What does research say about oral language?

��TRT Podcast #170: What does research say about oral language?

The Big 5 (phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension) get a lot of attention – but what about oral language? Oral language deserves attention because it is the foundation of both word recognition and language comprehension. In this episode I share a short summary of what research tells us about oral language and reading.

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Hello! This is Anna Geiger from The Measured Mom, and this is the second in a series of short, to-the-point episodes that are counting down to the release of my new book, "Reach All Readers," on July 23rd, 2024. Today I'm sharing a research summary from chapter three, Oral Language.

We're all familiar with The Big 5: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension, but what about oral language? It doesn't always get the attention it deserves.

Oral language is a complex system that is important for teachers to understand because oral language skills are the foundation for both word reading and language comprehension.

One thing I think you'll love about the book is that I have short research summaries in all the key areas, and in today's episode I'm going to share the research summary for oral language. When you receive the book, you'll get, of course, a list of references for all the points I'm about to share.

Number one, as I stated already, children's oral language skills are the foundation for both word reading and language comprehension, and that makes sense when you think about it, right? Obviously, when kids are trying to comprehend text, it's really important that they understand the language. But it's also important for word reading because if you're trying to decode a multisyllable word and you need to use set for variability to land on the correct pronunciation, you won't know if you're correct or not if you don't have that word in your oral language vocabulary.

We also know from research that children with reading problems often have accompanying oral language deficits.

We know that early oral language abilities help us predict later skills. In one study, poor comprehenders in fifth grade had deficits in oral language throughout early childhood. Kindergarten scores of oral language are highly predictive of their scores on reading comprehension and vocabulary in fourth and seventh grades.

Composite measures of oral language are the strongest predictors of word reading and language comprehension compared to studies that focus on a single predictor like vocabulary or grammar.

The good news is we can improve oral language skills. A focus on a range of oral language skills in preschool leads to improvements in oral language and spoken narrative skills.

Explicitly teaching word meanings through interactive read-alouds may help narrow the vocabulary gap among students.

A focus on building vocabulary alone may not be sufficient for improving oral language and reading outcomes, so it's important, but not enough.

Dialogic reading, in which the adult actively involves the child in discussions about the read-aloud, powerfully affects language development.

Finally, interventions that focus on a broad range of oral language skills like grammar, syntax, narrative skills, and inferring, are most likely to help children develop reading comprehension skills.

Oral language is the third of eleven chapters in my book. If you'd like to pre-order the book, you can pre-order where books are sold, Amazon, ThriftBooks, Target, Books-A-Million (BAM!), or Bookshop. Thanks so much for considering, and I'll talk to you next time!

That's all for this episode of Triple R Teaching. For more educational resources, visit Anna at her home base, themeasuredmom.com and join our teaching community. We look forward to helping you reflect, refine, and recharge on the next episode of Triple R Teaching.

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The post What does research say about oral language? appeared first on The Measured Mom.