Question

Explain the connection between language and literacy. How does language development affect literacy? Include a resource that supports your explanation.

Answer 1

The connection between language and literacy. How does language development affect literacy.

Language and Literacy

Oral, or spoken language, is only one of the four domains of language. The other three domains are listening, reading, and writing.  

All four domains of language correlate and effect one another in their development. Children who enter school with strong oral language skills learn to read and write with greater ease and tend to excel more in school that their peers with less knowledge of vocabulary and language structure. So those moments in the car, or at the dinner table, or while getting dressed when your little child jabbers on and on can be a valuable opportunity to encourage and increase their oral language skills and later success in school.

There is a relationship between both, but they are not the same thing.One spoken language skill that is strongly connected to early reading and writing is phonological awareness-the recognition that words are made up of separate speech sounds, for example, that the word dog is composed of three sounds: d, aw, g. There are a variety of oral language activities that show children's natural development of phonological awareness, including rhyming and alliteration. Children who perform well on sound awareness tasks become successful readers and writers, while children who struggle with such tasks often do not.

Human beings have a unique ability to learn the rules of language used in their environment. We are born to speak. If you have ever been in a car with a jabbering toddler or preschooler, you can confirm that young children are born to talk. Almost all children learn to speak through practice and use over time, with little or no formal instruction, and the environments where children learn their language can have a direct impact of their success in literacy.Children who struggle with language often perform poorly in school because they have trouble understanding what is said to them, what they read, and expressing their thoughts to others.

There are four main ways oral language development can prepare children for literacy:

1. Oral language develops vocabulary concepts. Children gain information about word meanings and pronunciation and these concepts are first introduced in speaking and understanding other's speech.

2. Children learn through oral language the structure of language and that it communicates meaning. Children who can articulate their words and thoughts clearly have an advantage in learning to read over those children who have poor oral language skills.

3. Oral language teaches children cultural nuances, giving them specific background knowledge that aides in reading comprehension.

4. Oral language acquisition builds a desire to use language for a variety of purposes, such as reading, wiring and listening.

A resource that supports your explanation:

A baby has language even if it’s pointing or crying. It’s communication not literacy. Literacy, to me, means the ability to read and comprehend while being able to paraphrase or predict.

To illustrate what I mean I am giving an example.

A teacher taught special education. His students had IQ’s ranging for about 40 to 70. One of his students could read almost any word put in front of him. He would read a simple sentence such as “The dog is brown.” He could not, however, explain what he just read.

The words as written meant nothing.

If he showed him a picture of a brown dog, he could identify it. He had language but no literacy.