The Importance of Oral Language Competence and Literacy to Development and Wellbeing
In a publication by Pamela Snow (Professor of Cognitive Psychology at La Trobe University) and Martine Powell (Founding Director of the Centre for Investigative Interviewing), titled 'Oral Language Competence in Early Life and Risk for Engagement in Antisocial Behaviour in Adolescence' [PDF], oral language competence is referred to as a set of listening and speaking skills which develop in childhood. This includes:
Their research shows that children demonstrating behavioural difficulties at school will possibly also have speech and language difficulties. These difficulties can have such an impact on a child’s self-esteem and frustration levels that behavioural issues arise, or there is further exacerbation of existing issues.
Professor Snow developed the Language House pictured below to depict the significance of oral language competence to our development and wellbeing.
- word knowledge or vocabulary development (semantics)
- grammar and verbal sentence structure (syntax)
- storytelling or narrative development (oral expression)
- the ability to listen to and follow instructions (auditory comprehension)
- problem solving and making connections between pieces of information (language competence)
- isolating and blending together sounds in words during reading and spelling activities (phonemic awareness)
- interpreting and responding appropriately to social situations (pragmatics)
Their research shows that children demonstrating behavioural difficulties at school will possibly also have speech and language difficulties. These difficulties can have such an impact on a child’s self-esteem and frustration levels that behavioural issues arise, or there is further exacerbation of existing issues.
Professor Snow developed the Language House pictured below to depict the significance of oral language competence to our development and wellbeing.
YarraMe’s approach to education is based on this same layered understanding of development that places critical importance on oral language competence.
Starting on ‘solid ground’
In order for children to learn, they must first feel safe and be able to connect or ‘attach’ to their learning environment. The central construct of attachment theory is that if caregivers are available and responsive to a child’s needs, this allows the child to develop a sense of security. The child knows that the caregiver is dependable, which creates a secure base for the child to then explore the world.
With this in mind, YarraMe’s programs work to create strong relationships between teachers and students which then allows a focus on behaviour, social skills, language, literacy and wellbeing.
There is also a strong emphasis on the relationship between YarraMe staff, the child’s mainstream school, the child’s family and any external supports – a Team Around the Learner approach. This team approach forms stronger connections between the school and students and makes it more likely that they continue with their education (Snow, 2016).
Building language skills
At YarraMe, oral language activities are fully integrated into the classroom program. In addition, students have the benefit of a speech pathologist working with teachers and in the classroom, offering tailored oral language activities and support.
YarraMe has also adopted a structured synthetic phonics reading and spelling program, with an underlying focus on phonological and phonemic awareness – crucial for building sight vocabulary and the underlying skills for reading and spelling development (Kilpatrick, 2016).
Research has shown that students taught using a structured synthetic phonics approach develop better word reading, spelling and reading comprehension skills (Johnston et al, 2011). Students at YarraMe access a tailored structured synthetic phonics reading program, targeting the big 5 of literacy: phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Students then practice these five skills through the use of decodable readers.
Building interpersonal skills
For YarraMe School students, difficulties with pragmatics – interpreting and responding appropriately to social situations – is often an area of concern.
It’s important that students develop social skills as these skills are necessary in schools – for group work, interacting with teachers, developing friendships and academic development e.g. reading comprehension or verbal expression of ideas.
An understanding of social skills brings with it development of expected behaviours, joint engagement, collaboration and self-regulation within group contexts (Sarapani et al. 2018). At YarraMe, social-emotional programs and skill development are explicitly targeted and taught so that the student can learn how their behaviour affects themselves and others. Students also learn strategies to support ongoing self-regulation and social connectiveness.
Further reading
Brimo, D., Apel, K., & Fountain, T. (2017). Examining the contributions of syntactic awareness and syntactic knowledge to reading comprehension. Journal of Research in Reading, 40(1), 57-74. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12050
Claessen, M., & Leitao, S. (2012) Phonological representations in children with SLI. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, 28(2), 211-223. http://doi.org/10.1177/0265659012436851
Crick, N.R., & Dodge, K.A. (1994) A Review and Reformulation of Social Information-Processing Mechanisms in Children’s Social Adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115(1), 74-101. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.115.1.74
Goodwin, A., Lipsky, M., & Ahn, S. (2012). Word Detectives: Using units of meaning to support literacy. The Reading Teacher, 65(7), 461-470. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.01069
Johnston, R.S, McGeown, S., & Watson, J.E. (2011) Long-term effects of synthetic versus analytic phonics teaching on the reading and spelling ability of 10 year old boys and girls. Reading and Writing, 25(6), 1365-1384. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-011-9323-x
Kilpatrick, D. A. (2016). Equipped for reading success: A comprehensive, step-by-step program for developing phonemic awareness and fluent word recognition. Syracuse: Casey & Kirsch.
Sarapani, N., et al. (2012) Direct and Reciprocal Effects among Social Skills, Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension in First Grade. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 53(2018), 159-167. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cedpsych.2018.03.003
Snow, P. (2016) Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture: Language is literacy is language- Positioning speech-language pathology in education policy, practice, paradigms and polemics. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18(3), 216-228. http://doi.org/10.3109/17549507.2015.1112837
Snow, P. (2020) SOLAR: The Science of Language and Reading. Child Language Teaching and Therapy, Online Publication. http://doi.org/10.1177/0265659020947817
Tumner, W.E., & Chapman, J.W. (2012) The Simple View of Reading Redux: Vocabulary Knowledge and the Independent Components Hypothesis. Journal of Learning Disabilities, 45(5) 453-466. http://doi.org/10.1177/0022219411432685
