The problem is even more severe for struggling students. For example, the listening vocabulary level of a 25th percentile 6th-grader is equivalent to that attained by the 75th percentile 3rd-grader. The same is true of reading comprehension measures. If we could improve the word identification skills of children at the 25th percentile in reading comprehension, we would get some improvement—up to the child's listening comprehension level.
But in many cases, we would still be looking at a child whose comprehension level is far below that of many peers. To bring a child to grade-level language comprehension means, at a minimum, that the child must acquire and use grade-level vocabulary plus some post-grade-level vocabulary.
Obviously, this does not mean simply memorizing more words, but rather coming to understand and use the words used by average children at that level. Knowledge of this vocabulary will not guarantee success, but lack of vocabulary knowledge can ensure failure.
Andrew Biemiller is professor in the Institute of Child Study at the University of Toronto and author of numerous articles on how children develop language and literacy. However, children must reach the point where they can understand printed text as well as spoken text before their comprehension of printed text can exceed their comprehension of spoken text.
Non-English-speaking children in English-speaking schools clearly acquire some English. However, as a group, they also clearly remain at a disadvantage compared to English-speaking children in elementary schools.
Many second graders can read and understand "first grade" written text. But they cannot understand stories and expository material in print that they can understand when heard. Bankson, N. Bankson Language Screening Test. Baltimore, Md. Dunn, L. Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revisited. That same day I was reviewing the final proof for my updated training book, The Key Comprehension Routine: Primary Grades that includes an updated chapter about the foundational role of oral language and listening comprehension.
The coincidence caused me to devote this blog post to listening comprehension! In particular, she talks about how TV and radio can be used as a valuable teaching tool to promote second-language acquisition. Listening to her reporting certainly gave me an opportunity to improve my listening comprehension!
In her piece, she provides excellent suggestions for how to use radio and video to develop listening comprehension and academic vocabulary knowledge for English language learning students. Brady-Myerov references a paper by Tiffany Hogan published last year in the International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology in that reviews evidence showing that listening comprehension becomes the dominating influence for all students on reading comprehension starting in the elementary grades.
It is great piece if you want to review the research related to this topic. Here is what is included about the connection between listening and reading comprehension in the new Key Comprehension Routine book I referred to above:.
Comprehension requires increased automaticity of decoding accompanied by an increase in the same general cognitive and language abilities that enable listening comprehension. The simple view has been represented in the following formula Moats, ; Hoffman, :. Shop Subscribe. Reading is composed of two primary elements: decoding words and listening comprehension. Decoding helps students make sense of words on a page—students see the images or letters , and those images are transmitted to the brain and transformed into language.
While decoding is something that happens on a page, listening comprehension is the ability to make sense of the words we hear, and needs no written text to practice and develop. In the typical classroom, literacy instruction is geared toward decoding.
While this is certainly an important skill to teach students, it fails to account for the importance of listening as a fundamental language skill—moreover, as a crucial reading skill.
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