We all know that children have a better capacity than adults for learning language - provided it is by immersion. We know meta-language learning doesn't work so well. No one would chose 5 years in a classroom over 1 year in France if they wanted a child to learn French. 1/2

So why do we think meta-language teaching will work for our first language? Language is language. If you immerse your child in rich language, eg a story, they will learn vocabulary and language patterns at the same time, very fast, because that's how their brains work.

But if you teach them a strand of grammar they will only learn that, rather slowly.