By: Kaylie Wright, M.A., CCC-SLP
Are you confused about being asked to do a language evaluation when you are concerned about your child’s reading skills? Let’s talk about why that might have been a recommendation. The foundation of reading is very language-based in nature. Reading incorporates many skills that work together to help a child become a proficient reader. Some of these language-based skills include phonological awareness, phonemic awareness, the ability to visualize, vocabulary, and rapid naming. Let’s talk about each of these areas in more detail!
Phonological Awareness
Phonological awareness is a broad set of skills that include the ability to recognize and manipulate parts of oral language. This includes rhyming, segmenting syllables, segmenting words and sounds, and blending words and sounds. All of these foundational reading skills help build the foundation that becomes reading.
Phonemic Awareness
Phonemic awareness is a child’s ability to attend to and identify sounds or phonemes. One step further would be the ability to manipulate individual sounds in spoken words. For example, being able to change the /k/ in ‘cat’ to a /b/ and knowing that the new word is ‘bat.’
Visualizing
Visualizing refers to a person’s ability to make a mental image of something. Visualizing is essential in all language as well as reading skills. Being able to visualize what is being said helps with comprehension, follow-through, and retention—the same thing with reading. If a child can visualize a word in their head, they will be able to read, spell, and retain it with greater ease.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary refers to the words that a person knows and is familiar with. This is different and unique to each person, and a child’s ability to read and make sense of words relies on their vocabulary knowledge.
Rapid Automatic Naming
Rapid naming is a child’s ability to retrieve the names of things from their brain and be able to say them aloud. This is a skill that is used in many types of language, including reading!
Get Reading and Language Support With Enrichment Therapy & Learning Center
When a child is struggling to read, sometimes there are foundational language skills that are impaired or delayed and those difficulties may be reflected in the child’s reading. It is always helpful to rule out these underlying factors to ensure that treatment is attacking the root cause and not targeting singular areas that don’t improve the root problem. Contact us to help your child feel confident in the classroom today!
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