Oral Language and Its Contribution to Reading Development

No matter what country you live in or what language you speak, there is huge amounts of research that clearly show that when "children and adults have time to read together and to talk about the books they are reading, every aspect of a child's oral language is affected positively." (Barbara Keifer, The School Library Journal).  Ms. Keifer continues with, "In addition, children learn the structure of stories, they gain insights about how characters behave, they take on new vocabulary, and learn complex sentence structures."  A study cited on NCREL's resource page about Oral Language includes results that show with children from age 1 to age 7,  the "content and the style of language used with the children were predictors of reading achievement".   A related study by Snow, Burns & Griffin cited at NCREL's site shows that "having a large vocabulary, being able to choose the correct grammatical form to communicate a message, sustaining a conversation, and being motivated to use language in problem-solving contexts are important oral language components that contribute to a child's foundation for formal instruction."  If  you're interested in reading more about specific findings and activities to promote key aspects of language and literacy, a wonderful resource that explains their work in non-research type language is the online book written by Snow, Burns & Griffin titled Starting Out Right: A Guide to Promoting Children's Reading Success.  ERIC Digest has also published an article, Oral Language Development Across the Curriculum, that justifies the importance of including oral language instruction in our literacy curriculum; similarly, Eduplace has issued their own statement about oral language instruction.  Finally, in 2000, the state of Connecticut published their Blueprint for Reading Achievement (available in .pdf format) which includes a