WHY IS LANGUAGE SO IMPORTANT FOR LEARNING?

Heather Ironside Interim Director of Admissions and Former Director of Language and Literacy

Lydia H Soifer, Ph D Consultant, The Gateway School

Reprinted from The Gateway School Special Report: Volume II

As her students make their way into her classroom, settle into their seats, and pull out notebooks and tablets, the teacher poses a question for the class to consider: “How are we violating a person when we deny them the right to vote?” It is a provocative and effective conversation starter among a classroom full of school-aged children, and a way for the teacher to assess whether or not her students can pick a position and convincingly substantiate their opinions Participating successfully in a classroom discussion such as this requires a broad range of language skills

To actively and effectively engage in a classroom debate, a student must use their thinking skills (evaluation, judgment, reason), find the right words to articulate their position, create a series of clear sentences that capture their logic, hold on to the argument while listening critically to others, classmates challenge it with questions and counterarguments.

The demands of classroom discourse are not altogether different from what’s called for during a lively dinner table conversation or an exchange with teammates on the playing field For a typically developing child, all of these experiences draw on and simultaneously reinforce the development of their language skills For a child with language impairment, however, these skills do not develop at the same pace as their peers, which can have a deep impact on their school experience.

“People hear the word 'language,' and they think French, German, Italian,” says Lydia H. Soifer, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the staff developer at The Gateway School "Language is a remarkable gift given to us Yet, we rarely think about it because no one’s parents teach the particulars, such as 'add an "s" to a word when you mean more than one '

"Parents just talk with their children and correct the obvious mistakes. But when your child cannot learn the details of his or her language independently, it will lead to trouble learning in school. School is all about language no matter what subject is beingtaught.”

In 1978, Lois Bloom and Margaret Laheypublishedtheirseminalbookon language development. They conceptualizedlanguageascomprising three separate but overlapping components:content,form,anduse.

Content encompasses our knowledge and ideas about the world, concepts, andwords.Vocabularyandallthatwe know about words and their connections,calledsemantics,makeup language content. For example, content includes everything from the items that belong on the dinner table such as ‘glass,’ ‘napkin,’ or ‘fork,’ and thepurposeofamealwhichmightbe ‘nutrition,’‘family,’or‘socialization’,to whatislearnedintheHumanitiesclass referredtoearlier.‘Violation’isaword, a world issue, and a concept. To the student who can’t understand the definition, “the act of violating someoneorsomething,”won’tbeable to distinguish or easily distinguish the magnitude of different types of violations (e.g., traffic ticket, hitting, denying a person’s rights). This limitation in understanding will be reflected in their world view. Ultimately, a child’s language content involves having something to say, to understand,toread,ortowrite.

Formreferstotheobservablefeatures oflanguage,thepartsthatareeasiest to hear and see. It describes the structureorrulesforcombiningsounds into words and stringing words together to form sentences reflecting complete, logical thought. Language formisessentialforspeaking,listening, reading, and writing. Imagine, for example, taking a spelling dictation in a 2nd grade reading class, writing an essay, or following homework instructions. Phonology, morphology (partsofwords,e.g.,‘hats’),grammar, andsyntaxarecentralfeaturesofthis domain. Form is the means by which we share our ideas when speaking, listening,reading,orwriting.

Use,alsoknownassocialorpragmatic communication, relies in part on the integration of content and form. It mattersnotonlyinaconversationwith friends, but also in the academic setting.Forexample,itisimportantfor comprehension when reading about a character’s intentions or analyzing an author’s purpose. When writing, it guides the student’s intent leading themtochoosewordsforapersuasive argument that differ from those employedinanarrative.Languageuse isverycomplexandsubtle.Itisallthe reasons we speak, attempt to understand,toread,ortowrite.

AsHeatherIronside,InterimDirectorof Admissions and former Director of LanguageandLiteracyatTheGateway School,explains,“Usereallydrawsthe content and form together and is the highest goal of language to be an effectivecommunicator.

“Consider the statement, ‘Wow, it’s really cold in here!’ This comment correctly brings together vocabulary and grammar, but what is its purpose? Is it to get the listener to do something about the temperature? Is it just an observation? To the language impaired student, the intent can easily be unclear.”

Students with a language-based learning disability typically misuse pronouns (‘them’ vs ‘he’), verb tenses (‘drawed’ vs ‘drew’), and prepositions (‘to’ vs ‘on’) Their sentence structures are awkward and their word-finding difficulties are pervasive They overuse ‘do,’ ‘make,’ ‘go,’ and ‘thing ’

The neural network for higher-level vocabulary characterized by categorization, associations between synonyms, homonyms and antonyms, meaning changes to roots words with the substitution of prefixes or suffixes, and more, does not develop.

The absence of an expansive vocabulary and grammatical sentence structure caps a student’s ability to express himself

Rather than describing someone as ‘kind’ or ‘fair’ depending on the situation, everyone is ‘nice’ or ‘very nice’ regardless of context. Similarly, a child may say that their parent always gets 'mad' at them, relying on this one word to represent a fuller range of emotions (disappointed, sad, frustrated, irritated) because their vocabulary hasn’t developed as fully as it might

Communicating wants and needs is hard for a student with a languagebased learning disability, just as it is difficult to correctly perceive what others are doing or saying, because the student’s ability to make sense of their experience is compromised. The result is frustration and miscommunication. Often the student feels defeated This lack of language can also cause a student to plateau in their emotional development

In the classroom, this lack of higher order vocabulary does not just manifest in expressive language, but also in how they think about words and concepts. In the brain of a typically developing child, for example, ‘fire truck’ is linked to ‘red’; ‘red’ is also linked to ‘heart,’ ‘passion,’ and ‘danger.’ At higher levels of reading comprehension, a student doesn’t need to be told explicitly why Nathaniel Hawthorne chose to use a scarlet letter, as opposed to a blue one The student is able to move from a literal understanding of text to an understanding of similes, the interpretation of symbols, or the identification of themes

When there are gaps in the development of this complex language network, the ability to progress to reading levels that require inferencing is impaired Since language is so central to the learning process, how then can schools accommodate the needs of language-impaired students?

At The Gateway School, the core of the curriculum is instruction in language and literacy “Facility in the use of language whether thinking, listening, speaking, reading, studying, or writing is prioritized across the grades. These are the foundations of the cognitive linguistic approach utilized in class instruction. Cognitive linguistic instruction entails instruction in how to use language for thinking and learning,” says Ms Ironside

In a language-rich environment, Lower School students acquire fundamental academic and organizational skills, along with the interpersonal skills essential for success in school and in life During the elementary school years, the emphasis in on how to learn and the acquisition of language and literacy skills is paramount. Through their successes in the classroom and as they participate in school life, students develop the self-confidence that inspires them to assume responsibility for their own learning. As awareness of their unique learning needs emerges, Lower School students develop the early skills of self-advocacy and are ready to meet the challenges of Middle School With readiness for college preparatory high school as their goal, Middle School students continue to focus on language and literacy, as well as applying academic and organizational skills and strategies. This progression enables them to apply the skills and strategies necessary to tackle more complex academic material, learn the value of good study habits, develop sound social values in the face of complicated social experiences, and realize the benefits of contributing to a community Students reflect regularly on how they learn and become more self-aware As real accomplishments begin to define Middle School students, their selfconfidence grows, and they display greater curiosity and motivation to learn. On the path to becoming strong self-advocates, Middle School students learn how to ask for the specific supports or accommodations that allow them to do their best work

“The foundation of language and literacy upon which our mission was built has never faltered,” explains Sharyn Lico, Gateway’s Director of Academic Support “A commitment to this approach, consistency in its delivery, and acknowledgement of the importance language plays in all learning has made the school particularly adept at serving the needs of language-impaired students.”

In a language-rich environment, students acquire fundamental academic and organizational skills along with the interpersonal skills essential for success in school and in life.