Early Language Skills Predict Later Reading Skills
Hopping on another soap box to stress the importance of universal language screenings! So often, schools screen for speech sound development and early reading skills around Kindergarten. Unfortunately, a lot of schools skip language screenings!
Developmental Language Disorder (DLD) is just as common as Dyslexia, but has not gotten nearly as much attention in our education system (this is not to say Dyslexia has gotten nearly enough attention, either! We need research, assessment, and intervention for both!).
The “Simple View of Reading” separates the foundation of reading into two skills: Word Reading and Listening Comprehension. Word reading is decoding the words on the page; comprehension is understanding what the words mean. Both of these areas must be considered (Hogan et al., 2014).
Most early reading screenings, even with comprehension questions, are tests of Word Reading and do not delve into listening comprehension. But when a child has an underlying language deficit, it can have striking impacts on their reading, particularly when they begin to read for content around 3rd grade. Fortunately, we can easily (quickly and effectively) screen for early listening comprehension skills that predict later reading difficulties. Does your child’s school do this? You should ask!
Children with Dyslexia are poor word readers. Children with Developmental Language Disorder are poor comprehenders. It is crucial that we identify BOTH of these subgroups early, and this requires early screenings for BOTH oral language comprehension and word reading.
Some research:
A great open access research article: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2372732219839075
Language and Reading Research Consortium, Chiu Y. D. (2018). The simple view of reading across development: Prediction of grade 3 reading comprehension from prekindergarten skills. Remedial and Special Education, 39, 289-303.
Hogan T.P., Adlof S.M., Alonzo C. (2014). On the importance of listening comprehension. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 16, 199-207.
Hogan T. P., Cain K., Bridges M. S. (2012). Young children’s oral language abilities and later reading comprehension. In Shanahan T., Lonigan C. (Eds.), Literacy in preschool and kindergarten children: The National Early Literacy Panel and beyond (pp. 217-232). Baltimore, MD: Paul H. Brookes.