49 Jennifer Colombo, M.S., CCC-SLP Owner of Therapeutic Potentials, Inc. www.TPIKids.com The Language To Literacy Connection Are speech, language, and reading WORDS: Jennifer Colombo, M.S., CCC-SLP, Speech Language Pathologist connected? Absolutely! A common characteristic of children with dif��culties learning to read, speci��cally dyslexia, is the inability to read words although the student has had appropriate instruction and exposure. Dyslexia is a language-based learning difference that affects one in five children. Difficulties in the areas of word recognition, spelling, and decoding, occur due to weaknesses in the phonological components of language. Challenges with reading signi��cantly impact reading comprehension, vocabulary growth, and overall academic performance. Common Characteristics of Dyslexia that are Language Based: • Phonological Processing dif��culties (speaking) pronouncing and/or repeating words accurately, tongue-twister words and phrases, i.e. ambulance, speci��cally, library, “she sells sea shells”) • Word retrieval and naming. • Phonological awareness difficulties (manipulating the sounds of spoken language, without print)-rhymes, sentence imitation, knowing/counting words and syllables. • Phonemic Awareness dif��culties (systematically isolating sounds of speci��c words)-knowing, counting, repeating phonemes, segmenting, substituting, reversing sounds in words, recognizing that letters are different from sounds, noticing patterns of how sounds can be represented by letters. • Phonics (explicitly teaching the code for soundsymbol correspondence, with print)-letters represent sounds (phonemes), predictable patterns- Consonant-Vowel-Consonant, Vowel- Consonant, short then long vowels. • Organizing written and spoken language. • Reading ��uency. • Spelling and reading comprehension. Diagnosis: • Early assessment is crucial for determining the most effective instruction for students that struggle with reading at the young ages. Nemours Brightstart! Program, www.nemours.org/brightstart has been instrumental in compiling research for the early identi��cation of preschool-��rst graders at risk for reading disabilities. • An appropriately trained team of professionals in the areas of psychology, reading specialists, speech-language pathology, and occupational therapy can assess and provide the most optimal plan of care for students of all ages who are struggling with reading. Interventions: • Finding an expert in the area of languagebased reading differences such as dyslexia, is the ��rst step. • Finding a professional who has adequate training in methodologies that incorporate Orton-Gillingham philosophies is critical. • Does the professional truly understand the language component of dyslexia? (i.e. speechlanguage pathologists have unique training to teach children how to both hear and produce sounds to accurately associate the sounds to letters necessary for decoding and reading.) • Understand the difference between “tutoring” and “therapeutic interventions.” A very speci��c and individualized plan of care should be developed for your child. Therapy should focus on developing and acquiring the skills necessary for reading acquisition in a very systematic manner. Identi��cation of struggling readers is the ��rst step in providing focused and appropriate intervention plans to offer students with language based reading differences the greatest chance towards becoming pro��cient readers.
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