Shannon correctly noted that oral language is “innate” in human beings, whereas literacy is “constructed”. All human beings, barring certain developmental disorders or brain injuries, will successfully acquire oral language without being explicitly instructed, provided it is spoken around them when they are infants. On the other hand, literacy is a technology. It is not a cultural universal and must be explicitly taught.
Shannon also correctly pointed out that oral language is the foundation on which literacy is built. For beginning readers to learn to map writing to meaning, the words they encounter in text must exist in their oral vocabularies.
It is true that too many children start school with an insufficient oral vocabulary and that this hampers them in learning to read. Where Shannon went wrong, however, was in her argument that schools ought to focus on oral language before commencing literacy instruction. The reason that this view is misguided goes back to her correct point that oral language is innate. Unlike literacy, oral vocabulary is acquired through environmental exposure, not through instruction.
Teachers can and should provide rich oral language environments for their students, especially for the sakes of those who have not acquired strong vocabularies earlier. Unlike literacy teaching though, doing this isn’t a matter of direct instruction. Innate language acquisition mechanisms leverage the familiar vocabulary in conversation to enable children to absorb new vocabulary. All of this happens naturally.
The need to do this should not, however, deter teachers from explicitly teaching the mappings between spelling and sound that underpin reading in alphabetic languages like English. There’s no need to wait until a child has a particular amount of oral vocabulary before commencing literacy instruction. Whatever vocabulary a child does have will be quite sufficient to attain fluency in decoding if a structured literacy approach, with phonics at its core, is taken.
Fluent reading also strengthens oral vocabulary. As world renowned literacy researcher David Share has argued, when a fluent reader encounters an unfamiliar word in text, it can be recoded using spelling to sound mappings, and its meaning inferred from its context. It can then be added to oral vocabulary.
It is true that too many children start school with an insufficient oral vocabulary and that this hampers them in learning to read. Where Shannon went wrong, however, was in her argument that schools ought to focus on oral language before commencing literacy instruction. The reason that this view is misguided goes back to her correct point that oral language is innate. Unlike literacy, oral vocabulary is acquired through environmental exposure, not through instruction.
Teachers can and should provide rich oral language environments for their students, especially for the sakes of those who have not acquired strong vocabularies earlier. Unlike literacy teaching though, doing this isn’t a matter of direct instruction. Innate language acquisition mechanisms leverage the familiar vocabulary in conversation to enable children to absorb new vocabulary. All of this happens naturally.
The need to do this should not, however, deter teachers from explicitly teaching the mappings between spelling and sound that underpin reading in alphabetic languages like English. There’s no need to wait until a child has a particular amount of oral vocabulary before commencing literacy instruction. Whatever vocabulary a child does have will be quite sufficient to attain fluency in decoding if a structured literacy approach, with phonics at its core, is taken.
Fluent reading also strengthens oral vocabulary. As world renowned literacy researcher David Share has argued, when a fluent reader encounters an unfamiliar word in text, it can be recoded using spelling to sound mappings, and its meaning inferred from its context. It can then be added to oral vocabulary.
Dr Michael Johnston has held academic positions at Victoria University of Wellington for the past ten years. He holds a PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Melbourne. This article was published HERE
4 comments:
Michael's argument makes sense. We can only wonder at the long evolutionary process in early humans and their progenitors that led to the development of what we might call language, as opposed to some kind of proto-language involving a limited range of sounds.
Possibly homo erectus of two million years ago had developed a simple language that supported migration and successful hunting and gathering. Clearly they survived in various forms for at least one million years so something worked for them - possibly a simple language was vital to their success - more probably many simple languages over that time and across continents. Was language around even earlier? Maybe or maybe not.
It's hard for a non-expert to rank the importance of literacy and oral language in early-childhood, though the latter seems more fundamental. A curious observation is that articulate and self-confident speakers often progress faster in the workplace than others who are less articulate but might, in fact, be more literate. In social and workplace environments we evaluate others to a large extent on the basis of the spoken word rather than on the written word or mathematical ability, and this tendency might go back to our evolutionary biology.
David Lillis
If concentrated on oral instead of literate ability, the many who come to school very able would be bored silly when the teacher concentrated on simple speech. But they can progress with their writing without being held back by those who have barely heard or been inolved in anyhhing beyond the simplest communication at home. (Or, worse, been immersed in te reo or some other primitive stone age language).
Listening to various females on RNZ, oral tutoring for them seems to have been more than adequate.
It is astonishing that the phonics debate still continues. From my observation Mary clay perpetrated one of the biggest cons of modern times.
Robert Arthur -You are wrong! The comment you make about able students being bored silly with prolonged concentration on simple speech is absolutely correct- I agree and this applies equally to phonics. Most students need just some very basic phonics, a skill they are unlikely to need or use.
Most students thrived under Marie Clay's programme as they quickly realized (whether able to articulate it or not)that the language they were seeing represented in print, was the same language that they heard and understood.
The system has always had difficulty understanding and allowing for the fact that many students are readers when they start school. For those students generally and beyond some basics, phonics is a total waste of time.
Certainly hyperbole is well out of reach unless you have heard and understood it- phonics is of no use.
Your comment about Te Reo is 100% correct.
As with great emphasis on oral, Phonics is tedious for those advanced. But in NZ the problem is the very many who are both not advanced and often somewhat slow. Phonics worked fine for a hundred years (and for private students who had not succeedded at school in recent times) and from my experience as a parent assisting at a aschool and applying what I remembered from my my 1940s school days, still does. In the 1920s children were failed to their level so teachers were not faced with classes of hugely different ability and level, so many conflicting requirements did not arise.
(For those unfamiliar the revered Marie clay put forward a read by osmosis notion, generally still the basis.)
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