the ratio between the sets Johnson-Pynn et al. Once children can represent objects mentally, they also can make exact correspondences between these nonverbal representations and eventually develop a quantitative notion of that comparison e.

Even these correspondences, however, do not imply a cardinal representation of the collection. To complete the subitizing process, children must make word—word mappings between numbers e. They then label small number situations with the corresponding number word, mapping the number word to the numerosity property of the collection. That is, they begin to establish what mathematicians call a numerical equivalence class. The construction of such schemes probably depends on guiding frameworks and principles developed through interactions with others, such as parents and educators.

Activities such as teachers challenging students to name the number of dots in a display shown only for seconds have resulted in substantial growth in this ability Baroody et al. Subitizing ability is not merely a low-level, innate process, but develops considerably and combines with other mental processes. Even though they are limited, subitizing capabilities appear to form a foundation for later connection to culturally based cognitive tools such as number words and the number word sequence and the development of exact and extended number concepts and skills.

Functional magnetic resonance imaging and other studies have shown that a neural component of numerical cognition present in the early years may be the foundation for later symbolic numerical development Cantlon et al. Subitizing appears to precede and support the development of counting ability and arithmetic skills Eimeren et al.

Children who cannot subitize conceptually are handicapped in learning such arithmetic processes. Those who can subitize may be limited to doing so with small numbers at first, but such actions are useful stepping stones to the construction of more sophisticated procedures with larger numbers. Indeed, lack of this competence may underlie mathematics learning disabilities and difficulties Ashkenazi et al.

Children from low-resource communities and those with special needs often lag in subitizing ability, hindering their mathematical development Butterworth, ; Chu et al. Adapted with permission from Clements and Sarama, , and Sarama and Clements, Children with special needs in learning mathematics fall into two categories. Those with mathematical difficulties struggle to learn mathematics for any reason; this category may apply to as many as percent of students Berch and Mazzocco, Those with specific mathematics learning disabilities are more severe cases; these students have a memory or cognitive deficit that interferes with their ability to learn math Geary, This category may apply to about percent Berch and Mazzocco, ; Mazzocco and Myers, In one study, this classification persisted in third grade for 63 percent of those classified as having mathematics learning disabilities in kindergarten Mazzocco and Myers, One consistent finding is that students with mathematics learning disabilities have difficulty retrieving basic arithmetic facts quickly.

This has been hypothesized to be the result of an inability to store or retrieve facts and impairments in visual-spatial representation. As early as kindergarten, limited working memory and speed of cognitive processing may be problems for these children Geary et al. Many young children with learning disabilities in reading show a similar rapid-naming deficit for letters and words Siegel and Mazabel, ; Steacy et al.

Another possibility is that a lack of higher-order, or executive, control of verbal material causes difficulty learning basic arithmetic facts or combinations. For example, students with mathematics learning disabilities may have difficulty inhibiting irrelevant associations. One explanation for the difficulty students with mathematics learning disabilities have learning basic arithmetic combinations might be delays in understanding counting.

These students may not fully understand counting nor recognize errors in counting as late as second grade. Other experts, however, claim that a lack of specific competencies, such as subitizing, is more important Berch and Mazzocco, Some evidence suggests that it is possible to predict which kindergartners are at risk for mathematics learning disabilities based on skill including reading numerals, number constancy, magnitude judgments of one-digit numbers, or mental addition of one-digit numbers Mazzocco and Thompson, However, until more is known, students should be classified as having mathematics learning disabilities only with great caution and.

Such labeling in the earliest years could do more harm than good Clements and Sarama, It can appear that language is less of a concern in mathematics compared to other subjects because it is assumed to be based on numbers or symbols, but this is not the case Clements et al. In fact, children learn math mainly from oral language, rather than from mathematical symbolism or textbooks Janzen, Vocabulary and knowledge of print are both predictors of later numeracy Purpura et al. Similarly, growth in mathematics from kindergarten to third grade is related to both early numerical skills and phonological processing Vukovic, In one study of linguistically and ethnically diverse children aged years, language ability predicted gains in geometry, probability, and data analysis but not in arithmetic or algebra controlling for reading ability, visual—spatial working memory, and gender Vukovic and Lesaux, Thus, language may affect how children make meaning of mathematics but not its complex arithmetic procedures.

Moreover, there is an important bidirectional relationship between learning in mathematics and language Sarama et al. Each has related developmental milestones. Children learn number words at the same time as other linguistic labels. Most children recognize by the age of 2 which words are for numbers and use them only in appropriate contexts Fuson, Each also has related developmental patterns, with learning progressing along similar paths.

In both, children recognize the whole before its parts. In learning language, this is word before syllable, syllable before rime-onset, and rime-onset before phoneme see also Anthony et al. Similarly in mathematics, numbers are first conceptualized as unbreakable categories and then later as composites e. By 6 years old in most cultures, children have been exposed to symbol representations that are both alphabetic and numerical, and they begin to be able to segment words into phonemes and numbers into singletons e.

The ability to identify the component nature of words and numbers predicts the ability to read Adams, ; Stanovich and Siegel, and to compute Geary, , In addition to these similarities in typical developmental pathways, many children with learn-. Furthermore, there appear to be shared competencies between the two subject areas. Beginning mathematics scores have been shown to be highly predictive of subsequent achievement in both reading and mathematics although beginning reading skills such as letter recognition, word identification, and word sounds were shown to be highly predictive of later reading advanced competencies such as evaluation but not mathematics learning Duncan et al.

Building Blocks children performed the same as the children in the control group on letter recognition and on three oral language subscales but outperformed them on four subscales: These skills had no explicit relation to the math curriculum. Similarly, a study of 5- to 7-year-olds showed that an early mathematics and logical-mathematical intervention increased later scores in English by 14 percentile points Shayer and Adhami, Time on task or time on instruction does affect learning, which naturally leads to consideration of potential conflicts or tradeoffs between time spent on different subjects e.

However, this assumes that mathematics activities will not have a positive effect on language and literacy. Yet as described here, evidence from both educational and psychological research suggests the potential for high-quality instruction in each to have mutual benefits for learning in both subjects. Rich mathematical activities, such as discussing multiple solutions and solving narrative story problems, can help lay the groundwork for literacy through language development, while rich literacy activities can help lay the groundwork for mathematics development Sarama et al.

For mathematics learning in children who are dual language learners, the language, not just the vocabulary, of mathematics need to be addressed Clements and Sarama, Challenges for dual language learners include both technical vocabulary, which can range in how similar or distinct terms are from everyday language, and the use of complex noun phrases. On the other hand, bilingual children often can understand a mathematical idea more readily because, after using different terms for it in different languages, they comprehend that the mathematical idea is abstract, and not tied to a specific term see Secada, At a minimum, their teachers need to connect everyday language with the language of math Janzen, Instructional practices for teaching mathematics with dual language learners are discussed further in Chapter 6.

For subject-matter content knowledge and proficiency, children learn best when supported along a trajectory with three components: Some principles of how children learn along a trajectory hold across subject-matter domains, but there are also substantive differences among subjects in the specific skills children need and in the learning trajectories. Both generalizable principles and subject-specific distinctions have implications for the knowledge and competencies needed to work with children.

These general learning competencies have been labeled and categorized in various ways. This section examines these competencies as well as their interrelationships with the previously discussed subject-matter domains of language and literacy and mathematics. Several cognitive control processes are important for planning and executing goal-directed activity, which is needed for successful learning e.

These processes include, for example, short-term and working memory, attention control and shifting, cognitive flexibility changing thinking between different concepts and thinking about multiple concepts simultaneously , inhibitory control suppressing unproductive responses or strategies , and cognitive self-regulation. Other theoretical frameworks exist as well. As with the overall domains of development displayed earlier in Figure , the committee did not attempt to reconcile those different perspectives.

This variation in perspectives makes it difficult to parse the literature produced by different fields of research and practice. In general, however, executive function appears to improve most rapidly in young children Best et al. Executive function processes appear to be partially dependent on the development of the prefrontal cortex the site of higher-order cognitive processes , notably through the preschool and kindergarten age range Bassett et al.

Short-term memory is the ability for short-term recall, such as of a sentence or important details from conversation and reading.