Education: Language Abilities and Literacy Development
Language ability is vitally linked to literacy development. In fact, an effective approach to literacy development is its treatment as a “processing of written language.” As the eleven key areas for effective reading show, the varying language abilities of children must be analyzed and addressed to fashion a literacy program enhancing their abilities in those areas.
Literacy development is linked to a number of human abilities and external forces. The influence of these factors is most often determined through their negative impacts on literacy. Some of those factors include: physical impairments such as hearing deficiencies, vision deficiencies or other impairments; external causes such as minimal or no exposure to written sources, oral stories or language beyond television, the child’s lack of attention to accessible language or written sources (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 32), inadequate preschool opportunities or instruction in literacy, and/or incompatibility between the child’s development and opportunities provided by home and school (Netten, Droop, & Verhoeven, 2011, p. 414). Nevertheless, an educator is faced with providing adequate literacy development for children of varying abilities, in areas including but not limited to language.
One effective approach to dealing with literacy development is to treat it as the “processing of written language” and treat language as the child’s most important resource, acquired through his/her interactions with his/her family, friends and community at large (Netten, Droop, & Verhoeven, 2011, p. 414; Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 32). Examining the aspects of this important resource of language — any language – experts find that it consists of: a meaning system with ideas, labels and emotions giving meaning; a language system, with rules for proper grammar; a sound system, converting sounds to meaning; and a lexicon, consisting of the words a person uses in oral language (Conrad, Harris, & Williams, 2013, p. 1225; Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 32). Though written language differs from oral language in certain ways, the more facile a child is with oral language, the easier reading will be for the child. Oral language abilities help or hinder literacy development because: his/her abilities with syntax help the child anticipate words and reduce incorrect alternative words; his/her knowledge of syntax helps the child understand that the words “sound right”; his/her knowledge of meaning helps the child know whether the words make sense; his/her knowledge of phonology will help the child recognize sounds and connect them with the written letters; his/her vocabulary will help him/her decipher written words (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 34). Areas of literacy difficulty specifically connected to language are found in the areas of language processing and phonological processing. “Language processing” is the capability of using the systems of language while reading. Those systems are meaning, syntax, and phonology, all of which rely on rules (Conrad, Harris, & Williams, 2013, p. 1225; Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 33). “Phonological processing” is the awareness of speech consisting of sounds, the capability of identifying, isolating and manipulating sounds into spoken words (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 33). When a child has lesser abilities or disabilities in any of these areas, he/she requires additional help to enrich and supplement the child’s abilities.
Though different specific systems exist, effective reading consists of eleven abilities, discussed here in no particular order of importance. First, the reader should be able to decipher words through the use of phonology, perception, syntax, vocabulary, memory an experience (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 41), and an example of difficulty in this area is the child’s inability to link sounds and letters. Secondly, the reader should readily monitor and correct his/her reading to ensure that it is sensible, sounds correct and looks correct (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 41), and an example of difficulty in this area is a child who simply reads words and keeps going without a sensible sounding sentence. Third, the reader should be able to summarize whatever he/she has read (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 41), and an example of difficulty in this area is a child who is unable to pull the most important points from his/her reading, either because the child does not understand the concepts in the first place or because he/she is not paying attention during the reading. Fourth, the reader should be fluent in quickly understanding the word itself and its context within the reading (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 41), and a sign of difficulty in this area is a child’s halting reading, incorrect stress of words and incorrect attention to punctuation. Fifth, the reader should also be flexible, altering his/her approach to the material as he/she keeps self-monitoring (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 41), and a sign of difficulty is a rigid, repetitive approach to the material that undermines effective self-monitoring. Sixth, the reader should be able to think in advance about what will happen in the sentence, paragraph and complete text through his/her experience and language ability (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 42), and difficulty in this area is shown by a child’s undue focus on the disjointed meaning of a word or sentence without considering the context. Seventh, the reader should be able to connect the reading with his/her own experience of language, general knowledge and other texts he/she has read (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 42), and difficulty in this area can be shown by the child’s inability to make those connections in discussions. Eighth, the reader should be able to synthesize the new material with his/her store of knowledge, adding to his/her knowledge and enhancing it as each text is read (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 42), and an indicator of difficulty is the child’s inability to identify and incorporate the new knowledge in discussions. Ninth, the reader should be able to infer additional information, such as characters’ motivations and feelings (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 42), and an indicator of difficulty is the child’s inability to see beyond the literal text to infer other information about the reading. Tenth, the reader should be able to analyze the reading to grasp the particular way the author has composed the text and the language used in the text (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 42), and difficulty in this area is indicated by the child’s inability to appreciate the author’s use of words and art to craft the text. Eleventh, the reader should be able to critique the text, forming opinions about it (Fountas & Pinnell, When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works, 2009, p. 42), and difficulty in this area is shown by a child’s struggle with critically thinking about and judging the text. Due to the eleven areas of proficiency discerned by experts and the difficulties associated with each of those areas, a good classroom program should be designed to enhance every one of those abilities in all the children.
3. Conclusion
Literacy development relies on a number of factors, one of the most important being language ability. This is why one effective approach to literacy development is to treat it as the “processing of written language” and to treat language as the child’s most important resource. Language consists of a meaning system, a system of grammatical rules, and sound system and a lexicon system. All these systems are vital to the child’s literacy development; consequently, literacy difficulty is connected to problems in language processing and phonological processing.
By analyzing the processes in reading, experts have discerned eleven abilities: deciphering; monitoring; summarizing; fluency; flexibility; the ability to think in advance; the ability to connect reading to experience; synthesis; inference; analysis; and critique. All these abilities are found in varying degrees in children with the “best” readers highly capably in all these areas and the “difficult” readers having deficiencies in one or more of these areas. Consequently, an effective program for literacy development should be designed to enhance every one of those abilities in all the children.
Works Cited
Conrad, N.J., Harris, N., & Williams, J. (2013). Individual differences in children’s literacy development: the contribution of orthographic knowledge. Reading and Writing, 26(8), 1223-1239.
Fountas, I., & Pinnell, G.S. (2009). When Readers Struggle: Teaching That Works. Portsmouth: Heinemann.
Netten, A., Droop, M., & Verhoeven, L. (2011). Predictors of reading literacy for first and second language learners. Reading and Writing, 24(4), 413-425.
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