THE SPEAKING-LISTENING-READING CONNECTION

How are language and reading connected? How does a speech language pathologist help with writing and reading? How is dyslexia related to language?

READING and WRITING are SECONDARY FORMS of SPEAKING and LISTENING

STRONG SPEAKING & LISTENING SKILLS are critical for reading and writing development.

SLP’s help to assure children develop strong speaking and listening skills.

“The children most at-risk for reading difficulties in the primary grades are those who began school with less verbal skills, less phonological awareness, less letter knowledge, and less familiarity with the basic purposes and mechanisms of reading”
(Burns, Griffin, and Snow, 1999, p.15).

“Children’s oral language abilities are interwoven with learning to read and write.”

“Throughout the school years, oral language is both a means whereby children learn about reading and a goal of reading instruction.”

Hiebert, Pearson, Taylor, Richardson, and Paris, 1998

Distinguished Educator Series, 2004, IRA

Review of the National Early Literacy Panel Study funded by the National Institute for Literacy

Language & Reading The Critical Connection
Language & Reading
The Critical Connection

Direct links to children’s eventual success in reading:

Alphabet knowledge

Environmental print

Invented spelling

Listening comprehension

Oral language and vocabulary

Phonemic awareness, phonological short-term memory

Visual memory and visual perceptual skills

Early Language Characteristics Related to Reading Disability: The Speech/Language/Reading Connection
1.Speech Delays: Phonology, Semantics, Grammatical Structure, Pragmatics
2.Difficulties in articulation
3.Rhyming difficulties
4.Child may substitute a similar word, using words like “stuff” or “things” to cover up retrieval difficulties.
5.Difficulty in learning alphabet, both name and sound.
6.Factors Influencing Reading
Acquisition in Early Childhood

Early Signs of Trouble:

Kindergarten

Failure to understand that words come apart; for example, that batboy can be pulled apart into bat and boy, and later on, that the word bat can be broken down still further and sounded out as: “b” “aaa” “t”

Inability to learn to associate letters with sounds, such as being unable to connect the letter b with the “b” sound

Shaywitz, S. (2003) Overcoming Dyslexia. ____

First Grade

Reading errors that show no connection to the sounds of the letters; for example, the word big is read as goat

The inability to read common one-syllable words or to sound out even the simplest of words, such as mat, cat, hop, nap

Complaints about how hard reading is, or avoiding reading

A history of reading problems in parents or siblings