Language is a medium of communication. No doubt it is a biological human impulse to communicate and transmit information to others. But we tend to skip its efficacy as a means to reckon, react and perceive. In the productive years of learning, language plays a crucial part in shaping the understanding of children about the world. It is a modest yet powerful force to comprehend their capacities, curiosities, values and temperaments. Languages of children are huge sources for them to function in social and educational contexts. Their languages are tags of their identity. All languages have a system and knowledge implanted in them. The fascinating phenomenon is that languages are read up in the same way, and mastery in one language (mother tongue/home language) encourages one to learn more languages. The foundational stage is the most crucial for language learning because the development of language skills at this level will deduce their academic accomplishments across the curriculum. Language is composed of phonology, morphology, syntax, and pragmatics. These components are incorporated into true actions.

We all understand that mother tongue and children's literature play a very significant role in formulating early literacy abilities. Children commence their journey of exploration of their surroundings and the world around them in their mother tongue. They develop a perception of this world in their mother tongue. They also develop a relationship with family and people in their mother tongue.
Their initial responses are always in their mother tongue. So mother tongue plays a very important role in developing early literacy skills. The same goes for children’s literature; both are very crucial elements of foundational literacy. The debate on the other languages and children’s literature will go on. Here, I would like to add one more point that since we live in a multilingual society, it is important for us that children should learn more than one language and there is a provision also for reading up more than one language in our curriculum.
Learning additional languages, i.e., being multilingual is a boon and multilingualism is a resource. Children who come into the classroom have considerable proficiency and familiarity with their surroundings in their mother tongue. So holding the tongue as an important part of learning is climacteric for us. Being a teacher or a facilitator we need to comprehend that the mother tongue is an essential part of language learning, so we need to consider it and should not replace it inside the classroom. When a child is rehearsing or writing or giving the testimony we should allow the child to use their mother tongue inside the classroom and ultimately the child will be able to slowly discern the knowledge in the formal language and will begin using it inside the classroom as it’s a process.
Now let's talk about children’s literature as an indispensable part of language learning; it enables the child to comprehend the language better. It not only permits us to inundate with the child inside the classroom but it also allows the teacher and another facilitator to get the proficiency and encompass the child inside the classroom with the language process. It helps a child to infer and learn with the learning process as well as it makes language learning more relatable too.
The emphasis should be on endorsing natural ways of learning a language because as already said when a child comes to the classroom he already knows the purposes of the language. So we have to extend and move forward on the same lines instead of turning the knowledge they have already acquired. So it is better to add the criteria for selecting children’s literature like when we have to select children’s literature we have to keep in mind some points like it should be age-appropriate, it should interest children, they should take interest in reading that literature and we perceive children are very fond of reading fairy tales and phantom stories. In India, the most critical component of today's discourse in elementary education constitutes questions and challenges. In the context of early literacy techniques, language is the main element.
Hence, it is vital to comprehend that; Language is a medium of manifestation and self-development.; Languages of children are different and knowledge-embedded.; Language is not only about alphabet learning but is about its use in the civic context, particularly in the early years of learning. Young children learn to develop their language and literacy skills by using language as a whole and not its components because meaning is conveyed when all these components are present but in an integrated manner. At this stage, we want children to understand the usage of language in various contexts and forms and enhance their already developing language skills. Children’s literature is an effective medium for sustainable language learning competencies.
The genres of literature, story, poem, rhymes, drama, etc. engage children in meaningful and relevant ways. Stories are the best medium to develop creativity and critical and reflective skills. Poems and rhymes ignite their imaginative powers and phonemic awareness. There is a major need to orient teachers and teacher educators to understand that children can learn a language on their own. School curriculum and pedagogy should create an enabling environment for language learning. Humans indeed have this system as well the capacity to develop their language skills, provided they get the motivation and child-centric inputs. Children learn to use language as per their need to communicate or express themselves. Children learn the traditional practice of language at their pace and through meaningful inputs, which scaffolds their knowledge. For example, text with pictures is simpler for them to comprehend than text without it. Phonemic understanding is important for language learning but it should come up from context, for example, letters and sounds, words often repeated in the story can be selected for comprehending letter-sound relationships. A letter in a word and a word in a story is discernible than a solitary letter in the alphabet.

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