Tie-In Between Oral Language Development and Reading Development

Education -- Oral Language Development

Oral language development has the five stages of Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics. All five stages are vital to appropriate oral language and reading development. Furthermore, each stage has its own characteristics and methods for supporting proper development in children of varying abilities.

Matrix -- Stages of Oral Language Development

STAGES OF ORAL LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT

Stage

Description

Utterances

Support

Phonology

1st stage of development; single-syllable sounds that children use to learn pronunciations and form dialect (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

Cooing and babbling (Center for Early Literacy Learning, n.d.),

Speaking and otherwise vocalizing in response to cooing and babbling in order reinforce the cooing and babbling and encourage more vocalization from the infant (Center for Early Literacy Learning, n.d.).

Morphology

2nd stage of development; simple words are used to form sentences; increasingly uses more complex words and sentences with root words, prefixes, suffixes and punctuation (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

"Mommy drive."

Eventually, "Mommy driving" (Stowe, n.d.)

Using "foldables" and matching games that teach root words, prefixes and suffixes (Stowe, n.d.).

Syntax

3rd stage of development; development of parts of speech and sentence structure according to rules the child learns by speaking and listening. May not be able to recite rules but knows when something sounds correct or incorrect (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

From "Mommy go" to "Mommy has gone" (Amstutz, 2012).

Readers Theater to have children practice and perform by reading aloud to class; and Writing Workshops and ABC books to bridge oral language, reading and writing (Amstutz, 2012).

Semantics

4th Stage of development; child learns the meanings and connotations of words in context; able to use more precise words to name and describe (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

Instead of using "car" to describe all motorized vehicles, uses "car," "bus," "truck," etc. appropriately (Net Industries, n.d.).

Use semantically correct responses in an open, safe environment (Net Industries, n.d.).

Pragmatics

5th Stage of development; child learns to social language, including how to use it for different purposes, changing language according to the situation, and following conversation rules (Net Industries, n.d.; (Tompkins, 2002).

From yelling, "I want to play now!" during class to refraining from recess language during class (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.).

To help the child learn how to use language for different purposes, ask questions and make suggestions; to help child change language according to the situation, role-play conversations and encourage persuasion rather than demands; for following conversation rules, comment on the topic of a conversation before introducing it, provide visual clues, encourage rephrasing and show the importance of nonverbal symbols (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.)

b. Strategies -- Success and Modification

Phonology is aided by the strategy of speaking and otherwise vocalizing in response to cooing and babbling in order reinforce the cooing and babbling and encourage more vocalization from the infant (Center for Early Literacy Learning, n.d.). While that strategy encourages the baby to more vocalization, it can be supplemented by several other methods: describing exactly what one is doing while doing it, whether that is dressing the baby or changing his/her diaper, etc., so he/she will begin to recognize words and sounds; carrying on a one-sided conversation in front of the baby to show the give and take of conversation; reading to the baby to let him/her know how sentences sound; describing the world around you, such as colors, things and sounds; and asking questions of the baby while making eye contact and waiting to see whether he/she answers in order to accustom him/her to conversation (What to Expect, n.d.).

Morphology is aided by: "foldables," which are folded pieces of paper showing a word root and common prefixes and suffixes; matching games that match and combine word roots, prefixes and suffixes (Stowe, n.d.). The playfulness and repetitiveness of the methods are somewhat effective in assisting morphology development. These strategies can be enhanced by: teaching different morpheme patterns when a new word is taught; using speed drills to develop reflexive recognition of syllables and morphemes; teaching the six syllable types of closed, open, vowel-consonant, vowel pair, vowel-r and consonant-l-e; and teaching morphemes in the context of sentences (National Institute for Literacy, 2008).

Syntax is aided by Readers Theater to have children practice and perform by reading aloud to class; and Writing Workshops and ABC books to bridge oral language, reading and writing (Amstutz, 2012). While those methods help students develop syntax, this stage is also aided by: using correct grammar/syntax and always responding as an adult; playing sentence games; pasting pictures of common items on cards and having the child describe the item to the other children so they can guess the item; using simple scenes from books and magazines and having the child describe what is happening in the scene; scrambling the words of a sentence and having the child unscramble them; and cutting out pictures of people from cartoons and magazines, pasting them on cards and having children relate what the character will say, is saying, has said, etc., using different forms of the verb (Spivey, n.d.).

Semantics can be supported by using semantically correct responses in the open, safe environment of the classroom (Net Industries, n.d.). This has some effect in teaching proper semantics; however it can be further aided by: discussing English expressions that are not meant literally and asking students to interpret them literally and interpret what they really mean; introducing new vocabulary words before sharing a reading with the new vocabulary, so children will understand it while reading, and then prompting the children to create their own stories with the new words; using a simple nursery rhyme and having children replace certain words with synonyms that do not change the nursery rhyme's meaning (SEDL, n.d.).

Finally, Pragmatics is supported by methods aimed at its 3 different components: to help the child learn how to use language for different purposes, ask questions and make suggestions; to help child change language according to the situation, role-play conversations and encourage persuasion rather than demands; for following conversation rules, comment on the topic of a conversation before introducing it, provide visual clues, encourage rephrasing and show the importance of nonverbal symbols (American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, n.d.). Those methods are effective in all 3 components; however, they are also aided by using daily events in the classroom to encourage proper social skills student-to-student and student-to-teacher and student-to-others (Moore, n.d.). All these activities for the 5 stages of oral language development should greatly support the development of children having varying abilities.