ONE of the best gifts we can give our children is a love of reading and ease them into the habit early on in life. When schools start to teach reading, they often focus on knowledge of the alphabet followed by questions and assessment. Everyone reads at the same level and follows the teacher who models the pronunciation. While this works for strong readers who have some background with parental support, most would benefit greatly from a firm grounding in speaking skills alongside the reading drill. Language acquisition starts with listening and speaking, and early exposure to a range of vocabulary helps students with self-expression that enables a strong foundation.

There should be emphasis on speaking and vocabulary in all domains of early development as evidence shows it leads to academic achievement. The strong focus on reading and writing in our schools is geared towards written assessments and skips hoops that leave many children struggling to get a grip on language — whatever the medium of instruction.

It’s important to track this early development because this is where most students will tap into their multiple ‘intelligences’. Whether it is social skills or problem-solving in maths, understanding technical concepts in science or developing an ear for music, all their skills are informed by their ability to express themselves verbally at first. In fact, research shows, oral language along with visual learning is the biggest predictor of academic success.

Yet, most of our schools fail to develop this ability, citing factors such as large classes and lack of time. If we were to opt for quality versus quantity, the landscape of teaching and learning could be redefined. In the early years, oral communication is the only way to assess how a child is deriving meaning from a learned experience. When they are asked to speak up to predict how a story will unfold, answer questions about the sequence of events, retell the story or give a quick summary, the building blocks of reading and comprehension are laid down.

Teachers must engage orally with each child.

Too many parents in these times complain that their child doesn’t take an interest in reading. The questions to ask for a bit of insight into this phenomenon are, ‘How many of these children have adults taking interest in listening to them speak? How many adults are still telling them stories and encouraging personal responses?’

As learning takes on pace and complexity, teachers face a lack of interest from students, or resistance from those who cannot tackle the level of difficulty. Sometimes, to move forward we must first take a few steps back and engage orally with each child, giving them adequate time to speak up in class. Children who respond orally engage with learning experiences at an entirely different level. It’s a pity we haven’t capitalised on this, even though our culture has a vast legacy of oral stories.

Many of us can recall growing up with stories of monsters who come to eat up the children who don’t finish their food. A need for compliance spurred creativity in parents who told tall tales — albeit fear-based ones — that children quickly became accustomed to. Storytelling is an integral part of teaching any subject, and it is especially important in an early years classroom where students are just beginning to find self-expression.

According to Unicef data, approximately 20 million students are enrolled at pre-primary and primary levels in the public and private sector in Pakistan and the student-teacher ratio is 44. Whilst large classes continue to be the teachers’ biggest challenge, the assessment process for literacy is an even bigger hurdle to learning. In large classes, student engagement is severely compromised as every student does not get opportunities to speak often. In fact, most students spend their entire school day being told to ‘be quiet’ so the teacher can have better class control.

In the absence of formal teacher training, many students fall through the cracks when it comes to monitoring. In fact, many schools do not consider the component of ‘speaking and listening’ as essential to assessment, and only choose to benchmark students on how well they read and write. The challenges of reading are compounded by a lack of fluency in speaking.

If school leaders devise a mechanism to regularly assess students’ listening and speaking skills, many of the pitfalls of reading and comprehension that students face throughout their school life can be overcome. Comprehension, problem-solving skills and analytical ability all start with oral communication. A simple sentence is structured through a thinking process that needs to be tested in conversations and dialogue before a child can read and write.

The writer is senior manager, professional development, at Oxford University Press Pakistan and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, UK.

neda.mulji@gmail.com

Twitter: @nedamulji

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2023