#3 - Oral Language and the Reading Process

It seems to me that the relationship between oral language and the reading process can be a little tenuous.  One of my most gifted speakers (he’d prefer to be called a rapper, though) struggles greatly to read.  Whatever disconnect exists for him is a big one.  He’s a native speaker, so it’s definitely not as though he doesn’t know the words.  In fact, as a rapper, he’s pretty great at having a steady stream of interesting words available. I think his big disconnect could be disinterest in anything that is not his own rap music.

The readings for this week in Gibbons (2002) were very clear on how powerful the spoken word is for ELL students in the classroom as far as developing their language goes.  Working cooperatively and socially in classroom, listening and speaking, helps students to build their language skills.  Building language skills in this way can be an efficient way to work them up to more difficult academic language skills.  Our primary way of communicating is through spoken language (schools are filled with it!) and used properly, oral language activities in classrooms can help develop the skills that students need to users of language in all modes: reading, writing, speaking and listening.  There are two views of reading that relate to acquisition – word recognition and sociolinguistic.  Word recognition holds that if a person can recognize a word by sound, they can then make the connection between the marks on the page and the word in their oral vocabulary (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p. 24).  Sociolinguistics emphasizes that reading involves constructing meaning – using background knowledge to make sense of text (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p. 24).  Word recognition would involve phonics and sociolinguistics graphophonics.  

I agree with Freeman & Freeman in that socioliguistics as far as the relationship between oral language and the reading process makes more sense than just word recognition.  Sociolinguistics means that people acquire literacy similar to the way they acquire oral language – the focus is on meaning (Freeman & Freeman, 2004, p. 24-25).

References:

Freeman, D.E. & Y.S. Freeman. (2004). Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Gibbons, Pauline. (2002). Scaffolding Language, Scaffolding Learning. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.