The Significance of Oral Language to Literacy

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Oral language is fundamental requirement for literacy development and a strong indicator of future academic success. Provide brief road map of essay. Ensure thesis statement is relevant and clear highlighting main points. Provide brief road map of essay. Ensure thesis statement is relevant and clear highlighting main points. Provide brief road map of essay. Ensure thesis statement is relevant and clear highlighting main points.

Oral language skills play a significant role in the development of literacy skills. Research suggests that there is a high correlation between language development and reading comprehension. This is because as student's oral language abilities increase; they become more familiar with the phonological, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic, components of learning language (Farrall, 2012). Additionally, the learning environment is of equal importance and should provide explicit modelling, age appropriate and authentic classroom experiences for developing and encouraging language. Teachers following Cambourne's eight conditions would support an environment enriching language and literacy development (Cambourne, 2001). The acknowledgement of linguistic diversity and suggested differentiation is also worth mentioning. The inclusion of regular planned and unplanned listening and speaking opportunities is vital for developmental progression.

Oral language development is not only critical for literacy and learning but also for building relationships. The topic of poverty in the developing world, allows students to consider and explore a reality unbeknown to them. As, language is an essential social tool, talk time in the classroom provides the necessary practise students need to develop socially and build self-efficacy. Theorist, Vygotsky supported the use of collaborative work. Especially, in mixed ability and age groups as he believed this encouraged higher order cognitive processing in children whilst providing peer scaffolding opportunities by more knowledgeable others (Vygotsky, 1978). Furthermore, Halliday's seven functions of language are also based on "the need for language to be developed in social contexts" (Halliday as cited in Campbell & Green, 2006, pg. 35), supporting Vygotsky's socialconstructivist theory. Therefore, by discussing poverty, students are able to compare their own situations and reflect on what life is like in the developing world, providing a more meaningful learning experience.

To facilitate or participate in any classroom activities requires the use of oral language. Talk is significantly important because "language that is heard must be understood before the language that is read can be decoded and understood" (McCandlish, 2012, pg. 9). Specifically, Halliday (1975) categorised language into seven different functions each with its own purpose, allowing students to comprehend that language like writing has different genres and can be formal or informal, depending on the audience, context or purpose.

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