Pupils ‘use sophisticated words from an early age’

THE NATURAL world and fantasy help young children use sophisticated words such as “slithering” and “abracadabra”, a study has found.

Academics analysed 3,000 pieces of work from 824 children aged between seven and 16 at 24 schools around the country.

The University of Exeter study is the first of its kind to use huge volumes of authentic schoolwork to track children’s literacy progress.

It had previously been assumed that young children’s vocabulary was dominated by basic, high-frequency words.

But the study shows children know and use highly sophisticated words from their earliest years in school.

For example, seven-year-olds enjoyed using “meerkat”, “camel” and “vicious”, applying them in the correct way and coming back to the same words repeatedly in their writing.

What distinguished younger children’s writing from that of older children and adults was not a preference for basic words, but rather the extent to which they repeated particular words and the fact that those words tended to focus on concrete things, rather than abstractions and ideas.

For example, nouns used by year two students include “earworm”, “meerkat”, “fairyland” and “volcano”, while those in year 11 used words such as “suffusion”, “patter” and “interference”.

Dr Philip Durrant, who led the research, said: “It’s really positive to find that young children are using such sophisticated language in their writing.

“Children are picking up and learning obscure words and using them in the right context. It was lovely to read their work.”