Introduction to Reading and Your Child
This article will provide you some background information so that you understand all the components of reading that your child has to put together to be a good reader. There is also information about why listening and literacy are so closely linked. The other articles are organized by ages and stages so you can read them all or choose the one that matches your child right now. I will archive these articles on wehearhere.org so you can access them as your child grows.
What is reading? The five components of reading are phonemic awareness, phonology, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Keep these in mind. We will be discussing each of these in the following articles.
Spoken language is the first step in learning to read. Children’s brains are uniquely ready to learn spoken language. Typically hearing children don't have to be taught spoken language specifically. They learn to speak naturally from listening to others. We know it's a little bit more difficult for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. However, all children have to be taught to read, even children with typical hearing. Reading is not naturally occurring.
Since competency in reading is based on competency in oral language and competency in oral language is based on hearing the language you will read, I want to talk a little bit about hearing. There are four levels of learning to listen. I call this my farm story. The first part of the farm story is detection, that's when you hear this, “moo.” Oh, I hear something. The second level is discrimination, “moo, baa.” I hear two sounds, and they're different. The third level is identification, “moo, baa.” I heard a cow, and I heard a sheep. The 4th level is comprehension. I heard a cow; I heard a sheep. I'm thinking maybe there's a farm nearby. Having the access to sound that appropriate technology makes possible provides the necessary framework for these auditory skills that make learning to read possible from letter sounds to complex vocabulary and comprehension.
One of the auditory perception tests that is frequently used is the Auditory Perception Test for the Hearing Impaired that was developed by Susan Allen. In 2016, Susan published a guidebook as a companion piece for the test. She asked me to write a chapter on the link between auditory perception and literacy. I developed a chart that takes each auditory skill and explains how it is necessary for reading competency. You can find that chart here. Here are a couple of examples to help you understand the chart when you take a look at it. The chart begins with sound awareness. One of the tasks is counting the number of beats. Those of you with very beginning listeners recognize how we work on that skill as we move from Ling Sounds to words and word combinations. “I want” is 2 beats. “I want juice” is 3. The ability to match beats relates to learning multisyllabic words such as “dinosaur.” Further along, midway in the chart is identification of sentences using suprasegmental information, that is information that is carried by intensity, duration and pitch. That is also important for syllabification such as the difference between progress and progress and for developing concept of word in early reading. Concept of word is the child’s understanding that a word of print matches a spoken word. It also relates to changes in intonation that signal different grammatical constructions. The final task in APT/HI-R is giving appropriate responses to sentences with no pictures. That listening skill links to comprehension, learning from literature and generalization of grade-level reading skills across the curriculum.
The link between listening and literacy is well established scientifically. “Reading activates the auditory cortex. Neural imaging has shown that the primary and secondary auditory areas of the brain are most active when a child listens and when a child reads. (Robertson, Slouttsky & Napolitano, Tallal). Phonological or phonemic awareness, which are explicit awareness of the speech sound structure of language units, form the basis for the development of literacy skills.” (Cole & Flexer)
If you are a person who likes lots of background information, I’ll be happy to recommend more reading. If you are ready to get some practical tips that will help your child reach developmental benchmarks, move on to another article.
Article #2 in this series is “Reading with Children from Birth to Three.”
What is reading? The five components of reading are phonemic awareness, phonology, vocabulary, fluency, and comprehension. Keep these in mind. We will be discussing each of these in the following articles.
Spoken language is the first step in learning to read. Children’s brains are uniquely ready to learn spoken language. Typically hearing children don't have to be taught spoken language specifically. They learn to speak naturally from listening to others. We know it's a little bit more difficult for children who are deaf or hard of hearing. However, all children have to be taught to read, even children with typical hearing. Reading is not naturally occurring.
Since competency in reading is based on competency in oral language and competency in oral language is based on hearing the language you will read, I want to talk a little bit about hearing. There are four levels of learning to listen. I call this my farm story. The first part of the farm story is detection, that's when you hear this, “moo.” Oh, I hear something. The second level is discrimination, “moo, baa.” I hear two sounds, and they're different. The third level is identification, “moo, baa.” I heard a cow, and I heard a sheep. The 4th level is comprehension. I heard a cow; I heard a sheep. I'm thinking maybe there's a farm nearby. Having the access to sound that appropriate technology makes possible provides the necessary framework for these auditory skills that make learning to read possible from letter sounds to complex vocabulary and comprehension.
One of the auditory perception tests that is frequently used is the Auditory Perception Test for the Hearing Impaired that was developed by Susan Allen. In 2016, Susan published a guidebook as a companion piece for the test. She asked me to write a chapter on the link between auditory perception and literacy. I developed a chart that takes each auditory skill and explains how it is necessary for reading competency. You can find that chart here. Here are a couple of examples to help you understand the chart when you take a look at it. The chart begins with sound awareness. One of the tasks is counting the number of beats. Those of you with very beginning listeners recognize how we work on that skill as we move from Ling Sounds to words and word combinations. “I want” is 2 beats. “I want juice” is 3. The ability to match beats relates to learning multisyllabic words such as “dinosaur.” Further along, midway in the chart is identification of sentences using suprasegmental information, that is information that is carried by intensity, duration and pitch. That is also important for syllabification such as the difference between progress and progress and for developing concept of word in early reading. Concept of word is the child’s understanding that a word of print matches a spoken word. It also relates to changes in intonation that signal different grammatical constructions. The final task in APT/HI-R is giving appropriate responses to sentences with no pictures. That listening skill links to comprehension, learning from literature and generalization of grade-level reading skills across the curriculum.
The link between listening and literacy is well established scientifically. “Reading activates the auditory cortex. Neural imaging has shown that the primary and secondary auditory areas of the brain are most active when a child listens and when a child reads. (Robertson, Slouttsky & Napolitano, Tallal). Phonological or phonemic awareness, which are explicit awareness of the speech sound structure of language units, form the basis for the development of literacy skills.” (Cole & Flexer)
If you are a person who likes lots of background information, I’ll be happy to recommend more reading. If you are ready to get some practical tips that will help your child reach developmental benchmarks, move on to another article.
Article #2 in this series is “Reading with Children from Birth to Three.”