Be Brave – Avoid a reading
struggle by focusing on oral
language
Dr Ann Daly,
University of New England and
Department of Education and Communities
ann.daly@det.nsw.edu.au
Why does it require bravery?
• It takes bravery to turn against the tide of
expectations held by community, parents and
colleagues about activities in classrooms.
• There seems to be a widely held belief that a
focus on reading and writing, almost to the
exclusion of talking and listening, is all it will
take to close the gap and lift NAPLAN results.
Is this approach working? If not, why not?
Overview of presentation
1. Background - main research was into
comprehension of multimodal texts
2. Snapshot relating reading to spoken language
3. Previous research - possible reasons for
results and relevance to pedagogy
4. Evidence of relevance to literacy learning
5. Teaching implications
Research - comprehension of imagelanguage relations in reading tests
Concurrence – elaboration
(no new participants or
processes in either
semiotic resource)
Complementarity – extension
(new ideational meaning in
one of the semiotic resources)
Equivalence
(=)
Exposition
(i.e.)
Distribution
(+ process)
Augmentation
(+ participant)
Findings about comprehension of
image-language relations
• Analysis of BST texts and results showed
students had most difficulty comprehending
questions about image-language relations of
complementarity.
• Image-language relations of augmentation
were the most difficult and image-language
relations of equivalence were the easiest.
What was the relevance of language
complexity?
• Analysis of BST texts and results also
showed that students had more difficulty
comprehending questions about imagelanguage relations where written text had
high structural (grammatical) complexity
• Y5 questions about Tobwabba Art Gallery:
If simple sentences in text, 66% correct but
if complex sentences in text 44% correct.
Tobwabba – Koori Food Source
In the artwork called Koori
Food Source, where has the
artist painted the fresh grass?
Tobwabba Art Gallery - Sailfish
In this artwork which
shape shows a fish
trap or net?
Tobwabba – Escaping the Nets
augmentation + high verbal complexity
Grammatical complexity – four clauses
• The sailfish is believed to be a cunning fish,
• able to feed amongst the various fish traps
and nets
Passive Voice
Ellipsis
• shown by the dark areas,
• without being caught.
Difficult to comprehend.
Observation of spoken language
during interviews in 2006
Over 100 Year 4 and Year 6 Aboriginal and
non-Aboriginal metropolitan, provincial and
remote students in high, medium and low
quartiles of BST results were interviewed.
Many students with low
BST scores
spoke in simple sentences even
when they had a lot to say.
Analysis of spoken language
Interview transcripts were analysed using the
same measures used to analyse written texts:
• structural (grammatical) complexity number of dependent clauses spoken
• semantic complexity - number of non-core
words (Carter 1987) spoken, other than words
used in text. Core words being basic vocab.
Results of research
Despite state-wide differences between
Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal students and
between metropolitan, provincial and
remote students, there were no significant
differences in the schools sampled.
WHY? Schools had similar ICSEA values.
BUT significant correlations were found
between the amount of spoken language
complexity and BST reading scores.
Structural Complexity – Year 6
• Highest percentage of dependent clauses
was 33% - spoken by a male, metropolitan
Aboriginal student in Band 6
• For all students in high bands more than
20% of their spoken clauses were dependent
• One female, metropolitan student in Band 2
used no dependent clauses when she spoke
• For other students with scores in low bands
less than 10% of clauses were dependent
Structural Complexity – Year 4
• The highest percentage of dependent
clauses was 20%, spoken by a Year 4 male,
metropolitan Aboriginal student in band 5
• All students in high bands had more than
17% of spoken clauses that were dependent
• Two in low bands had no dependent clauses
• For other readers in low bands less than 8%
of spoken clauses were dependent
Semantic complexity
• In Year 4, only high achieving readers used
more than two non-core words
• In Year 6, two male high achieving readers
used many non-core words (15 and 18)
Examples used by the high achieving
Aboriginal student include co-ordinates,
capsized, indication, generations,
hieroglyphs, evaporated, ochre, distinguish.
Is non-standard English relevant?
• Few examples of Aboriginal English or
working class English were found
• Highest occurrence (using seen for saw and
done for did) was by a male Aboriginal Y4
remote student with Band 5 score in reading
• Therefore use of Aboriginal English was not
related to reading ability if the student could
code switch. However, it has previously been
found to be related to language and writing
scores (Daly 2011).
Previous spoken language research
• Previous research into reading
– has made comparisons with vocabulary in speech but
not with grammatical complexity in speech
• Research into spoken grammar has found
– there is an increase in the number of subordinate
clauses spoken at around 11years old (Perera 1984)
– many complex grammatical constructions are not
commonly spoken until adolescence.
Language Development
Function and Form – Slobin (1985)
Functional level
(spoken language)
“Conceptual and
communicative
capacities”
– it’s all about
simplifying meaning
so we can understand
Formal level
(written language)
“Perceptual and
information-processing
capacities”
– it’s all about the
complexity of meaning
and conveying detail
Role of scaffolding in learning
• Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is
between actual and potential development
(Vygostky 1962) – scaffolding bridges gap
• Parents scaffold children’s spoken language
(Halliday 1975; Painter 1991)
• Teachers can scaffold reading and writing
through speaking about text - Scaffolding
Literacy in Alice Springs (Gray 1985),
Accelerated Literacy in Darwin (Gray 2007)
and Reading to Learn (Rose 2010)
Societal differences in language
Bernstein (1974) observed that:
Elaborated language codes are used by
people in professional and management
positions
Restricted language codes are used by
working class people who do not exercise
much control in their work place
Language codes learnt by child
• Restricted language codes – lower-workingclass children tended to explain a game in
terms of a local or family setting, that is,
explanations were context dependent.
• Elaborated language codes – middle-class
children’s explanations tended to be more
context independent and that is implicit in
the grammar and lexes of parents’ speech.
Societal differences in Australia–
Hasan (1996) & Williams (1998)
Hasan: “Members of the dominating classes
do engage more often, than do those of the
dominated ones, in practices of saying and
meaning which are closer in their discursive
properties to educational discourses.”
Williams found in Sydney, “significant
variation in a range of language practices
associated with participants’ social class”
How societal practices compound
spoken language differences
• Heath (1982: 56) found that US mainstream
school-oriented children at home “learn not
only how to take meaning from books but
also how to talk about it” whereas children
from poor communities did not.
• Lemke (1988: 140) claims that “To make
texts talk, we need to help students fully
speak their meanings, out loud… talk their
way to comprehension” so that students are
“bridging formal and colloquial language”
Why is spoken language important to
reading comprehension?
“The problem of learning through texts is, I
believe, fundamentally a problem of
translating the patterns of written language
into those of spoken language. Spoken
language is the medium through which we
reason to ourselves and talk our way through
problems to answers. It is for the most part,
the medium in which we understand and
comprehend.” Making Text Talk, Lemke (1988:136)
Language continuum
• Spoken (productive) language and written
language are different.
• They exist on a continuum extending from
simple colloquial language to dense
nominalised written language
• Complex grammar is midway on the
continuum - ideas in dependent clauses get
nominalised in more dense formal writing.
Spoken language continuum
• Pauline Jones (1996, p 13)
Importance of complexity in
productive (spoken) language
• “It is doubtful if children can produce and
understand written texts in any depth unless
they can orally produce texts of that type
themselves” (Gray 1990: 113)
• “The child may operate with subordinate
clauses, with words like because, if, when
… long before he really grasps causal,
conditional or temporal relations”
(Vygotsky)
What is the evidence that spoken
language is relevant to reading?
Even though “young children partially
comprehend linguistic input somewhat
above their own productive level,
comprehension at an inferential level is
best when input is closer to the child’s
own productive level”
(George & Tomasello 1984: 125)
How can productive language and
input levels be brought closer?
• Programs like Accelerated Literacy and
Reading to Learn unpack written texts and
bring them closer to a productive level
• The reverse is probably also true whereby
saying and talking about the complex
written sentences can bring students’
spoken language closer to the written text.
What is the evidence for a focus
on oral language?
• John Munro (2004) improved performance
by implementing an intensive oral language
program at Bellfield PS in Victoria. He then
developed a framework for improving oral
language teaching – the ICPALER model:
Ideas communicated, Conventions used to do this,
Purpose for communicating, Ability to Learn how
to use language, Expressing ideas and Receiving
ideas.
Research with CEO and MUni found 400 out of 550
Teaching oral language in the
early years - vocab (see Munro 2011)
• Explicitly teach and frequently use vocabulary
– Use pictures and meaningful contexts
– Name rapidly, suggest synonyms, card games
– Teach bound morpheme in action context first
– Teach rhyming and alliteration patterns
In later years create raps and use dictionary and
thesaurus to find new words that rhyme.
Teach how to comprehend
sentence meanings (Munro 2011)
Teach how to comprehend conjunctions, such
as while, using for example:
•Action comprehension – use toys to act out
•Picture comprehension – which pic shows..?
•Listening comprehension – model retelling of
story using conjunctions such as while
•Asking and answering questions (who, what,
where, when, how, why) – if questions too
direct try, “I wonder why, how, where”
Teach how to say and use more
complex sentence meanings
Sequence teaching of sentence conventions:
– Teach the meaning and introduce instances
of the convention in meaningful contexts
– Focus on new grammatical forms in
developmental order
– Guide students to see the convention as a
language pattern and use it in regular talk
Play-based program for oral
language intervention (Hill & Launder 2010)
• 15 themed play boxes including books with
sets of levelled questions for teachers/adults
to use to stimulate oral language
• Children’s oral language was extended by
adults when appropriate
• Question levels from concrete to abstract from describe things, describe thinking,
brainstorm to go beyond here and now.
How to develop oral language
Model language like a parent does:
Share literate texts, especially picture books
After providing model and input, ask openended questions, how & why, not just what
Do not correct answers, but give feedback that
helps students to elaborate their ideas
Have class discussions – encourage questions,
scaffold answers, let students suggest ideas
Designing learning (Dufficy 2005)
Principles for designing learning:
•Challenges – not pointless busy work
•Handover from teacher to student and back,
using dialogue to mediate understanding
•Engagement – resonance with student’s life
•Assisted (in pairs, groups or whole class)
Performance – questions aimed at what
children ‘need to know’ not just ‘do know’
Whole class discussion in KLAs
Dufficy (2005) identifies effective features:
• timely intervention by the teacher that seeks
to clarify and extend the children’s
contributions, including the introduction of
more technical vocabulary
• An increase in questions where both teacher
and student negotiate answer (equal amount
of teacher & student talk) from Dufficy (2005)
Designing learning for diverse classrooms. PETA
Use sentence maker strips to link
oral to written language
• Young students in pairs tell each other their
stories and discuss how to make their
sentence by putting word cards in order
• Class sets of frequently used words needed
• Teachers and helpers write other words on
blank cards for students so students do not
limit themselves to short known words
• Students read and then write their sentence.
‘Tag debating’ with older
students
• A good way to introduce persuasive texts
• Class in two teams. The student standing
has the floor (only one allowed to speak)
until he falters. Another student stands and
continues the argument (teacher can choose)
• Builds confidence in quiet students and
stops those who hog the discussion
• Time limit can be imposed if needed.
Conclusion
• The research further consolidates the clear
calls by researchers such as Lemke (1988)
and Chambers (1985) for frequent
opportunities for ‘talk around text’ to enable
students to understand structural connections
within texts leading to comprehension of
more complex reading material.
References
Bernstein, B. (1974). Class, codes and control. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Carter, R. (1987). Vocabulary: Applied linguistic perspectives. London: Allen & Unwin.
Chambers, A. (1985). Book talk: Occasional writing on literature and children. London:
The Bodley Head.
Daly, A. (2011). Aboriginal and rural students’ comprehension and talk about imagelanguage relations in reading tests. Unpublished PhD thesis, UNE, Armidale.
Dufficy, P. (2005). Designing learning for diverse classrooms. Newtown: Primary English
Teaching Association.
George, B.L. & Tomasello, M. (1984). The effect of variation in sentence length on young
children’s attention and comprehension, First Language, 5, 115-127.
Gray, B. (1985). Teaching oral English. In M. Christie (Ed.), Aboriginal perspectives on
experience and learning. Geelong: Deakin University Press.
Gray, B. (2007). Accelerating the literacy development of Indigenous students. Darwin:
Charles Darwin University Press.
Hasan, R. (1996). Literacy, everyday talk and society. In R. Hasan & G. Williams (Eds.),
Literacy in society. London: Addison Wesley Longman Ltd.
Heath, S. B. (1982). What no bedtime story means: narratives at home and school.
Language in Society, 11, 49-78.
References continued
Hill, S. & Launder, N. (2010). Oral language and beginning to read. Australian Journal of Language
and Literacy, Vol. 33, No. 3, pp .240 -254.
Jones, P. (1996). ‘Planning an oral language program’. In P. Jones (Ed.), Talking
to learn. Newtown, Australia: Primary English Teaching Association
Lemke, J.L. (1988). Making text talk. Theory into practice, XXVIII, 2, 136-141.
Munro, J. (2004). Literacy improvement: It takes a team. The Specialist Schools’ Trust
Journal of Innovation in Education: Snapshots Primary Edition, 2(1), 12-15.
Munro, J. (2011). Teaching oral language: Building a firm foundation using ICPALER
in the early primary years. Camberwell, Vic: ACER Press.
Painter, C. (1991). Learning the other tongue. Geelong: Deakin University Press.
Perera, K. (1984). Children’s writing and reading: Analysing classroom language. Oxford:
Basil Blackwell.
Rose, D. (2010). Reading to Learn – Books 1 to 10.. www.readingtolearn.com.au
Slobin, D. (1985). The cross-linguistic study of language acquisition, vol.2: Theoretical issues, pp.
1157-1256. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
Vygotsky, L. (1962/1933) translated and edited by E. Hanfmann and G. Vakar.
Thought and language. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press.
Williams, G. (1998). Children entering literate worlds: perspectives from the study of
textual practices. In F. Christie and R. Mission (Eds.), Literacy and schooling,
pp. 18-46. London: Routledge.