OSAT Elementary Education (150 and 151)

Oral language — listening and speaking — is the foundation on which reading and writing are built. Children who enter school with rich vocabularies, varied sentence structures, and experience hearing stories have more language to map onto print. Reading and writing are, in effect, visual codes for spoken language: a reader translates print into language, and a writer translates language into print. Because the same underlying knowledge supports both directions, instruction in one strengthens the other.

Spelling (encoding) and reading (decoding) are two sides of the same skill. When a child segments the spoken word map into /m/ /a/ /p/ and writes a letter for each sound, she practices the same letter-sound knowledge she uses to blend those letters when reading. For this reason, effective beginning programs pair decoding practice with dictation and spelling of the same patterns. Writing also builds oral language, because children must choose words, order them into sentences, and reread what they wrote.

The Simple View of Reading, proposed by Gough and Tunmer, states that reading comprehension is the product of word recognition (decoding) and language comprehension: RC = D × LC. Because the relationship is multiplicative, a weakness in either factor limits comprehension. A child who decodes accurately but has a small vocabulary will struggle to understand, and so will a child with strong language who cannot decode. If either factor is zero, comprehension is zero.

The model is a powerful diagnostic tool. A teacher can ask, “Does this student understand the passage when it is read aloud?” If yes, the problem lies in word recognition; if no, language comprehension needs attention, and some students need both. Students with weak decoding but strong listening comprehension often fit the profile associated with dyslexia, while students with adequate decoding but poor comprehension often have vocabulary, background-knowledge, or language-structure needs.

Scarborough's Reading Rope elaborates the Simple View. The lower strands, word recognition, include phonological awareness, decoding (and spelling), and sight recognition of familiar words; with practice these become increasingly automatic. The upper strands, language comprehension, include background knowledge, vocabulary, language structures (syntax and semantics), verbal reasoning (inference, metaphor), and literacy knowledge (print concepts and genres); these become increasingly strategic. The strands weave together into skilled, fluent reading with comprehension.

Literacy grows in a predictable sequence, although children move through it at different rates. Knowing the stages helps a teacher match instruction to what a child is ready to learn and recognize when a child is falling behind. The ages below are typical, not fixed, and a child's experiences with language and print strongly influence progress.

Teachers build oral language deliberately rather than leaving it to chance. Interactive read-alouds expose children to vocabulary and sentence structures that rarely occur in conversation, especially when the teacher pauses to discuss words and asks open-ended questions. Dialogic reading turns the child into the storyteller through prompts such as completion, recall, open-ended, “wh-” questions, and distancing questions that connect the book to the child's life. Structured talk routines — turn-and-talk, sentence frames, and think-pair-share — give every student, not just the most verbal, practice producing language.

An inclusive literacy environment reflects students' languages and cultures, includes books in which children see themselves and others, and treats home languages and dialects as assets. Classroom libraries should include predictable and patterned books for shared reading, decodable texts for practicing taught phonics patterns, and rich trade books for read-alouds that develop language comprehension.