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Overall, learning more about oral and written development and how it impacts a learner’s comprehension skills has been worthwhile. Having reflected on my teaching practices, it is important that I can recognise the areas that my students thrive in so that I can challenge them, but also which areas they need additional help. Choosing the level/age-appropriate material and incorporating my students’ hobbies will also generate interest and engagement. I hope to develop in my practices so that I can be a better teacher for my students.

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I believe that student choice is a big part of educating students, and it is down to me to be able to give my students the chance to choose how they learn. With that in mind, I gave them a voluntary assignment of who could find out and write down the most interesting fact about their favourite animals. I gave them one week, and the only instruction was that they had to write at least one sentence. This generated a lot of excitement, and I was amazed that all twenty-seven students did the task, and some even did posters with more than three sentences about their chosen animal. I dedicated the lesson where I gave a teddy to one student and they shared their fact, and they passed the teddy around until all students had a chance to share with the class. The success of this voluntary assignment inspired me to make sure that I incorporate my student’s interests into written lessons.

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These strategies relate to the text complexity of the digital and print text as it is important for a student's growth for the teacher to choose the appropriate passage. I have a mix of levels in my grade 2 class, but most have similar interests, one being animals. I have taught a science unit on types of animals where students were given a range of materials and they were very interested in learning new facts. The reading materials were at different levels, but they were suitable for six to eight-year-olds. The students could choose what to read, then they had to work with a friend to write one sentence about it and then answer two given questions that I assigned to each book.

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It is up to the teacher to make sure that students have enough student-talking time per lesson as opposed to teacher-talking time. I like to structure my writing lessons in the following:

1. Date and aims – to establish routines.

2. Build background on the writing element – could be done by reading a story, making sure students understand the grammar structure, a flow chart, or a spider diagram.

3. Example writing – give an example of the structure of the writing so that students are able to answer any questions.

4. Class discussion – make sure students have an opportunity to discuss with their friends and as a class to generate ideas.

5. Write – give the students ample time to write a passage, but make sure I give set instructions, for example, students must write at least three sentences using past tense verbs, at least three adjectives (from a word box), and a choice of pictures to write about if students need any more ideas.

6. Share and peer mark – have the students read in small groups to develop their oral and comprehension skills.

7. Reflect – have a few minutes where students are able to reflect on their work, ask the students what they liked, and what they would change.

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https://www.doe.mass.edu/massliteracy/literacy-block/oral-language.html

https://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading-basics/oral-language

The Impact of Oral Language Development on Literacy Success (stayathomeeducator.com)

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/stages-of-language-development

https://getgoally.com/blog/neurodiversopedia/what-is-the-impact-of-oral-language-to-written-language/#:~:text=Research%20has%20shown%20that%20strong,and%20vocabulary%20needed%20for%20writing.

https://www.babycenter.com/child/learning-and-education/how-to-support-your-child-through-the-stages-of-writing-deve_40007432

https://childdevelopment.com.au/resources/child-development-charts/stages-of-language-development-chart/

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Goally is an internet program and app that aims to promote oral and written development. They suggested ways in which to improve oral language skills, which in turn develops a child’s written abilities. They suggest the following:

Engage in conversation and spend some time letting children express themselves. This helps practice using descriptive language.

Reading aloud, asking comprehension questions about the characters, setting and plot so that students are able to say and eventually write answers.

Language games, such as Mad Libs, Taboo, or word associations will help develop vocabulary, which are essential skills for writing.

Encouraging writing by keeping a journal, goal setting, or any creative activity where students can express themselves.

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Writing helps the development of oral language as it helps increase vocabulary and gain information about word meaning and pronunciation. Writing helps students develop their ability to speak and understand others’ speech as well as express themselves clearly and effectively.

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Stay at Home Educator states, “Almost all children learn to speak through practice and use over time, with little or no formal instruction. The environments where children learn their language can have a direct impact on their success in literacy.” This suggests how speaking is built up over time with practice, and once the child is at school age, they will continue to develop. Oral and written development fit hand-in-hand with comprehension skills and it impacts students as they will develop their reading skills, critically think about the questions after reading a story and increase their knowledge of the given text. Once the learner can say an answer out loud and understand the meaning, the students will then be able to put pen to paper and comprehend what they are about to write.

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There are four stages of writing development: preliterate, emergent, transitional, and fluent.
By ages 5 and 6, the child should be in the fluent stage when the words they write develop to have meaning. The Baby Center describes how to encourage writing experiences, teachers and parents should encourage children to use writing to connect with others and express themselves.

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As I teach grade 2 ESL students, I like to do a variety of writing experiences that encourage the students to be creative, some activities worked well (Mad Libs, or where students have to fill in a section of the story) but some activities my students found difficult (creating a story using some specific vocabulary words). I believe the difficulties lie in the way that I approached the writing task and a lack of background knowledge of the story as they could not comprehend it properly. I was able to reflect on my teaching of writing based on the word that my students created, which is how I found out what worked well, and what my students and I need to work on. After some self-reflection, I assigned my students the task of having to write the middle of a given story, where I provided the beginning and end, as well as a word box and an example so that the lower students were able to see the structure. I made sure to build background prior to orally reading the story where the students have them follow along. I asked the students to provide some ideas for the middle of the story, and I wrote their answers down so they were able to gain ideas and spelling. Scaffolding the lesson this way, and then having students share the middle of the story with their friends and then with the class helped to develop their oral and writing skills.

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Reading Rockets states, “Oral language encompasses both speaking and listening. Oral language skills include learning how spoken words sound, what words and sentences mean, and how to communicate ideas.” Oral speech is one of the main ways we use to communicate and express ourselves. For oral language, it’s important to understand that children develop their oral skills from birth.

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The Indeed Career Guide (2023) states that there are six stages of language development from birth:

1. Pre-linguistic stage – 0 to 6 months, can communicate with sounds and can recognise voices

2. Babbling stage – 6 to 9 months, can babble, make noises and syllables that aren’t words yet

3. Holophrastic stage – 9 to 18 months, can say single words

4. Two-word stage – 18 to 24 months, can group two words together

5. Telegraphic stage – 24 to 30 months, can speak phrases and understand basic instructions

6. Multi-word stage – beyond 30 months old, can make increasingly complex sentences.

The last stage is when the child is around 30 months old, and they start to develop meaning behind words, “For instance, they know to use the word “dogs” instead of “dog” when referring to more than one dog.” (The Indeed Career Guide, 2023).

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This activity impacted my students as it was an independent task where they had to do their research at home, then comprehend the information, and write one sentence about it. It was a complex activity and they excelled. It also helped me reflect on how useful technology is in learning. In the future, I hope to bring in technology more and do further research projects where my students can continue to build their oral and written skills.

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Additionally, Kid Sense state there are two types of language, receptive language which is understanding, and expressive language, which is using it to communicate thoughts and ideas. They created a progress chart which monitors what stage the learner is at in different elements of English, such as listening, vocabulary, sentences, verbal grammar, concepts, questions, and implications if the milestone isn’t met. My students, who are seven and eight years old, should be able to follow multi-step instructions, make predictions about a story, express their opinion and be able to say and write complex sentences with verbs and adjectives. It’s important that I am able to work at the student’s level and challenge them, when necessary, in different elements of learning oral English, building vocabulary, and listening, comprehension and writing skills.

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Choosing the right digital and/or print text is very important for the students and impacts their development. If the text is too difficult or easy for the students, they will lose interest or become unmotivated.