Speaking Before Reading? Or Both Together?

By Dr. Suzanne Irujo, ELL Outlook™ Contributing Writer

I'm delighted to have a question from a reader for this issue, which may inspire some of the rest of you to send questions. I never have all the answers, but I hope I can help you think in new ways about issues related to the education of ELLs.

The Question

A "curious graduate student in Massachusetts" writes:

I'm reading Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children[Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children, 1998] for a class I'm taking and I had a question. On page 11 of the executive summary, it says:

"Although print materials may be used to develop understanding of English speech sounds, vocabulary, and syntax, the postponement of formal reading instruction is appropriate until an adequate level of English proficiency in spoken English has been achieved."

This seems contradictory to what I'd assume (primarily based on the idea of teaching language and content simultaneously). If a teacher waited to start teaching an ELL "formal reading instruction" until they gained "an adequate level of English proficiency," wouldn't the student fall far behind his/her native English speaking peers? Isn't this especially dangerous since learning to read well before the 3rd grade is so important? What-or who-determines an adequate level of English proficiency?

Although I am sure this is explained in greater detail farther on in the text, I am having a hard time swallowing this now (especially since it seems to be contradictory to what I'd assume).

This is an interesting question, and one that's been debated for years. The idea that reading shouldn't be taught until after oral language has developed first emerged during the language teaching "revolution" of the 1960s that resulted in the audio-lingual method. At a time when most foreign and second languages were taught through the grammar-translation method and focused almost exclusively on reading and writing, the audio-lingual method focused on the primacy of oral/aural language. The premise was that when children acquire their first language, there is a natural progression from listening to speaking, then to reading, and finally to writing. It was assumed that learning a second language should follow that same progression. The theory underlying the audio-lingual approach to language teaching and learning was thoroughly discredited by Chomsky's revolution in linguistics (Chomsky, 1959), but the idea that children have to be able to speak a language before they can read it has stayed with us.

The question of whether or not to delay second-language reading instruction because of a lack of oral proficiency is one of those issues for which I can present convincing arguments on both sides. The very nature of reading is an argument for delay. If reading is the process of creating meaning from text, and if text reflects the graphophonemic, morphemic, syntactic, semantic, and discourse features of a particular language, then it would seem to be impossible to create meaning from text written in a language that one doesn't know. If we try to teach preliterate children to read in a language they don't know, we risk creating nonreaders, who understand neither the mechanics of decoding nor the concept of reading for meaning. If we try to teach children who are literate in another language to read in a second language that they don't know, we risk creating "word callers" who know how to decode but can't create meaning from the text because they don't understand the language in which it is written.

On the other side of the question, I agree with the reason given by my curious questioner for not delaying reading instruction. We know that it takes from six months to two years for ELLs to acquire conversational language (Cummins, 1981). Assuming that a child enters first grade with no oral English proficiency and no native language literacy skills, that child might have to wait until third grade to begin formal instruction in reading. It is very difficult for third-grade teachers to accommodate nonreading children, making it unlikely that these children would ever catch up. In an age of accountability, we cannot risk having large numbers of ELLs behind in reading from the very beginning of their school careers. Another reason for not delaying formal reading instruction is that reading can help second-language learners develop their oral language skills. This is particularly true of older students with good native language literacy skills but occurs also with younger preliterate children.

What Research Says and Doesn't Say

Sometimes research can help when the arguments on both sides of an issue are equally convincing. But in this case the findings are contradictory. Various studies have stressed the importance of oral proficiency for second-language reading development (e.g., Chu-Chang, 1981; Lee & Schallert, 1997). Others have found that young ESL students, even those who speak little or no English, are able to learn to read in English (e.g., Hudelson, 1984). The problem here, as with so much research in education, is that we are trying to compare apples to oranges and come up with some kind of conclusion. A drug company would never try to draw conclusions from studies on patients of different ages, with different diseases, who were given different formulations of the drug. Yet we try to draw conclusions from studies of students ("patients") of different ages, with very different backgrounds ("diseases"), who receive different instructional programs ("drugs"). We do that because the fragmented nature of research in education means that most studies are small scale, and very few are ever replicated in a similar context.

So What Should We Do?

If both positions have advantages and disadvantages and the research is contradictory, what should teachers do? It would be very easy just to say, "Let's go with the experts," but there are some crucial caveats. The authors of Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children emphasized the importance of teaching initial reading in the native language whenever possible. This is the preferred alternative because it allows children to acquire oral English proficiency at the same time they are acquiring reading skills; these skills then transfer to English reading quickly and easily once oral proficiency has been achieved. The recommendation to delay the introduction of formal English reading instruction when ELLs have little or no oral proficiency applies only to cases in which native language instruction is not possible. And that recommendation is made on the basis of theory extrapolated from studies showing greater success when initial reading is taught in the first language, not on the basis of studies showing greater effectiveness when reading in a second language is delayed until oral proficiency is established.

We also need to consider what "formal reading instruction" and "adequate level of spoken English proficiency" really mean. I had a student who came to me in fourth grade with grade-appropriate reading skills in Spanish and no oral English proficiency. She had come from Puerto Rico a few weeks before she started at my school and had been enrolled in a different school system during that time. When we received her records from the other system, her reading record contained only this statement: "Inés is on page 3 of Book A in the [phonics-based basal] reading program, and will remain there until she learns to distinguish the short vowels." In this case, "formal reading instruction" meant phonics first and only, and "adequate level of oral English" therefore meant the ability to distinguish between the vowel sounds in words such as pen and pin. A delay was indeed necessary, since reading was dependent on the development of phonetic discrimination skills in English. Rather than subjecting Inés to what I considered to be an unnecessary and harmful delay, I chose to modify her reading program. Using meaningful, predictable texts that appealed to a fourth grader, I incorporated large amounts of phonemic awareness, vocabulary development, and other language activities into her reading instruction. Reading from predictable texts was supplemented with techniques such as the language experience approach and dialogue journals. By combining oral language development and English literacy instruction, Inés read and wrote about everything we discussed and discussed everything she read and wrote about. By reading texts that were familiar to her from our prior discussions, she was able to use her grade-level literacy skills in Spanish to learn English structure and vocabulary.

This only works, however, when oral language instruction and reading instruction in English are very closely integrated. When this is done, it is the reading text itself that provides a definition of "adequate oral language." The vocabulary and structures that are essential for comprehending any particular text constitute the "adequate oral language" for that text. The oral proficiency that is adequate for reading a predictable book is far from adequate for reading a social studies textbook. But reading instruction in English does not have to be delayed until students' oral proficiency is adequate for reading a social studies textbook.

It Depends

So why does Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children advocate "the postponement of formal reading instruction. .. until an adequate level of English proficiency in spoken English has been achieved"? Probably because "formal reading instruction" seldom includes the kind of integration of language development and reading instruction that I'm talking about. There is a real danger of ELLs never learning to read well if formal reading instruction begins before they know enough English to comprehend what they read, especially when formal instruction focuses more on decoding skills than on meaning. However, there is also a real danger that the delay will make it very difficult for ELLs to catch up later.

I believe that decisions about whether to delay reading instruction or not have to be made on an individual basis, taking into consideration student factors such as age, grade level, native language reading ability, access to comprehensible English input, and motivation, as well as teacher factors such as the ability to integrate language and reading instruction, to adapt or create materials as necessary, and to differentiate reading instruction for the ELLs in the classroom. So, at the risk of sounding like an evasive politician, my answer to the question of whether formal reading instruction in English should be delayed until ELLs have acquired oral language has to be, "It depends."

References

Dr. Irujo would be happy to answer questions. Please send questions for her to: alex@coursecrafters.com.