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Is your child struggling to read? Here’s what works

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On reflection, I’m incredibly lucky.

Both my parents were teachers. Growing up, my house was full of chatter, stories and books. My early state school education in regional Victoria was long on “old school” phonics and short on fads.

I learned to read without much trouble. I discovered many of the things I’m still passionate about in life – dinosaurs, planets, social justice, travel, speech and language, consumer rights, history, current affairs, philosophy, and bad science fiction – because I could read. Reading lets me learn new skills, explore the world, entertain myself and my kids, connect with friends and colleagues, and of course, earn my living as a speech pathologist and lawyer.

Children and adults who struggle to read miss out on many of the opportunities good readers take for granted. Helping people to learn to read is important work – far too important to waste time, energy and money on false ideas and programs that don’t work.

In this article, we summarise some of the key evidence-based principles to help children (and adults) to read. We also include links to peer-reviewed evidence, leading researchers’ websites, and some evidence-based literacy programs and resources.

12 principles I apply

A. Learning to read is a right, not a privilege 

1. Reading is a human right, and affects your health, work opportunities and life-participation.

  • The General Assembly of the United Nations is convinced that: “[L]iteracy is crucial to the acquisition of every child, youth and adult, of essential life skills that enable them to address the challenges they may face in life, and represents an essential step in basic education, which is an indispensable means for effective participation in the societies and economies of the 21st century.” (GA Resolution 56/116.)
  • Low literacy may impair health, affecting the patient-doctor communication dynamics, and leading to substandard medical care. It is associated with poor understanding of written or spoken medical advice, adverse health outcomes, and negative effects on the health of the population (e.g. AHRQ Report, see below).
  • Early reading difficulties are related to children’s ability to develop positive social skills (e.g. Bennett et al., 2003).
  • Academic problems, like poor reading, often foster behavioural problems, which frequently result in disciplinary practices that remove the student from school (Christle et al., 2005).
  • Low levels of literacy affect educational attainment and labour force participation (ABS, 2009).

2. Learning to read opens doors; poor reading ability closes them. Literacy creates opportunities for lifelong learning and training, a good job, housing stability and improved health across your life (Gakidou et al., 2010). (Not being able to read has big negative effects on school achievement, job opportunities, mental health and participation in society.) Arguably, reading is more important than ever, with most jobs in the West now requiring literacy (e.g. Murnane, 2004), and with access to the Internet, social media platforms and even texting friends requiring a degree of literacy to participate socially (e.g. Durkin et al., 2011).

B. Reading instruction should be based on independent, peer-reviewed evidence (not ideology), and should take the client’s socio-economic background and oral language skills into account

3. Reading is “biologically unnatural“. Humans have only been reading since about 3000BC (Fischer, 2001). Unlike speaking, you have to learn to do it (e.g. Gough & Hillinger, 1980). That’s why literacy is still not universal (e.g. Gough, 1996). While it’s true some kids find reading easy to learn, others need a lot of help.

4. Reading instruction should be based on the “Five Big Ideas” (aka the “Big Five”). Independent, peer-reviewed scientific research evidence reviews (cited below) say that, to learn to read, you need to be taught these “Big Five”:

  • Phonemic awareness (also known as phonological awareness): knowledge about the sound structure of the language and the ability to manipulate the sound making up that structure (Rayner, Foorman, Perfetti, Pesetsky, and Seidenberg, 2001).
  • Phonics: see below.
  • Vocabulary: it’s been estimated that, to cope with the curriculum, a Year 2 child needs to understand 300-400 words; a Year 3-4 child needs to understand 3,000-4,000 words; and a Year 5 student needs 10,000! (Hempenstall, 2005).
  • Comprehension skills.
  • Reading fluency.

5. As one of the Big Five, direct synthetic phonics instruction is essential. In the USA, Australia and the UK, independent evidence reviews affirmed the need for systematic, direct and explicit phonics instruction so that children master the essential alphabetic code-breaking skills required for foundational reading proficiency. (The importance of teaching teachers to do this was recognised by the New South Wales Board of Studies in 2015 – New South Wales Board of Studies, Teaching and Educational Standards. (2015).)

The best phonics to teach children is “synthetic phonics“. Synthetic doesn’t mean “fake”, here; it means “synthesising” (or blending) the sounds (phonemes) together to read words. You can read an excellent explanation of “synthetic phonics” by some of my favourite literacy researchers here.

6. It’s a myth that you can’t use phonics to read English words. In fact, according to Hanna et al., (1996):

  • 50% of English words are directly decodable with synthetic phonics;
  • 36% have only one “breach” of the sound-letter link (usually a vowel);
  • 10% can be spelt properly if morphology and word histories/roots are taken into account; and
  • only 4% are truly irregular.

7. Oral language skills (talking and understanding) and reading skills are linked; oral language and reading skills are mutually beneficial. Improvements in spoken language skills improve reading skills, and vice versa. Oral language and reading skills piggy back on each other during the school years (Snow, 2016). If one is impaired or delayed, the other suffers. For example, children with speech-language language disorders (diagnosed or not) are at a high risk of having reading problems.

Similarly, children with reading problems may have problems learning new words and higher level language skills, which then affect their oral language development. (This, by the way, is why I screen oral language and phonological awareness in addition to decoding and reading comprehension when assessing a school-aged child with reading problems.)

8. Kids learn to read on an uneven playing field. Socio-economically disadvantaged children are at greater risk of language and reading difficulties than children from higher socio-economic backgrounds. Even though oral language development is biologically natural, it’s vulnerable to environmental factors. For example, the foundations of early language development (and the emergence of emotional security) both depend on a high dose of quality carer engagement. By the age of 4 years, on average, children of high income, professional parents may have heard 30 million more words than some children from a socio-economically disadvantaged background (e.g. Hart & Risely, 1995).

Different children have very different levels of exposure to language and books when the turn up for their first day at school. Unsurprisingly, this has knock-on effects for readiness to learn to read (see the discussion about the Matthew Effect below).

C. Evidence-based reading instruction for young struggling school-aged children is urgent: the critical 3-year window to teach children to read well

9. The 3-year learning-to-read “window”. In the first three years at school, the focus is on helping children learn to read. This is when good evidence-based reading instruction is most important. Your child’s access to good reading instruction in this period is important for all children, and vital for children from low-socioeconomic backgrounds and children struggling to read.

10. The “fourth grade slump”. Starting in the fourth year of school, the focus of the curriculum switches away from learning to read. Instead, children are expected to “read to learn”. For good readers, this is no problem. For poor readers, this is where the real trouble begins:

  • By the fourth year of school (year 3), a child’s performance relative to his/her peers becomes fairly fixed (Spira et al., 2005);
  • your child’s reading level by the start of the third grade is a good predictor of:
    • later academic achievement; and
    • later mental and social health; and
  • the “Matthew Effect” kicks into high gear.

11. The Matthew Effect. With reading (as with money), the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. Good readers read more, learn more word meanings and then improve their reading skills. Children who are poor readers read less, and don’t learn new words as quickly, which further slows their growth in reading ability (Stanovich, 1986). As school progresses, the gap between good and poor readers grows and grows and grows.

That’s not to say that older kids and adults can’t learn to read. It’s just that it’s harder. As with language difficulties generally, the earlier you get help, the better. But it’s never too late!

D. Too many children and adults can’t read properly

12. Literacy levels are a big problem in Australia:

  • In 2011, a quarter of Australian Year 4 children are below the expected standard in reading; and 7% performed “extremely poorly” (ACER, 2012).
  • In 2009, 43.7% of adults were at or below Level 2 in their reading skills on a 5 point scale (ABS, 2009).
  • In 2011, the Industry Skills Council of Australia  found that millions of Australians have insufficient language, literacy and numeracy (“LLN”) skills to benefit from training or to participate effectively at work (ISCA, 2011).

The human, social and economic costs of low literacy are enormous.

E. So what gets in the way?

A controversial question!  Here are some candidates:

  • Professional divides: An unhelpful divide exists between the knowledge bases and expertise of teachers, speech pathologists and education psychologists. Teachers are educators, whereas psychologists and speech pathologists are health professionals. Reading failure is of course both an education and health problem. But the lack of coordination between different professionals doesn’t help clients with reading problems or their families. When I work with a school-aged child, my first port of call is the parents. My second port of call (with parents’ consent) is to teachers and any health professionals who’ve worked or are working with the child. The more we can coordinate our care and approach, prioritising the client’s interests and goals, the better things tend to go.
  • Ideological squabbling. If you’ve got a day or two to waste surfing the Internet and getting confused at all the navel gazing and self-interest, Google “Reading Wars”. In short, the “war” was fought between supporters of:
    • a phonics- and phonemic awareness-based approach to reading instruction, focused on letter-sound links and blending sounds to read words; and
    • so-called Whole-Language theories, based on post-modern theories of child development, teaching children to read words from “cues”, like context and pictures in predictable texts.

Although it was hoped that the independent reviews in the USA, UK and Australia (cited below) resolved the “reading wars” in favour of phonics and the rest of the Big Five, there are still programs influenced by Whole Language philosophies used today, including the much-maligned “Reading Recovery” program (which you can read about here). In any case, the key casualties of the war were and continue to be children failing to learn to read.

  • Inadequate training in the Big Five (and the “Peter Effect”). You can only give what you have; and you can only teach what you know. If you haven’t been taught properly how to teach reading using evidence-based teaching methods, you will have great difficulty teaching school children to read – especially struggling students. Unfortunately, some teachers, speech pathologists and psychologists haven’t been trained in how to teach reading using the evidence, especially if their University lecturers subscribed to the Whole Language ideology. Any education or health professional engaged in helping people to read should have training in how to teach the Big Five.
  • Commercial programs unsupported by independent evidence, glossy products and fads. Unfortunately, there is a big market for children and adults with poor literacy in Australia and elsewhere. Lots of reading programs seek to “exploit” this market, and some of them have no evidence to support their effectiveness. Of course, it’s hard for parents (and even some teachers) to know which ones are evidence-based. Fortunately, there are independent research groups that publish evidence summaries to assist. In our clinic, for example, we only use evidence-based programs based on the Big Five.

Whatever the reasons, we should all strive to read and apply the best quality, independent evidence to better support school-aged children, young adults, and adults with reading problems.

Related articles:

Principal source: Snow, P.C. (2016). Elizabeth Usher Memorial Lecture: Language is literacy is language – Positioning speech-language pathology in education policy, practice, paradigms and polemics. International Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 18:3, 216-228. (This article should be mandatory reading for any teacher, speech pathologist or education psychologist working in literacy.)

Further reading

Reading as a human right that affects your health:

US AHRQ’s Evidence Report No. 87, Literacy and Health Outcomes (summary) 

Evidence for what works, including evidence supporting the Big Five:

Rose, J. (2006). The [UK] Independent Review of the Teaching of Early Reading (aka “The Rose Report”)

Evidence that too many children and adults in Australia are poor readers:

Thomson, Sue; Hillman, Kylie; Wernert, Nicole; Schmid, Marina; Buckley, Sarah; Munene, Ann (2012). Monitoring Australian year 4 student achievement internationally: TIMSS and PIRLS 2011. Melbourne: Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER).
Australian Bureau of Statistics (2009). Adult Literacy.

Industry Skills Council of Australia (2011). No More Excuses.

The role of speech pathologists in the development of literacy:

Speech Pathology Australia. (2011). Position Statement: Literacy.

On the shoulders of experts: evidence-based literacy researchers, organisations and blogs I follow: 

If you are interested in the science of reading and evidence-based reading programs and resources, here are some of the key experts, organisations and literacy/language blogs I follow closely (in no particular order):

Toe By Toe

Image: http://tinyurl.com/z3rgm3u

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Your right to know: long-term social effects of language disorders

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We speech pathologists need to talk more about some of the long-term, negative effects of developmental language disorders. We need to explain why getting help is so important. And not just for late talking toddlers and pre-schoolers. School-age children, older children, teens and young adults, too.

One reason I think we don’t talk about long-term problems – despite knowing about most of then for over 20 years – is that we don’t want to worry parents and carers. But they have a right to know this stuff, even if it’s hard to talk about.

So here’s what some of the peer-reviewed clinical research tells us:

1. Language disorders don’t disappear when a child goes to school

  • Developmental language disorders:
    • are often not picked up in children (Cohen et al., 1998);
    • often cause peers and others to respond negatively to the affected child (Redmond & Rice, 1998);
    • can cause a child to be perceived by parents, teachers and other students as exhibiting challenging behaviours and/or emotional problems (e.g. Benner et al., 2002);
    • have a high persistence rate into adolescence, particularly for comprehension of language (e.g. Clegg et al., 2005); and
    • typically persist into adulthood (e.g. Johnson et al., 1999).

2. Language disorders affect social participation  

  • Compared with typically developing kids, children with developmental language disorders, on average:
    • have fewer friends, poorer quality friendships and participate less in social activities (e.g. Durkin & Conti-Ramsden, 2007);
    • are more likely to show social difficulties, including social withdrawal and difficulties joining groups of peers (e.g. Hart et al., 2004; Mok et al., 2014);
    • converse less;
    • have difficulty persuading others; and
    • respond less sensitively to peer communications (e.g. Brinton et al., 1998; Vallance et al., 1999).
  • Children and young adults with developmental language disorders:
    • may withdraw socially in response to the effects of their disorder (which includes difficulty talking with others and being rejected by peers) (e.g. Hoff, 2006; Redmond, 2011);
    • report higher levels of anxiety and are diagnosed with anxiety disorders more frequently than typically developing peers (e.g. Beitchman et al., 2001; Maggio et al., 2014); and
    • may have deficits in social skills (e.g. Botting & Conti-Ramsden, 2008).

3. Language disorders are associated with heightened risks of social anxiety

  • There is some evidence that teens with developmental language disorders have higher rates of anxiety related to social interaction and avoidance of social situations than typically developing peers (Wadman et al., 2011).
  • New evidence from long-term studies suggests that young children diagnosed with developmental language disorders have higher rates of social phobia at ages 19 and report higher levels of social interaction anxiety symptoms at age 31. Despite some limitations in these studies (such as high drop-out rates), social anxiety symptoms tended to persist into adulthood, although not to the degree warranting a formal diagnosis of social anxiety disorder. In particular, young adults with a history of language disorders reported difficulties talking to others and asserting their perspectives (e.g. Brownlie et al., 2016).

4. Language disorders affect academic and work outcomes

  • Children’s capacities at school entry are predictive of academic outcomes (e.g. Snow, 2006).
  • Early success at school is a strong indicator of ongoing and future success (e.g. Prior et al., 1993).
  • Teenagers with language disorders are at risk of poor academic progress, bullying and behavioural problems, like acting out in class (e.g. Snow & Powell, 2004).
  • Lots of teenagers with language problems give up, drop out and end up in unskilled, poorly paid jobs. And teenagers with language disorders are well over-represented in the youth justice system.
  • The negative effects of developmental language disorders are arguably growing, rather than dissipating:

Clinical bottom line

For many teens and young adults, language disorders are “invisible disabilities” (Beitchman & Browlie, 2014). Having a language disorder can have big, long-term negative effects on your school, work and social participation across the lifespan. Older children and young adults affected by language disorders need to know this and get the help they need to stay engaged at school and work, and to have rewarding social lives.

Educating parents and carers of younger children with developmental language delays upfront about the longer-term issues their children may face is an important part of being a responsible speech pathologist. Even if the information is sometimes hard to discuss.

Principal source: Browlie, E.B., Bao, L., & Beitchman, J. (2016) Childhood Language Disorder and Social Anxiety in Early Adulthood. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 44, 1061-1070.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/z7ncjk4

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

24 practical ways to help school-aged children cope with language and reading problems at school and home

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Too many school-age children struggle to understand instructions, express their thoughts and feelings, read and/or write. So what can parents and teachers do to help at home and at school?

A. Knowledge is power: first, learn more about the child’s challenges

A key aim of this website is to provide free, evidence-based information to parents and teachers about language disorders.

Over the years, we’ve talked – a lot – about developmental language disorders, including risk factors, common signs and symptoms, the role of underlying issues with working memory, auditory processing and attention, bilingualism, phonological speech sound disorders, reading decoding, reading comprehension, writing, as well as some of the effects of language disorders, e.g. on school readiness, school and work outcomes, behaviour and mental health, and youth justice issues. We’ve done our best to translate some of the peer-reviewed research findings into Plain English.

B. Implement strategies and use free resources 

Here are 24 simple strategies and resources. Most can be implemented easily by parents at home and teachers at school at no cost:

  1. Speak slowly. Reduce your speaking rate, and pause more between sentences.
  2. Speak loudly and clearly (but be careful not to strain your voice). Consider amplification and other systems that will help the child hear what you are saying, even if there is background noise.
  3. Use good intonation, stressing key points – make key words longer and louder than less important words, e.g. “He WANTS to GO to the BEACH on TUESDAY”.
  4. Give the child more time to think about and answer your questions. Many children with language disorders need more time. Count to five if you have to, but don’t give up or jump in too early.
  5. Prepare children for what you are about to talk about, e.g. “We’re about to talk about insects. Today, I’m going to talk about 4 insects: bees, wasps, ants and termites”. Or: “Tomorrow, we’re going to the zoo. We’ll need to leave early. We’ll need to bring our good camera to take photos of the animals”.
  6. If the child is having difficulty, give clues, prompts (e.g. sentence starters), and binary choices (e.g. “Is it an ant or a bee?”).
  7. Speak and write to the child in Plain English:
    1. replace abstract, complicated words and jargon with simple words (e.g. instead of “acquire”, say “get”; instead of “purchase”, say “buy”; instead of “execute”, say “do”). If you need help to write more simply (a common issue for university graduates), check out the free Hemingway Editor; and
    2. where possible, avoid (or at least explain) ambiguous language (e.g. words with multiple meanings or non-literal/figurative language requiring higher level language skills).
  8. Break complex sentences and multi-step instructions into simple sentences.
  9. Use the “When…then” technique to replace complex instructions with simpler ones (e.g. Instead of “Before you go to lunch, finish your art project and clean up your desks”, say “WHEN you finish your art project and clean your desks, THEN you can have lunch.”).
  10. Introduce a “Word of the Week” at home and at school that you all use all week. Stick it up on a wall or fridge. Choose words that are useful at school and at home, e.g. high frequency verbs or words used in maths or sport.
  11. Use pictures and videos to help the child learn words and concepts. For example:
    1. draw stick figures, comics or line drawings to illustrate concepts;
    2. if you can’t draw (like me), use Google Images (in safe mode) and YouTube; and
    3. use mind maps, text planners, paragraph planners, word walls, story builders and question scaffolds.
  12. Give the child written notes to support what is taught orally in class.
  13. Make sure the child knows words needed for their favourite activities. For example, if your child loves basketball, help them understand terms like “double dribble”, “travel”, “time-out”, “cross-court” and “technical foul”). If your child loves dancing, make sure they know the names of the dance moves (sorry, I can’t help you there!).
  14. Teach the child words used in more than one subject, e.g. words used in exam instructions (e.g. “evaluate”, “criticise”, “assess”, and “compare”).
  15. For new words, REPEAT, REPEAT, REPEAT (at least 12 times): make sure the child feels confident enough to read it, recognise it when s/he hears it, say it correctly, spell it, define it in his/her own words and use it in more than one context. More information on vocabulary teaching strategies appears here.
  16. Use a Learner’s Dictionary, rather than a traditional dictionary.
  17. Teach common root words, prefixes and suffixes – more than 60% of multisyllabic words can be worked out from their word parts (Bromley, 2007). Use a Word Origin dictionary, or look at websites like etymonline.com.
  18. Teach high frequency synonyms, antonyms and homonyms, as well as age-appropriate idioms.
  19. For assignments and homework projects, teach children how to find, sort, cull and weigh different sources of information. For example:
    1. look up synonyms for the key words used in the question to help the child find the right search terms for Google and library catalogues;
    2. *controversy alert* use the free Simple English Wikipedia to read some background on the assignment topic;
    3. use the wonderful and free resource rewordify to simplify complex text and assignment questions;
    4. learn information literacy frameworks, e.g. Herring’s PLUS model to help children sort credible information from less credible information; and
    5. give the child examples of “good” assignments, e.g. model answers, so they can understand exactly what you want them to do.
  20. Get the child to self-monitor their comprehension by teaching them evidence-based reading comprehension techniques like summarising, predicting, visualisation, and inference-making.
  21. Teach the child evidence-based studying techniques, e.g the “Why technique”, memory peg systems, interleaved practice, note taking and mock exam practice.
  22. Teach the child Graham & Wong’s 3H strategy – Here, Hidden, Head – reading comprehension technique.
  23. Break down texts into their parts and analyse them one at a time, e.g. title, index, first and last paragraphs, unfamiliar vocabulary, glossaries, then each paragraph – use paragraph-by paragraph pop quizzes, or colour coding of paragraphs or sub-topics to help.
  24. For children struggling with writing, use acronyms to help plan and produce good paragraphs. For example:
    1. PEELS – Point, Evidence, Explanation, Link and Style;
    2. PIE – Point, Illustration, Evaluation; and
    3. TEEL – Topic sentence, Explanation, Evidence, and Link (Brent & Millgate-Smith, 2008).

Principal source: Starling, J. (2016). Language Friendly Classrooms: Supporting Primary and Secondary students with language and literacy difficulties. Learning Difficulties Coalition seminar I attended on 8 November 2016 in Parramatta, Sydney.

Regular readers will know that I’m a big fan of Dr Julia Starling’s practical research. See, for example: How to help our secondary teachers support teachers with language disorders at school. (As always, any errors of interpretation are my own.)

Image: http://tinyurl.com/oewj5hc

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

My child is learning two languages: what do I need to know about bilingual development?

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More than half of my clients are growing up in homes where English is not the first or only language. I think it’s a great thing. Bilingualism is a tremendous asset living on this increasingly connected planet. We need more of it in Australia.

But there’s a catch: with bilingualism comes a whole host of worries and concerns about what is best for a child’s language development.

All families I work with want the best for their kids. But there is so much conflicting information out there about bilingual language development. Some of it is based on old ideas. Others are myths that are not supported by the evidence. This makes it hard for parents to make informed decisions about important issues for toddlers and pre-school children.

At least once a week, I’m asked for my views on questions like these:

  • Will my child get confused between the two languages?
  • Should one parent should speak the “home” language, and the other parent speak English?
  • Should parents speak to their child in English, even if they are not fluent themselves?
  • Should parents send their child to an English-speaking pre-school or daycare centre before school?

So here’s what the peer-reviewed research evidence says:

1. Parents should speak their native language with their children

  • As noted above, bilingualism is an asset – not a liability.
  • Many parents want to maintain their cultural heritage. Language is an important part of that heritage.
  • For parents who cannot speak English fluently, speaking broken English to a child may do more harm than good. It is much better for the child to hear a language being spoken fluently, especially in the early years.
  • Children from homes in which the first language was in addition to English show stronger cognitive outcomes than children from immigrant homes in which only English was spoken (Winsler et al., 2014).
  • There is some evidence that higher order language comprehension and literacy skills transfer from one language to another. For example, children who are good at reading in one language tend also to be good at reading in English (Oller et al., 2002, although it’s worth noting that the languages studied in this study were both European).
  • There is some evidence that interventions to help a child read in their first language can have positive effects on the child’s reading in English (Goldenberg et al., 2011).
  • There is evidence that immigrant families who can speak their parents’ native language have better family relationships and stronger ethnic identities that those who cannot, and that good family relationships and strong ethnic identity are positively related to other outcomes including academic achievement (e.g. Oh & Fuligni, 2010, Tseng & Fuligni, 2000).

2. There is no “one-size fits all” approach to raising bilingual children

Home differs in:

  • the balance of languages;
  • the number of speakers who use each language;
  • the proportion of each language that comes from native speakers;
  • how much adults talk and read to children;
  • the number and age of the children in the household; and
  • the complexity of language used.

Bilingual children who attend school tend to use their first language at home and English at school and outside the home. Young bilingual children with siblings at school are likely to have more advanced English and weaker native language skills than children the same age without older siblings. Childcare arrangements are another source of variability in language development.

In short, bilingual children are extremely varied in their levels and profiles of dual language skills.

3. Speaking two languages at home does not confuse children. Children can learn two languages at the same time

  • Back in the 1990s, people thought that speaking two languages to your children would confuse them. We now know that’s wrong.
  • Infants are good at distinguishing languages. If they hear two languages at home, they develop two separate systems for speech sounds, words and word meanings, and grammar. Of course, the languages influence each other. But kids don’t get confused (e.g. Byers-Heinlein et al., 2010; Werker, 2012, Lin & Johnson, 2010).

4. Languages do not need to be kept separate for children to learn them

  • I often hear people say that one-parent should speak the home language and the other should speak English. There is no evidence to support this idea.
  • Studies show that the degree of mixing languages is not related to the children’s skills in their home language or English (e.g. Place et al., 2011, Hoff et al., 2011).
  • There is no evidence that mixing languages at home stops children from realising they are hearing two languages or acquiring them. However, there is some limited evidence to suggest that parents should try to avoid mixing up the languages within individual sentences/utterances when talking with 18-month olds (Byers-Heinlein, 2013).

5. Learning two languages takes longer than learning one

This seems obvious. But there were some small, early studies that suggested that bilingual children acquire two languages at the same rate monolingual children acquire one. (e.g. Pearson et al., 1993). This view may have contributed to the over-diagnosis of language learning impairment in bilingual children.

We now know that bilingual children lag slightly behind monolingual children of the same age in their vocabulary and grammatical development when measured in each language separately (e.g. Bialystock & Feng, 2011, Gathercole & Thomas, 2009, Marchman et al., 2010, Vag et al., 2009).

We also know that bilingual children’s phonological (speech sound) skills and narrative skills are closer to monolingual levels than their vocabulary and grammar (Oller et al., 2007; and Paradis & Kirova, 2014). This is why I always test narrative ability and screen speech sounds when assessing bilingual children for possible language learning impairments.

Compared to monolingual children, it’s more common for bilingual children’s receptive language abilities (understanding of language) to be significantly stronger than their expressive language skills (Ribot, 2014).

6. It can take a long time for bilingual children to “catch up”

In grammar, if bilingual children are exposed to continued, consistent and quality exposure to two languages spoken fluently, they tend to catch up to monolingual children by the age of 10 years (Gathercole & Thomas, 2007).

Even adult bilinguals tend to have smaller vocabularies in each of their languages than monolinguals, although there are obviously exceptions. The size of the vocabulary gap diminishes with age (Hoff et al., 2014).

7. Bilingual children often score within the normal range on language tests in their “dominant language”

Diminished exposure to a language affects language acquisition. Two-year olds with a balanced input of two languages lag significantly behind monolinguals in each language. Children’s skills in each language are significantly related to the proportion of their input that is in that language (Hoff et al., 2012; Pearson et al., 1997).

There is some evidence that even 80% exposure to one language is not sufficient to reach the level of a typically developing monolingual child (DeAnda et al., in press). However, although learning two languages takes longer than acquiring one, it does not take twice as long.

8. Bilingual children can have different strengths in each language

For example, bilingual children:

  • may know words to do with things at home in their first language;
  • may know words to do with things for school in English; and
  • may have equal comprehension in each language, but better expressive language skills in one language – hence the commonly seen receptive-expressive gap in young bilingual children (e.g. Gibson, et al., 2012).

9. The quality and quantity of bilingual children’s input in each language influences their rate of language development in each language

  • Children develop language more rapidly in the language they hear more (e.g. Hoff et al., 2012).
  • As children’s relative levels of exposure change, language skill levels change as well. For example, young children who start going to a high quality English-speaking childcare centre, tend to improve their English skills, although the quality of the input is just as, if not more, important than the quantity (e.g. Grüter et al., 2014).
  • In theory, the use of a varied vocabulary, complex and varied syntax and child-centred speech in a language should be positive predictors of a child’s growth in that language. Evidence suggests that exposure to a language in interactive book-reading with fluent speakers supports language growth, but passively watching TV in a language isn’t as helpful (e.g. Rowe et al., 2012; and Patterson et al., 2004).
  • Hearing a language from several different speakers is more supportive of language development than the same number of hours of language exposure from a few speakers (Place et al., 2011), though we’re not sure why.
  • Interestingly, even in families where the parents are fluent in English, there is evidence that when parents talk with their child in their native language, they use a more diverse vocabulary than when they talk to their children in their second language (Hof et al., 2013).
  • Exposure to English outside of the home through friends and organised activities and also through media is a significant predictor of language growth in English (Pardis, 2011).

Bottom line

Giving bilingual parents practical advice about their child’s language development is difficult. Parents face real challenges for which there are often no easy solutions.

Acquisition of a heritage language is a legitimate goal and has many benefits for the child, the family and society as a whole. Acquisition of strong English skills by school entry is also an important goal, which is hard to attain if the parents don’t speak fluent English themselves.

In countries like Australia, where English is the dominant language, we know that poor English skills at school entry places a child at increased risk for school failure (e.g. Han, 2012). The weight of data to date suggests that young bilingual children who will attend an English-speaking school in the future should:

  • speak with their parents in a language or languages in which their parents are fluent (rather than broken English); and
  • if possible, be exposed to English outside the home, preferably spoken fluently by native speakers, in the toddler and pre-school years.

An optimal environment for English language development is exposure-rich, grammatically varied English of the sort spoken by educated, native English speakers. As a society, we are a long way from being able to offer this to bilingual children from all cultural and economic backgrounds. But that’s what we should shoot for. Interactive technology may make this easier to achieve. But nothing is as good as face-to-face human interaction which, after all, is the basis of language development.

Related articles:

Principal source: Hoff, E., & Core, C. (2015). What Clinicians Need to Know about Bilingual Development.  Seminars in Speech and Language, 36(2), 89-99.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/zjm2pd8

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Come on Dad! What we can do to help our kids’ language development

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As my wife and sisters tell me from time-to-time: it’s not babysitting when it’s playing with your own kids!

I’m not going to lie, though. Lots of the research on kids and language development assumes Mum is doing most of the work. And, in many cases, it’s a fair assumption.

But it’s certainly not always the case. In the last couple of years, I’ve noticed a growing number of stay-at-home, work-from-home, working part-time, job-sharing, and single dads who more than hold their own when it comes to raising their kids. Even in families where dad works long hours away from home, and mum is the primary caregiver, there are hundreds of simple things dads can do to help, too. In this article, I’ll share my best examples.

Before we get into it, when I talk about “dads”, I mean anyone in a child’s life that is a father figure. It can be an older brother, uncle, cousin, granddad, mentor, neighbour – any young adult or adult male who’s important to the child.

Some of these tips and suggestions are particularly useful if your child has a language or developmental delay. But most apply to all kids and all dads.

So here are some suggestions:

1. Rough-housing

This includes:

  • pretend fighting, e.g. superheroes v super villains, Kung Fu/Ninja masters, good v bad knights, Jedi Knights v Sith Lords, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles;
  • physically picking up your child and/or flinging them about (e.g. playing horsy, wheelbarrow rides, piggy-back rides, “aeroplanes”, and spinning around/upside down games);
  • play-wrestling;
  • creeping-up games (e.g. What’s the Time, Mr Wolf?) and chasing games;
  • jumping games, e.g. off tree stumps, into pools, down slip n’ slides, on trampolines; and
  • water pistols and Nerf guns.

Some research says that physical play can encourage risk taking within a safe and secure environment (e.g. Bretherton et al., 2005). Other research says that dads can challenge the child, complementing the mother’s role in caring and comforting (Roggman et al., 2002). Dads (on average) have a more active play style, which has been linked to helping children to control their emotions, calm themselves down, refocus and wait for things patiently (Volling et al., 2002).

2. Pretend reading and writing games

Literacy development starts when children are exposed to printed text, books and writing at home (Strickland et al., 1990). Fathers can play a big role in getting their kids into words and books from a young age (e.g. Saracho, 2008).

Dads can help by:

  • letting the kids see them enjoying reading (books, magazines, news on an iPad);
  • “reading” picture books together – follow the child’s lead – no need to stick to the page order or printed words;
  • working together on alphabet puzzles;
  • making shopping lists together, e.g. circling things to buy in a hardware catalogue or brainstorming ideas for presents for Mum;
  • engaging in pretend typing races;
  • playing scribble games; and
  • doing chalk-writing and drawing games, e.g. in the backyard.

3. Outdoor games that lend themselves to chatter/debate/hilarity:

  • hide and seek;
  • practising hitting balls off softball tees or with cricket bats;
  • tag/chasing games;
  • catch/kick games;
  • acting out favourite apps (e.g. Clash of Clans), or trading card games (e.g. Pokemon, Yu-Gi-Oh!);
  • quoits;
  • frisbee play;
  • kite-flying;
  • digging in sandpits (e.g. for treasure);
  • velcro darts;
  • backyard bowling;
  • family tug-o-wars;
  • trench digging in the garden, including mud-pie tossing;
  • toy bow and arrow hunting expeditions;
  • pin-the-tail on the donkey;
  • tree-climbing and fort making;
  • hunting for worms, insects, frogs, etc;
  • butterfly catching;
  • making ant houses;
  • attempting to hatch Sea Monkeys;
  • “spying” games with binoculars;
  • wild science experiments with slime and smoke and foul stenches;
  • backyard camping nights in tents telling fairy tales and age-appropriate ‘ghost’ stories;
  • making shelters and nests with sticks and leaves; and
  • putting on plays for Mum in the backyard “theatre”.

4. Made up activities based on “active books”

Choose books that are age-appropriate but lend themselves to active play/games or active discussion. Can’t think of one to buy/borrow from the local library? Here are some suggestions, along with activity suggestions for each:

Of course, you don’t actually need the book to do any of the above activities!

5. Secret and other “missions”

These types of games help kids learn about the world. Here’s some ideas (and some props you’ll need to find/make):

  • emergency response units: clipboards, paper, pens, bandaids, cotton balls, gloves, paddle-pop sticks, toy stethoscope, toy people, toy vehicles;
  • restaurant: clipboards, paper, pens, table, tablecloth, plates and cutlery, menus, apron, chef’s hat, food;
  • woodwork: hammers, plywood, glue, buttons, nails, screws;
  • construction: toy trucks/diggers, sand/dirt, shovels, blocks/rocks, shells, toy people/animals/dinosaurs;
  • farming: toy animals, farm-house, “grass”, fences, toy tractors;
  • office: keyboards/computers, pens, paper, stationery, staplers, hole punches;
  • fishing: water, fish, fishing rods, boats, “sharks”, sea monsters;
  • spies: torches, walkie-talkies, secret ink (aka lemon juice), morse code and semaphore charts;
  • pirates: hats, flags, coins/treasure, hook-hands, planks (to walk), toy parrot/bird, eyepatch, cutlasses; and
  • Holy Grail searches: armour, horses, swords, lances, “grails”.

6. Songs and silly voices

  • You don’t need to be a good singer. Just ask my kids! (Although, secretly, I know I’m a good singer.)
  • With younglings, go for songs with lots of repetition and that you can act out, e.g. Wheels on the Bus, Humpty Dumpty (falling off walls) or the Grand Old Duke of York (marching up to tops of hills and marching down again). For older kids, get them to teach you their favourite songs, even if they pretend they’re horrified by your interest.
  • Don’t underestimate the comic effect of dad putting on a funny voice or ridiculous accent, especially for kids used to seeing a very serious/stressed dad going to and coming back from work during the week.

Some final language tips for dads when playing with their kids

  • Get down to their level – look at them eye-to-eye, even if you have to squat down or lie on your stomach to look them in the eye.
  • Follow what your kid does – not what you want to do or what you think is the “right way” of playing a game or reading a book. Start off by imitating their actions, sounds and words and/or wait for them to choose something to play with, then join in.
  • Focus on things the child is interested in. Whether it’s trucks, dinosaurs, Octonauts, princesses, fairies, trains, Pokemon, superheroes, cooking or tools, kids are more likely to pay attention to things they are into.
  • Make sure you talk about what you’re doing/what’s happening as you go.
  • Cut down or avoid activities where your kid doesn’t need any input from you and/or where he/she is so immersed he/she stops talking, e.g. some kids with Lego or blocks. Reduce activities with no face-to-face interaction with another human, e.g. watching TV or playing Minecraft.
  • As you act things out, use lots of specific verbs, e.g. lift, throw, catch, drop, hit, stir, grill, etc.
Principal sources:
  1. Stockall, N. & Dennis, L. (2013). Fathers’ Role in Play: Enhancing Early Language and Literacy of Children with Developmental Delays. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41:299-306.
  2. Wild experiments at home.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/z26zquv

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).

Late-talkers: kick-start language with these verbs

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The more research I read, the more I work with families of late-talkers, the more I find myself harping on about verbs (action words like “put”, “do”, “make”, “fall”, “sleep”, “find”, “see”, etc). This article summarises some of the latest research on verbs and late-talkers; and gives parents and others specific guidance on: (i) when they should be concerned; and (ii) the kinds of verbs to focus on at home and/or in speech-language therapy.

1. Late-talkers and verbs

We’ve talked before about the importance of verbs for late-talkers, for example, here and here.

Verbs emerge later than nouns and are harder to acquire. Early nouns refer to concrete entities (e.g. bear, Mum). But verbs are often about transient events (e.g. Gleitman et al., 2005).

Compared to children without language disorders:

  • late-talking toddlers have problems learning, remembering and using verbs (e.g. Widfuhr et al., 2002);
  • late-talking toddlers use dramatically fewer verbs – an average of about 3 compared with almost 46 for typically developing toddlers (Ellis Weismer et al., 2001); and
  • older children with a history of language disorders have problems using verbs correctly. For example, they often struggle with regular past tense verbs (e.g. “jumped“), irregular past tense verbs (e.g. “drew”, “fell”, “broke”, “went”) and auxiliary verbs (e.g. “have”) (e.g. Leonard, 2014).

2. Why verbs matter

  • Two-year olds with only a few verbs in their vocabulary are at increased risk of language disorders (Olswang et al., 1998).
  • Verbs are essential for many word combinations and all sentences. A lack of verbs means late-talking two-year olds are less likely to combine words than 16-month olds with the same size vocabulary (Ellis Weismer  et al., 2001).
  • Knowledge and use of different kinds of verbs may kick-start grammatical development (e.g. Tomasello, 2005). Researchers talk about verbs having a “privileged” role in sentence production (e.g. Bock & Levelt, 1994).

This is why some therapy programs actively target verbs as a goal of speech-language intervention (e.g. Earle & Lowry, 2015).

3. Different verb types help children make different kinds of sentences

(a) Transitive and intransitive verbs:

  • “transitive verbs” like “put” must have a direct object, e.g.: “I put the book on the table.”
  • “intransitive verbs” like “sleep” don’t require a direct object, e.g.: “The baby is sleeping.”

There is some evidence that the degree of growth over a 3-month period in the average sentence length of a late-talking 31-36 month old may be related to the number of intransitive verbs the child has (e.g. fall, walk) (Olswang, 1997).

(b) Some verbs are specific to a speaker’s perspective on what’s happening. For example, consider:

  • The girl sold her toy car to the boy.
  • The boy bought the toy car from the girl.

These both mean the same thing, and both have the same object (the toy car). But the noun phrase is different. Thus, using different verbs (sold, bought) increases the child’s opportunity to produce differently structured sentences.

(c) Choice of verb can affect aspect and tense. For example, consider these sentences:

  • Bill is watching Mum do the ironing now.
  • Bill sees Mum do the ironing now.

“Watch” is more passive than “see”, and passive verbs are more likely to be marked for progressive aspect in the present tense (i.e. by adding -“ing”). We would not usually say “Bill is seeing Mum do the ironing now”. In this way the meaning of different verbs change the grammar.

4. How many verbs should my child have – when should I be concerned?

Typically developing monolingual children should have around:

  • 26-29 verbs at 21 months; and
  • 81-87 verbs at 30 months (Dale & Fenson, 1996, Jorgenson et al., 2010, Hadley et al., 2016).

If your child has:

  • fewer than two verbs at 24 months;
  • fewer than 10 verbs at 27 months; and
  • fewer than 46 verbs at 30 months,

he/or she has a verb inventory smaller than that of children in the 10th percentile and may be at risk of language delay (Hadley et al., 2016). If in doubt, you may want to contact a certified practising speech pathologist for an assessment.

5. Do girls develop verbs at a different rate than boys?

Yes. At 21 months, girls tend to have more verbs than boys. But boys tend to catch up by 30 months (Hadley et al., 2016).

These findings are consistent with earlier research that shows that boys tend to have vocabulary spurts later than girls, in the third year of life. This may explain why two-year old boys flagged as late-talkers are more likely to resolve their early language delays than two-year old late-talking girls  (e.g. Rice et al., 2008).

6. Can verb diversity predict later grammatical complexity?

Yes.

A child’s spontaneous production of verbs at 24 months is a good predictor of the types of sentences he or she will be able to say six months later. Specifically, the diversity of verbs used is a better predictor of grammatical outcomes than common noun diversity (Hadley et al., 2016).

7. So which verbs should parents focus on?

Recent research by Hsu and colleagues suggests that parents’ verb diversity – rather than the quantity of verbs used – is the primary factor contributing to children’s subsequent verb diversity (Hsu et al., 2015). In other words, parents should use lots of different verbs when interacting with their late-talking children, including:

(a) General all-purpose verbs

These are not tied to specific actions (e.g. Pinker, 1989) and include high frequency verbs children can use in a variety of places, including “do”, “get”, “go”, “have”, “look”, “play”, “put”, “see” and “want”. Most parents in Hsu’s studies naturally used these verbs.

(b) Mental state verbs

More than half of the parents studied by Hsu used common mental state verbs such as “know”, “think” and “like”.

(c) Verbs specific to particular activities

These verbs are commonly associated with play and other common activities. They include words like “eat”, “feed”, “cook” (when playing in the kitchen area), “fit” (for puzzles), “blow” (for bubbles), and “open” (cabinets, toys in boxes with lids).

A small minority of parents used even more specific verbs. For example:

  • instead of “go” for general movement, they used verbs like “walk”, “run”, “jump” and “step”;
  • instead of “play”, they used precise play action verbs like “bounce”, “lift”, and “toss”; and
  • instead of “cook”, they used more specific verbs such as “stir”, “fry” and “bake”.

The Hsu et al., 2015 study showed that meaning-specific verbs, like those above, are critical for children to develop their inventory of verbs. The researchers found that the diversity of verbs used by parents of 21-month olds accounted for up to 30% of the difference in the children’s verb production six months later.

8. Clinical bottom line

With late-talkers, parents and speech pathologists should monitor the number and type of verbs a child says, and track the growth in a child’s inventory of verbs. The best way of doing this is by recording the child’s spontaneous speech.

Parents and others should try to use a range of verbs with their children, including all-purpose verbs, mental state verbs, and verbs specific to particular activities. Language therapy focused on verbs may support the acquisition of sentence structure. Increasing the number and diversity of verbs is an evidence-based speech therapy goal for late-talking toddlers.

Related articles:

Principal sources:

(1) Hadley, P.A., Rispoli, M., & Hsu, N. (2016). Toddlers Verb Lexicon Diversity and Grammatical Outcomes. Language, Speech, and Hearing Services in Schools, 47, 44-58.

(2) Hsu, N., Hadley, P., & Rispoli, M. (2015). Diversity matters: Parent input predicts toddler verb production. Journal of Child Language (forthcoming), accessed online on 11 April 2016.

Image: http://tinyurl.com/zwc8tl5

Banter Speech & Language Banter Speech & Language
Banter Speech & Language is an independent firm of speech pathologists for adults and children. We help clients in our local area, including Concord, Rhodes, Strathfield and all other suburbs of Sydney’s Inner West.

Banter Speech & Language is owned and managed by David Kinnane, a Hanen- and LSVT LOUD-certified speech-language pathologist with post-graduate training in the Spalding Method for literacy, the Lidcombe and Camperdown Programs for stuttering, and Voicecraft for voice disorders. David is also a Certified PESL Instructor for accent modification.

David holds a Master of Speech Language Pathology from the University of Sydney, where he was a Dean’s Scholar. David is a Practising Member of Speech Pathology Australia and a Certified Practising Speech Pathologist (CPSP).