OAE Primary Education (PK-5) (055)

This chapter covers Competency 0001: listening purposes, speaking and listening activities, adaptations, language across content areas, text selection, and oral language assessment and referral.

Types of Listening

Teach active listening explicitly (look at the speaker, wait, ask a clarifying question, paraphrase), and set a purpose before listening ("Listen for two reasons the author gives").

Common Trap: Critical listening means evaluating evidence, separating fact from opinion, and noticing persuasive techniques. Retelling a commercial is comprehension listening; judging which of its claims can be proved is critical listening.

Interactive read-alouds expose children to language they cannot yet read alone. In dialogic reading the child becomes the storyteller. The adult uses PEER: Prompt the child, Evaluate the response, Expand it by rephrasing and adding information, and Repeat the prompt so the child uses the expansion.

Dialogic Reading Prompts (CROWD)

Adaptations keep the learning goal the same while changing the support.

Oral Language Supports

Total physical response (TPR), developed by James Asher, has learners respond to commands with movement ("Stand up. Touch your nose."). It suits students in the silent period because it shows comprehension without requiring speech.

Exam Tip: Increasing wait time to three to five seconds after a question increases the length and quality of answers and the number of students who respond, especially English learners processing in two languages.

Each subject has its own language functions: explaining strategies in mathematics, making claims from observations in science, comparing perspectives in social studies. Teachers name the function a lesson demands and supply frames, such as "A ___ is similar to a ___ because..." for comparing.

Listening texts should span narrative, informational, poetry, songs, folktales from many cultures, and digital texts such as audiobooks. Select by learning goal, language quality, accuracy, whether children see themselves and others, and whether the text stretches listening vocabulary. Informational read-alouds build background knowledge.

Oral Language Assessment Tools

Anecdotal records must be objective: "Maria said, 'I want the blue one, please'" is a record; "Maria was polite" is a judgment.

Common Trap: A one-time standardized test is rarely the best way to learn about a preschooler's everyday language. Choose ongoing observation in natural settings.

Many errors are developmental. A five-year-old who says "wabbit" is within the normal range, because /r/ may develop as late as age six or seven. Whole-word or phrase repetitions ("I want, I want the ball") are common normal disfluency in preschoolers. Signs that may warrant consultation with a speech-language pathologist include:

Sound errors persisting well beyond the typical age for those sounds.

Stuttering with part-word repetitions, prolongations, blocks, visible tension, or avoidance of speaking.

Vocabulary far below peers of the same language background, or loss of acquired skills.

Difficulty following simple directions, which may also signal a hearing problem.

For English learners, separate language difference from language disorder. A true disorder also appears in the home language, so gather information from the family about home-language skills before referring.

Oral language grows through frequent purposeful talk: dramatic play, think-pair-share, accountable talk, retelling.

Dialogic reading uses PEER and CROWD; recasts model correct language without criticism.

Adapt support, not the goal: TPR for beginners, sentence frames for intermediate English learners.

Assess oral language with observation, checklists, objective anecdotal records, and rubrics.

Consider referral for poor intelligibility, persistent errors, stuttering with tension, or lost skills; rule out language difference first.