Dr Michael Johnston: Don’t delay literacy for children struggling with oral language

In an article in the June 11-17 edition of the New Zealand Listener, speech-language therapist Karena Shannon argued that our education system over-values literacy and under-values oral language.

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.