Oral Language Development: Its Role in Literacy & the Teacher’s Role in It

“Literacy development in the early years” (as the chapter is so aptly named) is a key to literacy development sometimes overlooked in the explicit text instruction of literacy. As a future teacher, I myself can sometimes forget about the importance of oral language development, especially in children younger than school age. The key lays in their abilities to relate what they’re speaking to meaning and then to text. Without those important bridges, they cannot relate sounds to letters and then meaning to words.

            As teachers and parents, we must encourage language development in the most positive ways possible. Just as easily as positive reinforcement boosts language development, negative reinforcement can hinder and damage it. (This did lead me to the question: Can delayed language development be “fixed” [for lack of better term] by the time the child is in an early elementary school setting?) Expansion (in the role of teacher/parent) is a key to this as well, as explained in Vygotsky’s theory. I strongly identified with the Constructivist theory, and the implications of it. I believe (as the theory suggests) a child’s language development is an individualized, active, and social process. We still play an important role in this way, because it is not only up to the child to learn and develop, but also up to us to properly interact and feed their growth. The child’s acquisition process is messy and continuous, and depends upon the social contexts of their lives. In this way, sitting a child in front of a TV program designed to help their language development can be rendered completely useless if they 1) have no one to interact with in person and 2) are not allowed to incorrectly explore (and eventually correct themselves) language verbally. This begs the question, at what point as educators do we begin “punishment” (again, for lack of a better term) for improper/asynchronous paced development, rather than find their errors endearing and part of the process?

            All of this is important to note as teachers when assessing children’s specific strengths and weaknesses in oral language development. We need to attempt to understand the child’s social context for language development, as a way of understanding their specific levels in development (what language is used around them, is it an interactive process, etc.) We also need to use developmentally appropriate language; this often means increasing syntactic complexity beyond what we believe they understand. We must provide a language rich environment where interactive language usage is stimulated (to a reasonable extent; class discussions are a great tool when monitored properly, but this does not mean we have to allow children to talk literally all of the time).

            I personally witnessed all of these examples coming into play during my last visit to AppleTree center. The children (4-5 year olds) were learning a unit on “Equines”. I never would’ve thought to teach children so young a word and concept many people my age aren’t even aware of. Though most of the class couldn’t read the texts themselves that were being read aloud to them, they were learning so much on a very interesting topic that is rich with new words and hearing very informational texts.