Entry #2: Relationship between Oral Language & the Reading Process

     I would say in my experience there is an incredibly strong link between being a strong reader and a strong verbal communicator.  Children are exposed to so much language before they even begin to read that they have an unconscious understanding of pronunciation, syntax, and expression well before they begin a formal education in reading.  Young children who receive a lot of verbal explanation and exposure to language from their families and caregivers early on truly benefit from these early interactions with words, and their spoken vocabularies will blossom as a result.  This audio exposure gives these kids an advantage as they begin assigning sounds to the various phonemes they encounter as early readers.  The act of someone reading aloud to a child provides such tremendous benefits to that early reader, not just for fostering interest, but for teaching the child the letter/word/sound correspondences that appear on a page.  Children who can go on a picture walk before reading a story are able to verbally communicate and predict what might happen in the story, thus giving them an idea of where the author is headed.  Further, students who can dictate their own ideas and stories to an adult witness first-hand the connection between speaking and writing, and they often read their own material with more expression and sophistication than another author's work.  There is absolutely a definite connection between a child's oral language skills and their development of his/her reading and writing skills.