The marginalization of language development in the early grades language arts curriculum could prove disastrous for our children. 

Students’ language comprehension plays an important role in their reading and writing abilities. Who would disagree? First, you decode the marks on the page or screen as recognizable word forms, then you comprehend the words as grammatically arranged items of vocabulary, as if you were listening to them being spoken, and thereby understand the meaning. Therefore, both of these abilities, fluent decoding and language comprehension, would seem necessary for effective reading and effective reading instruction. Yet, surprisingly, the instructional support required to foster strong language comprehension — particularly the practice-in-use of language to develop proficiency with it — is underemphasized in, or disappearing from, the primary grades literacy education curriculum. This is evident in early grades state literacy standards no longer requiring attention to oral language (e.g., in Kentucky) or in what were formerly primary grades language standards moving to intermediate grade levels (e.g., in Indiana). Instead, early literacy expectations for reading have come to focus almost entirely on decoding (print concept, phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency).  

At the same time, demands for structured literacy instruction, in which decoding is similarly conflated with reading in its entirety (e.g., Hanford, 2018; Stark, 2019), have furthered the curricular marginalization of language comprehension. Advocates for students with dyslexia, as well, are pushing legislation to place these children into scripted and pre-paced programs for sounding out letters and meaningless pseudo-words, avoiding comprehension of language lest it distract the student from the task of rapidly and accurately making sounds (Elliott & Grigorenko, 2014).  

Even when policy does not explicitly favor decoding over language development in the primary grades, the displacement of language instruction tends to happen by default: There are only so many hours in a day and so many dollars in the till, and resources devoted to one thing are always, in a sense, being denied to others. But why does language get placed on the back burner? The expressed rationale is that language, unlike decoding skills, develops “naturally” and will take care of itself (Moates & Tolman, n.d.). Were this true, it would be a waste of resources to devote early literacy instruction to anything other than decoding — “learning to read” — with the result that “reading to learn” (and language comprehension development) gets forestalled until late 3rd grade or beyond.  

The truth about language development 

The truth is that language does indeed develop naturally, but it does so only in response to children’s linguistic environments, including their instructional environments. And while language development is not entirely confined to specific critical periods of a child’s life, children do undergo some notable neurogenetic changes in the hippocampus of the brain at around age 9 or 10 that affect their language-learning capacity (Purves et al., 2001). After this point, language learning becomes more effortful than before. At the same time, children at this age tend to develop a growing sense of identity as a reader or a non-reader, and those identities and their discourse registers are difficult to dislodge. For these reasons, supporting students’ deep facility with language is likely more effective before 3rd grade than later (Connor et al., 2014). 

Curricula that deemphasize language comprehension development also tend to deemphasize the development of thought, intelligence, and knowledge. Language development correlates powerfully with intellectual development, but decoding does not. This is not because we are born with a specific IQ and then develop the level of language skill that IQ allows. If that were the case, decoding skills development would also correlate with IQ, as would anything needing to be learned. The effect, in fact, goes the other way. Intelligence tests are not highly predictive of anything until language has developed, and the abilities measured on the subtests of typical intelligence batteries (such as working memory capacity, pattern recognition and prediction, categorical precision, inference) are symbolic in nature and therefore unnecessary until language development requires them. In other words, there is not much need for those subskills until a child’s nervous system is focused on language development. Language development thereby drives development of intellectual propensities, which then, in turn, empower further language development.  

How effectively language drives intellectual development depends on the child’s linguistic environment (Taylor et al., 2003). A child cannot learn a language they have not heard a great deal of or have had ample opportunities to practice. And, for reasons we are only beginning to understand, children in higher-poverty environments are less likely to hear and respond to as much language as the average middle-class or professional-class toddler (Dickinson & Morse, 2019; Hart & Risley, 1995; Rinderman & Baumeister, 2015) with the result that they are more likely to demonstrate language development disparities in the primary grades and weak reading scores by the end of 3rd grade. Curricular focus in the school years is crucial to offset these poverty-related inequities. 

Consider the odds. A toddler in a low-income home is more likely to have one parent instead of two and may therefore encounter that much less direct language interaction. Due to lower access to quality pre- and neonatal health care, the child is more likely to suffer from hearing impairments and other health hazards (Manduca & Sampson, 2019). Said child is more likely to live in a low-income neighborhood and thus be less likely to have access to quality preK education or day care, or even full-day kindergarten (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002). Said child is more likely to be born into a home where there are few or no books or drawing materials; where no one has ever read them a bedtime story, never repeatedly sung a nursery rhyme, never taught them the alphabet song (Edwards, 1992/2010; Evans et al., 2010). Said child is more likely to have one or more parents who have received less schooling or who may be semi- or illiterate and therefore less likely to demonstrate and model the literate activities expected of children in the schools (Todd & Wolpin, 2007). And, due to the chronic stress of persistent poverty, said child’s parent may be more likely to suffer from depression, a common symptom of which is lower talkativeness and socio-emotional engagement (Alegria et al., 2019; Lupien et al., 2000). And then there is the exhaustion of working two or more jobs to make ends meet. It is not that such parents do not love and care for their children, but they may not have the support that ensures the kind of home literacy experiences children require to be “kindergarten ready” in a middle-class curriculum. 

I am not suggesting that all children in poverty experience language development disparities, or even that most do. But a larger percentage of children in poverty demonstrate such disparities than would be found among the middle class or grade-peers in general, and the difference is sufficient to account for most of the end-of-3rd-grade reading achievement gap (Dickinson & Morse, 2019). Language disparity, however, is not to be confused with dialect differences or second-language-learning issues. The correlation of reading performance with capacity for complex language comprehension remains significant across different dialects and languages.  

The effects of this linguistic inequity can be observed as early as the first week of kindergarten, when new screening instruments too easily mischaracterize it as indicators of dyslexia risk (the ability to recite the alphabet being a case in point; dyslexia is a neurobiological phonological impediment; it does not impede learning the alphabet song — provided it is taught). A decoding-obsessed curriculum, with little attention to language development, allows these inequities to metastasize for four years, resulting in the dependable disparities found in reading test scores at the end of 3rd grade and the achievement gaps that grow thereafter, with children in poverty bearing most of the brunt. Symbol use is not enough; language, foundational reasoning, and prior knowledge also matter, and it is those latter three that provide comprehension of language. 

The interaction between decoding and comprehension 

Decoding skills, such as those taught through phonemic awareness, phonics, and sight word fluency, are undeniably crucial for good reading ability. But there is so much more to reading than decoding (Allington, 2011). At a recent state literacy conference, several teachers I brainstormed with between sessions helped me come up with the following list of important reading-related skills, which I present here in no particular order: vocabulary, analysis, interest, choice, semantics, situation modeling, emotion, print concept, information, word work, narrative, sight words, alphabet knowledge, prediction, inference, self-efficacy, analogy, phonemic awareness, problem solving, prior knowledge, syntax, and disciplinary content. As already noted, identity and motivation also play important roles. 

The oft-replicated simple view of reading — the E = MC2 of early grades literacy education — would distill all this down to remind us that R = D × C (Gough & Tunmer, 1986). That is, Reading (R), as measured on a standardized reading comprehension test, is the product of a student’s decoding skills (D) and their language comprehension ability (C). All other elements of early reading can be placed into one of those two factors. This is a simplification, perhaps, but bear with me. 

You can plug numbers into the formula to see the relationship in action, with 1 being the student’s current grade-level expectations. If a student is at grade level with both decoding and language comprehension, then  

D × C = R 

1 × 1 = 1 

And this is usually the case. 

However, if a student didn’t get effective decoding instruction in the primary grades and is therefore weak at decoding, those weak decoding skills will pull down their test score, even if the student is on grade level with comprehension:  

.5 × 1 = .5 

This is another way to say that you cannot comprehend a text you cannot decode. Hence the importance of decoding instruction in the early primary grades, a point few would argue.  

Still, a student could master decoding — and by grade 4 most students have — but still have weaker than average language development (as would be the case for a child learning English as a second language). Then: 

1 × .5 = .5 

Same outcome as before! And the student could be a bit weak with both D and C, say:  

.7 × .7 = .5 (rounded) 

Again, same outcome!  

My point is that a weak score on a standardized reading test (R = .5) does not explain whether the problem is decoding, language ability, or both. This drives home three additional points: Both decoding skills instruction and strong language development are necessary for good reading performance; neither is sufficient alone to do well on the test; and so instructional support for both is necessary.  

Once more with meaning  

Structured phonics advocates have been claiming that inadequate reading test scores are evidence of a lack of appropriate decoding instruction (Hanford, 2018; Stark, 2019). But, as just noted, a test score alone cannot tell you the cause of a reading problem. Children who struggle with reading do so for a variety of reasons (Valencia, 2011). And even if particular students are weak in decoding, it may not necessarily be because of weak phonics instruction. There are other potential causes (Templeton & Gehsmann, 2014). Close assessment with a reliable reading inventory by a trained reading specialist is required to make this call accurately.  

Nonetheless, these critics of reading instruction call for more phonics — and of a particular form (synthetic or part-to-whole; also known historically as programmatic or direct and explicit, and currently as structured). Notably, the National Reading Panel report of 2000 that demonstrated the evidence basis for the importance of phonics in effective reading instruction did not find a significant difference between different approaches to teaching phonics: synthetic, analytic, analogical, word-based — it did not matter which you used; they all worked equally well. That was 20 years ago. Today, phonics instruction is found in the packaged reading curricula most districts buy and implement; it is taught in detail (though in tandem with other approaches) in university teacher education programs; and it is built into most of the evidence-based reading interventions currently vetted by the What Works Clearinghouse (Institute of Educational Sciences, n.d.).  

Although explicit phonics instruction would seem sufficiently evident, I have heard calls for more phonics from advocates at my state legislature’s education committee meetings. They provide no evidence for their claim that there is a deficit of phonics in the early reading curriculum, and their solution is legislation that would require districts to buy new “structured” reading programs that overemphasize phonics and other decoding skills to the exclusion of language comprehension development.  

In the rare cases where language instruction does make an appearance, it is tied almost exclusively to vocabulary lists, grammar worksheets, and mechanics drills — as required by many state literacy standards. Anyone who has been through four years of foreign language instruction in high school only to discover themselves unable to understand a native speaker in real time knows the limitations of programmatic language instruction.  

Sidestepping the question of whether current reading ability as indicated by state and national tests truly amounts to a crisis in early grades reading curricula, there is the strong possibility that teachers’ facility with decoding instruction is as varied as their students’ test scores. In other words, the “crisis” of score distributions including a bottom quartile might be better reframed as a concern with the quality and intensity of the instruction students receive. The solution to weak instruction is high-quality professional development. Switching to a brand-new program will not help. If teachers are weak or uneven in their current decoding instruction, they’ll be as inadequate at the new program as they were with the old. There are no teacher-proof curricula. 

Understanding understanding 

So if early reading instruction requires more than decoding, we must turn to language comprehension, which brings its own challenges. The nature of comprehension itself is arguably undertheorized. For most reading researchers, comprehension is considered a thing unto itself that can be described as a pillar of reading, a set of cognitive processes encoded in the mind, a hard-wired instinct, or an ability enacted through discourse (Israel, 2017). Ask a reading teacher what fundamental abilities comprehension rests on, and the usual response involves such ideas as the three-code cuing system (graphophonemic, syntactic, and semantic) or two of the five reading pillars (vocabulary and comprehension, the latter being a tautological response). Secondary teachers may list the seven instructional strategies vetted by the National Reading Panel report, which sidesteps the question of what comprehension is entirely. But we think we know it when we see it. 

I humbly suggest that language comprehension development follows a four-part recursive trajectory, which I call ELIK:  

• E is for linguistic environment. 
• L is for language familiarity (that is, the child’s facility with a broad range of vocabulary, a wide range of common syntactic patterns, higher-order semantics, discourse and genre conventions).  
• I is for basic intellectual abilities (including working memory, elemental and categorical precision, comparison, analogy, inference, causal reasoning, pattern recognition and prediction, visualization, and situation modeling — all of which develop to the degree they do as a result of language development).  
• K is for knowledge (general, world, self, social, and disciplinary, all of which develop primarily because of language and intellectual development).  

These last three domains together provide language comprehension: developed language ability, intellectual abilities, and prior knowledge relevant to the text. Very young children develop these abilities tightly but sequentially, with ongoing recursive effects (see Figure 1). But the seedbed of this developmental sequence is linguistic environment, the social nexus that gives language meaning and intention.  

The pattern works like this: A child’s language ability emerges in a particular linguistic environment, initially as part of the infant-mother dyad and subsequently as part of a linguistic group (such as the immediate family) within a linguistic community (the extended family and neighborhood). As the child develops language familiarity in response to their environment, that child’s language use feeds back into the environment, leading to more linguistic experiences as other language users provide the child with responses that act as confirmative or corrective feedback. The emergence of language both builds on and nourishes the child’s foundational intellectual abilities (foundational reasoning skills), which then feed back into how the child develops language experiences in the linguistic environment. Through these linguistic experiences, the child develops knowledge (of facts, concepts, processes, and relationships), which provides further opportunity for intellectual development, feeding back into language, and provoking more language experience from the environment. Upon this growing integration of language, intellect, and knowledge, text decoding and encoding skills can be taught. This happens informally at first, as the child observes real-world examples (e.g., making grocery lists, reading storybooks), and it later occurs through formal instruction (e.g., the introduction of new words, concepts and information, or explicit phonics drills for pronunciation). And, finally, with all these elements in place, Decoding × Comprehension = Reading. 

A call for complete instruction 

The ELIK sequence suggests that if you could enrich the linguistic environments in which children develop language familiarity — at home and in the schools — you would develop not only their language but also their intellect and prior knowledge. By doing so, you would improve their success in reading and writing and in their school and career achievement, with positive effects on their lives, their families, and their communities.  

Today’s thought-leader media — from The Atlantic to National Public Radio, from PBS NewsHour to EdWeek — have paid insufficient attention to the language disparities children bring to school, focusing instead on vehement calls for phonics and decoding over and above what really will empower students: articulate and informed language. The time has come to swing back in our homes and schools to a more balanced approach to reading through decoding instruction and language development, symbol use and meaning sharing, and thus give students a more complete education. 

References 

Alegria, M., Shrout, P.E., Canino, G., Alvarez, K., Wang, Y., Bird, H., . . . & Duarte, C. (2019). The effect of minority status and social context on the development of depression and anxiety: A longitudinal study of Puerto Rican descent youth. World Psychiatry, 18, 298-307. 

Allington, R.L. (2011). What at-risk readers need. Educational Leadership, 68 (6), 40-45. 

Connor C.M., Alberto P.A., Compton D.L., & O’Connor R.E. (2014). Improving reading outcomes for students with or at risk for reading disabilities: A synthesis of the contributions from the Institute of Education Sciences Research Centers. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education. 

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Edwards, P.A. (1992/2010). Involving parents in building reading instruction for African-American children. Theory Into Practice, 31, 350-359. 

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Rinderman, H. & Baumeister, A.E.E. (2015). Parents’ SES vs. parental educational behavior and children’s development: A reanalysis of the Hart and Risley study. Learning and Individual Differences, 37, 133-138. 

Stark, L. (2019, April 30). What parents of dyslexic children are teaching schools about literacy. PBS NewsHour.  

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Templeton, S. & Gehsmann, K.M. (2014). Teaching reading and writing: The developmental approach. Boston, MA: Pearson. 

Todd, P.E. & Wolpin, K.I. (2007). The production of cognitive achievement in children: Home, school, and racial test score gaps. Journal of Human Capital, 1, 91-136. 

Valencia, S.W. (2011). Reader profiles and reading disabilities. In A. McGill-Franzen & R.L. Allington (Eds.), Handbook of reading disability research (pp. 25-35). New York, NY: Routledge.