ERIC Number: ED262394
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1985
Reference Count: 0
The Relationship of Oral Language Features to Reading Achievement.
To gain more information about the language awareness of young children, a study examined the relationship between 14 middle class kindergarten children's oral language and their reading achievement in third, fourth, and fifth grades. Individual children's ranks on 61 oral language features derived from a previous microethnography were compared to their ranks on the California Test of Basic Skills and their Reading Miscue Inventory scores using Kendall correlation coefficients and multiple regression equations. The language features included language awareness indices as well as pragmatic, functional features during classroom activities. The analysis revealed several oral language features had positive though not usually significant correlations with fourth and fifth (but not third) grade reading measures and their contributions to the variance in the multiple regression equations were generally substantial. The trend toward a positive relationship of these features with later reading measures was consistent. Metalinguistic awareness (print awareness and offering or requesting definitions or etymologies), correcting self or others' behavior or positions, and the use of the interactive functions of language across whole sessions and within specific activities that were not teacher directed were the oral language features that presaged later reading achievement. (HOD)
Publication Type: Reports - Research; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers: Linguistic Awareness
Note: Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (69th, Chicago, IL, March 31-April 4, 1985).