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Oral Language
Overview Of the 64 reviews, 7 focused on studies of the relationship between oral language skills and literacy. The reviews were published between 1976 and 2001 and considered both speaking and listening aspects of oral language. Overall, listening skills seem to be more strongly related to reading development than speaking skills. In particular, the ability to recognize the sounds that make up spoken language (“phonological awareness”), and to analyse and synthesize the sounds of spoken language (“phonemic awareness”), is important to a child’s reading development. Phonemic awareness, in particular, was implicated directly or indirectly as an essential skill for literacy development in many of the 64 reviews. However, the available research is not yet conclusive about the necessity of providing phonemic awareness training for reading comprehension. Finally, one review explored the possibility of a clash between the language system African American children are exposed to in their preschool years (typically referred to as Black English) and Standard American English reading instruction.
Berninger, V. W. & Thalberg, S. P. (1987). Preventing reading disabilities by assessing and remediating phonemic skills. School Psychology Review, 16(4), 554-565.
The ability to analyse and synthesize the sounds of spoken language is an essential skill for children learning to read. Schools must monitor these skills in children and take early action in assisting those having difficulties in areas related to the sounds of spoken language. Early intervention is the best way of preventing reading disabilities.
Chard, D. J., & Dickson, S. V. (1999). Phonological awareness: Instructional and assessment guidelines. Intervention in School and Clinic, 34(5), 261-270.
The ability to recognize the sounds that make up spoken language is important to the development of a child’s reading skills. Instruction in this area can be beneficial to children as young as 4 years old. While most children will improve with such instruction, some will struggle, and early action should be taken to provide more intensive training to these at-risk children. Some methods of assessing and monitoring the progress of students include non-word spelling, auditory analysis testing, and rapid letter naming, as well as further tests shown by research to be reliable and valid.
Ehri, L.C., Nunes, S.R., Willows, D.M., Schuster, B. V., Yaghoub-Zadeh, Z., & Shanahan, T. (2001). Phonemic awareness instruction helps children learn to read: evidence from the national reading panel's meta-analysis. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(3), 250-287.
Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to analyse and synthesize the sounds of spoken language. A child’s level of phonemic awareness is one of the best predictors of how well the child will learn to read. Encouragingly, instruction in phonemic awareness improves word reading, spelling, and reading comprehension for many readers: normally developing readers, children at-risk for reading problems, children already demonstrating reading problems, readers of different ages (especially preschoolers), and readers of both low and middle-to-high socio-economic classes. However, instruction improves only reading and not spelling abilities in older children who are already demonstrating reading problems. Overall, phonemic awareness instruction is more effective when it is moderate in duration (5 to 18 hours), accompanied by instruction in letters, centered around one or two phonemic awareness skills, and when provided to children in small groups rather than individually or in larger classroom settings.
Hammill, D. D., & McNutt, G. (1980). Language abilities and reading: A review of the literature on their relationship. Elementary School Journal, 80(5), 269-277.
There is a strong relationship between reading and writing skills. The relationship between oral language skills and reading, however, is rather weak. This provides a strong argument for a combined reading and writing approach to teaching reading over reading programs that emphasise oral language instruction.
Harber, J. R., & Bryen, D. N. (1976). Black English and the task of reading. Review of Educational Research, 46(3), 387-405.
National reports in the United States have shown that African American children score lower on reading achievement tests than European American children even when both groups come from the same socioeconomic and residential status. It has been suggested that this may be because the language system African American children are exposed to in their preschool years (typically referred to as Black English) may clash with school reading instruction given in Standard American English. Research suggests that this may be affecting the performance of African American children on oral reading and reading comprehension tasks. However, the research on Black English and reading is limited and much more needs to be done before any large-scale changes to reading education are made.
Krashen, S. (2001). Does "pure" phonemic awareness training affect reading comprehension? Perceptual and Motor Skills, 93, 356-358.
Phonemic awareness refers to the ability to analyse and synthesize the sounds of spoken language. Reading experts contend that phonemic awareness training improves children’s reading skills. However, phonemic awareness training is often combined with instruction in phonics, so it is possible that improvements found in children’s reading skills result from phonics instruction, not phonemic awareness training. There is not yet enough evidence to conclude that “pure” phonemic awareness training, that is, free from phonics instruction, results in meaningful improvements to the reading skills of English-speaking children.
Roth, F.P., Speece, D.L., Cooper, D.H., & De La Paz, S. (1996). Unresolved mysteries: how do meta-linguistic and narrative skills connect with early reading? The Journal of Special Education, 30(3), 257-277.
Problems with spoken language often predict future difficulties in learning to read, as well as in other academic areas. A complete understanding of the oral language-reading connection requires consideration of children’s awareness and understanding of the different components of language (sounds, word structure, and sentence structure), as well as their ability to use oral language to tell a story. It is already widely accepted that awareness of the sounds of oral language is related to reading. Understanding how to correctly structure sentences also seems to have an influence on reading. Awareness and understanding of other language factors may become more important in later stages of reading development. Finally, there is little research available that connects story telling to reading, but early results are promising.
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