Learning and Teaching

Vision for Instruction Reading - Oral language

So far this term, we have included information about three of the components essential to reading. They were fluency, phonological awareness and phonics. This week we will focus on Oral Language. 

How does oral language contribute to reading success?

Oral language is the foundation of all literacy skills. If children experience rich oral language when young by talking with and listening to adults and other children, they will have a large ‘bank’ of spoken vocabulary, words they understand when used in spoken communication.

Children will have heard and joined in word play and rhyming and be aware of the sounds of English (see Phonological awareness). They will be familiar with lots of different sentence types and understand how language can change in different situations (see Fluency). They understand that words have meanings and that we use language to communicate information, ideas, feelings and thoughts (see Comprehension).

What can parents do at home to encourage oral language?

Parents can support children in their oral language development by providing a variety of

opportunities for children to listen and talk for different purposes.

Here are some of the best ways parents can encourage oral language:

• Talk to your child and listen responsively. Ask and answer questions.
• Read aloud to your child at least once a day. Good books expose children to vocabulary and sentence structures that they won’t hear in everyday situations. Research has shown that reading aloud to children is a major factor in their success in learning to read at school.
• Talk about the books you read aloud with your child. Ask your child about the characters, plot or setting; the themes and ideas raised by the book; topics they’d like to read or learn more about as a result of reading aloud.

Excerpt taken from www.theliteracyhub.edu.au

Deborah Courtney

Director of Learning and Teaching