Oral language and beginning to read.

This collaborative teacher-research study was conducted in children's first year of school and explored ways young children's use of oral language, vocabulary and phonology connected with beginning reading. A play-based oral language intervention was implemented and an analysis of oral language and reading suggested that spoken language did not provide a neat, sequential base which can be easily mapped to written language. Questions were raised about the view that oral language neatly underpins reading development and the study concluded that learning to read written English is influenced by children's oral language development as well as their experience and understanding about written language structures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]