Language acquistion

I believe children acquire language through modeling others. They will hear how the people around them speak and want to communicate as well. Therefore, they repeat things they hear and through trial and error learn language. People will correct them or applaud when a children acquires the language. Reading I believe will come after the child has an understanding of words and language. They will have the drive to use words correctly in order to communicate what they need.
I agree with the articles that language is most easily learned during the crucial periods of life, 2-7 years old. It is much easier for a child to catch on to a language used in their environment. When growing up, children are surrounded by a particular language and dialect which makes learning a language very easy. Since everything is so new there is plenty of desire to learn the language.
This goes along with the Nativist theory. In this theory, it is believed children are born with innate abilities to acquire their first language. Just like a child learns to walk, they too can learn the language because if is human nature. As people get older I do agree that it may be more difficult to learn another language. Being that adults already have a foundation it is hard to un-teach ones current understanding of their own language. For example in learning Spanish, one must first un-teach how they understand grammar and re-teach themselves to think of language differently.
In terms of reading and language acquisition, I believe that one must first hear a language in order to speak it. If one reads they may read words incorrectly or not translate pronunciations correctly. I know for myself, learning a second language was very hard. Reading and speaking the language were two completely different things. Speaking fast and putting adjectives after nouns was so foreign. I believe that as people get older, they are comfortable with their current understanding of language and find it harder to learn other languages. In conclusion if one reads the language incorrectly, it can translate to later problems in speaking the language.