How Children Learn Grammar Rules

Children intuitively grasp complex grammar rules before they are even taught them. Even as toddlers, they can correctly apply plural and past-tense endings to words they have never heard before.

Jean Berko Gleason famously proved this with her Wug Test, where she asked children to pluralize a made-up creature called a wug. By observing how they added an s sound to create wugs, she showed that kids aren't just memorizing words. Instead, they are actively building internal mental maps of language rules. This discovery revolutionized our understanding of how quickly the human brain masters communication.