Oral Language and the Reading Process

     Oral language skills support and help to develop the reading process.  Our very first experiences with language are oral and this is the type of language that we develop first after birth.  From birth, children are surrounded by oral language.  Oral language is where is all begins.  The development of oral language is the first step in making reading and writing possible.  In the beginning, children imitate the language that they hear and soon begin to create their own language in order to communicate.  Early readers come from homes where rich language and a great deal of oral language are used (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001).  Language processes are the basis for learning to read. When we read we use what we know about language and how it is structured to make sense of what we are reading.  Gibbons (2002) discusses oral language and, "the development of spoken language as a tool for learning and as a bridge into literacy"(p.12).

     From birth to age 1 oral language consists of the experimentation with sounds.  Once children reach ages 1-2 their oral language really starts to grow.  Children at this age are starting to say words, initially one word at a time but eventually putting a couple of words together.  By 18 months most children can pronounce four-fifths of the English phonemes and use 9 to 20 words (Bloom, 1990).  Children 2-3 years old experience dramatic growth in their oral language development.  Typically, a child's oral vocabulary grows from 300 words to 1,000 and they can comprehend, but cannot yet use, another 2,000 to 3,000 words (Morrow, 2009).  When children turn 4 not only do their vocabularies continue to grow but they also begin to develop an understanding of sentence structure.  By the time children are 5-6 years old they have vocabularies of about 2,500 words (Morrow, 2009).  As children continue to grow so does their language. 

    Teachers should provide plenty of language rich learning opportunities such as learning centers for all content areas, opportunities for dramatic play, outdoor play and thematic unit studies to continue to develop oral language.  Teachers also need to provide plenty of time for conversations of varying types so children have the opportunity to use acquired language.  "It is not an exaggeration to suggest that classroom talk determines whether or not children learn, and their ultimate feelings of self-worth as students.  Talk is how education happens (Gibbons, 2002, p. 38)! 

     Without the development of oral language and knowledge of vocabulary and language structure, children have a very difficult time reading and comprehending.  Furthermore we know that using oral language enhances literacy based learning experiences.  "Actually producing language encourages learners to process the language more deeply than is required when they simply listen, and tends to stretch or push learner language in a way that listening alone does not" (Gibbons, 2002, p. 15).  There is no doubt that a deep connection exists between oral language and the reading process.


References

Cooper, D. J., & Kiger, N. D. (2009). Literacy: Helping students construct meaning. Belmont: Brooks/Cole.

Morrow, L. M. (2009). Literacy Development in the Early Years: Helping Children Read and Write. Boston, MA: Pearson.