Oral Language and the Reading Process

There is a strong relationship between oral language and the reading process. Young readers need to have a vocabulary to pull from when decoding and encoding words. The more you understand or can connect to from conversations you've had or dialogue you have witnessed and understood the better you will understand a text you are reading. If a text is difficult and holds a challenging vocabulary it will be hard for a young reader to figure out the meaning, but if the reader can figure out how to pronounce the word and recognize it, they will be able to figure out the meaning.

Oral language is incredibly important and a major building block in children. It is important in both children acquiring a new language as well as those continuing to develop their first, or native, language. Adults can share so much in speaking with children. Exposing the many phonemes of a language in the words they share, along with explaining things through their speech, allows children to pick up on how to communicate with others and how to understand what others communicate with them. Comprehension is strengthened by having a discussion about reading and by adults retelling their own reading. Reading aloud to young children begins to share words and terms they may not understand, but allows them to gain understanding by showing illustrations and restating what the text is saying in simpler terminology. Another way one can reach out to a young reader is in making an observation or noticing something in or about a book.
The more you talk, the more you learn.

As a young writer....

As a young writer I was taught how to take notes and summarize materials. I can remember practicing two-column notes in school, being reminded to take out our notebooks in class, and to take notes as the materials were sure to be on the assessment at the end of the chapter. An important skill to learn, yes. I had terrible comprehension throughout school in my younger years. Taking notes was a very helpful skill and helped me retain the information discussed in class. I am currently using these skills in my graduate classes. I recently created a river of literacy, where I drew a nonlinguistic representation of my early literacy experiences. There were definitely some boulders in the beginning and some shallow water where teachers and family members reached out to guide me through the current, and I will be forever greatful for the time they spent caring for and teaching me to be a better reader. I only hope I can reach out and guide others through their journey as a reader.
Until next time... :)

An Interview with Mr. McConnell

I recently had the privilege of sitting down with another teacher and discussing their philosophies about teaching literacy. The following is our Question and Answer session:

Q. What is your philosophy of teaching literacy?
     A. I think literacy is the most important thing we teach. It goes hand in hand with teaching language, which is crucial at our school.

Q. What do you feel is the most important aspect of teaching literacy?
     A. Recognizing that Second Language Learners may have more difficulty understanding the text or picking up on specific contextual clues. Supporting their language development and reading will help them understand and pick up on things the author adds into their writing.  This is somewhat different than teaching students who speak English as their native language, they tend to pick up on the humor or some of the sayings and phrases more easily.

Q. What do you feel is the most difficult for students to understand?
     A. Comprehension. Students have a hard time retaining what they are reading, and understanding what the author is implying. There is so much not stated in text that the reader needs to be able to pull from what they know about language and the background knowledge they have to fully understand the meaning.  For example, if someone asks, "Andrew, why didn't you close the door?" they are really saying "you should have closed the door". This is more related to spoken conversations people have, but in speaking the language and understanding how it is spoken, you can better relate to text and infer the meaning behind the words.  Tone can change the meaning, the context or situation you are in can have an effect on what you are trying to get across.


I would like to thank Mr. McConnell for giving his time, and allowing me to interview him and share a discussion about the importance of teaching literacy.