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INTRODUCTION
by Donald E. Werve, Jr., M.Ed.
Throughout
most of the academic community, the fields of Language Development and
Reading Skills Development are viewed as separate disciplines. When one
is viewing in-depth theory, this may be true; but "out here in the real
world" one of the forgotten realities is that they must both be viewed and assessed as
integral components of Literacy.
They are so closely aligned, in fact, that many of the same terms are
used am milestones of achievement; terms such as comprehension,
decoding, fluency, phonemics, phonetics, and phonics just to name a
few. Moreover, the stages of language development need to be recognized
as the foundations of reading instruction.
According
to most English-language theorists, language development takes place in
four sequential steps: Listening, Speaking, Reading, and Writing. Each
of these is assessed on a progress line from the "beginner" stage
through competency, to advanced, and then on to fluent. Here, it is
important to understand that progress is neither linear nor discrete.
Equally as important is to understand that physical age is not a
hard-and-fast requisite for progress.
In this
Reading Champs Learning Project overview, we present a "mountain top"
view of what is a very complex topic. (Additional in-depth theoretical
and practical information and materials are available through the
Reading Champs Bookstore.) The open access sections are intended to
provide sufficient information for a Reading Champs (RC) Coach to
understand, at least on a surface level, much of the theory which we
feel is:
a. Important for a RE Coach to be able to use in preparing, planning, and evaluating student activities and responses.
b.
Usually not part of formal Teacher Training or Teacher Credential
Preparation programs or advanced degree programs in Education. This is
not said to fault any program or scholastic training, but rather to
stress the potential effects of the overall Reading Champs program.
Now, Let us follow the links, below, and take a more detailed look at these four steps of Language and Literacy development:
Listening
The
foundations of learning may actually take place in the womb! Theories
based in pre-natal research tell us that the fetus has the capacity for
hearing and has shown signs of intellectual (albeit usually autonomic)
response to stimulae from outside the mother's body ranging from music
to the mother's voice, to voices and other environmental sounds.
Speaking
The early babbling of a child will produce a
repertoire of every sound in every human language, and that as he or
she begins to acquire a "home" language, most of the non-home sounds
will fall into disuse and disappear. Their first step toward verbal
literacy starts with mimicking words addressed directly (which is why
they refer to themselves as "baby" rather than as "me" or by their
given name).
Reading
Although reading
is the third voice in the Literacy Quartet, it can actually be
introduced into the communications mix before speech becomes emergent.
A parent can introduce even the youngest child to reading simply by reading simple
poetry (with rhyme and metre) during "snuggle and play" periods.
Writing
The ability to write does not require a specific competence in English. Whatever
your language of comfort, that is the language you should use
to begin your writing adventure. Writers, as individuals within a
group, share only two characteristics.
They [usually] read and they write. Of these two, the latter is absolutely critical. You cannot be a writer if you don’t write! Which
brings me to the final voice in the quartet. Readers can read and, as a
general rule, readers have an edge on becoming writers.
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