Reading Readiness: How to Develop Speech Comprehension In Your Pre-Reader

This article is the last part of a three-part series. We also have an article about the reading brain which is helpful in understanding what this article is about - the pre-reading brain. We would recommend that you also read these articles, if you haven’t already, so you have a deep understanding of your child’s pre-reading brain and how to apply what you learn today.

• How Does the Brain Learn to Read: The Reading Brain 101

• How to Develop Your Child’s Pre-Reading Brain: Building the Letterbox

• How to Develop Your Child’s Pre-Reading Brain: Building the Sound System

But if you don’t have time and want to jump right in here, fear not! This article will break down all the concepts you need to know in order to develop your child’s pre-reading brain!

Technically today’s focus is not on one area of the brain but on a process within the brain that connects several areas. This process is called the “meaning system.” The previous articles in this series addressed the brain’s letterbox and the sound system. All of these three work together in the process of fluent reading.

What is the Meaning System?

The meaning system comprises several areas of the frontal lobe that work together to help us understand spoken language. The temporal lobe houses the definitions and context for every word we know (Moats & Tolman, 2019, p. 27-28). So if a word has more than one meaning, like the word “bat,” our brain stores all of those definitions and helps us pull out the one we need based on the context we are in. This bank of definitions develops early on as a child learns to understand languages. It is often referred to as our “mental lexicon” or our mental dictionary that houses everything we know about a word; its meaning, or multiple meanings, part of speech, where it typically goes in a sentence, etc.

The temporal lobe relies on the planum temporale (which houses speech sound storage and processing) and the frontal lobe (which helps us pronounce words) to identify the words it needs to define. If you read the previous article in this series, you may recognize that the planum temporale (storing and processing individual speech sounds) and the frontal lobe (pronouncing whole words) make up the sound system, the focus of that article. To break it down simply, the meaning system requires both sound knowledge and word meaning knowledge in order to support our comprehension of language.

How to Know if Your Child Struggles with Language Comprehension

Language comprehension is our ability to understand, think about and respond to language that is either spoken or read. Within the umbrella of language comprehension there is speech comprehension (understanding spoken language) and reading comprehension (understanding written language). Since this article is focusing on pre-reading skills, we will just talk about speech comprehension, but if your child struggles with speech comprehension they will inevitably struggle with reading comprehension as well if their speech comprehension issues go unaddressed. (Note: You may hear experts or teachers use the terms “speech comprehension” and “language comprehension” interchangeably, so don’t get too hung up on the specifics!)

If your child is already in elementary school, the first step in knowing if you should focus on developing their meaning system is to figure out if speech comprehension is one of the issues keeping your child from being a successful reader. Remember to always consider if the reason they are struggling is that they have lacked quality instruction in the classroom or that they haven’t had enough time, rather than immediately assuming they have a learning disability. For more on how to determine if the issue is poor instruction or an actual learning disability read this article.

If you child has been through pre-school or kindergarten, here are some signs that they may struggle with speech comprehension:

1. As an infant and toddler, your child had delayed language milestones such as cooing, babbling, first words or forming sentences later than average.

2. Your child has difficulty and frustration in expressing their needs or communicating.

3. Despite being a relatively compliant child, they struggle with following 2 or 3-step directions.

4. Your child struggles to understand questions or responds in ways that don’t make sense.

5. Your child has difficulty understanding the meanings of words or uses a markedly smaller vocabulary than their peers. (Check with a pediatrician for more specific vocabulary standards based on age since it varies so widely from 2-6 years old.)

6. Your child has difficulty understanding which events happen at the beginning, middle or end of a story.

If your child is not in school yet, you do not need to be as concerned about the signs above. They may not be developmentally ready to meet these standards yet (consult your pediatrician to confirm), but you can do these activities preemptively to ensure they have a strong meaning system before they are expected to read words. It is never too early to start these types of pre-reading activities!

Pre-Reading Activities to Develop the Meaning System

The following activities have less of an obvious progression as the previous articles’ activity lists, but the listed skills and activities within each skill do generally progress according to the typical development of a child. Recommended ages for practicing and assessing each skill are included in the descriptions. You can jump between skills and activities or work on more than one at once, just remember to give one activity plenty of time in order for that area of their brain to strengthen. If an activity seems difficult, you can adapt it to make it doable for your child. Most of these activities can be easily incorporated into your daily life as you run errands, make dinner, or play with your child!

Click on the graphic at the bottom to grab the full pre-reading activities guide complete with visuals and rubrics to track your child’s progress!

Multi-sensory vocabulary practice

Building up your child’s bank of word definitions (their vocabulary) is essential for them to understand what others are saying. For children who struggle with speech comprehension, incorporating their other senses can help solidify meanings of words! The recommended age for practicing and assessing this skill is 2-6 years old.

1. Create a list of basic nouns (people, places or things) that your child should be familiar with but doesn’t yet fully understand- like “grocery store”. Think of creative ways to engage their senses (see, touch, hear, smell, taste) as you expose them to the word. The goal is to develop a deep understanding of all the things associated with the words for a rich mental lexicon. For example, if you want to teach your child the word “grocery store” don’t just tell them about it being the place we buy food. It’s also a place we drive to, there are carts we push around, the food has texture and smell, we put food on the conveyor belt for the cashier to “beep!”, the food goes in bags that make wrinkly noises, etc. If you have the chance to actually go to the grocery store, smell and touch the produce and say, “The fruit at this grocery store is so bright and smooth.” Listen to the beep in the check-out line and say, “We have to beep the food at the grocery store before we leave.” Say the word repeatedly throughout the process as you emphasize these related concepts. You don’t have to physically go to a place to learn about a new word. You can look at pictures, draw pictures, sing songs or act things out related to the word all while engaging the senses. You get the idea! Choose one word to focus on for 2-3 days or until your child shows a deeper understanding of the word.

2. Follow a similar process with verbs. Make a list of verbs (action words) that your child should be familiar with but doesn’t yet fully understand. The easiest way to engage the senses when teaching verbs is to actually do the verb (like “hop”) with your child, but you can also have them color pictures of people hopping, sort pictures of people hopping and not hopping, talk about how your legs might feel if you hop too much! Choose one word to focus on for 2-3 days or until your child shows a deeper understanding of the word.

3. Follow the same process with adjectives (words that describe what things are like).

Storytelling & playing pretend

Acting out a story and playing pretend helps children to understand plot lines of stories and cause-and-effect relationships. While it may not be our favorite thing to do as adults, playing pretend with our children helps them solidify vocabulary words and conceptualize in their imagination what we are saying to them. Use pretend play to act out scenes from their everyday life, from tv shows they have seen, or from books you have read together.

1. Life-size pretend play is acting out scenes using your own body and props that are scaled to size. Provide props for them to use like dress up clothes, toys that can be used for multiple purposes (like blocks or balls), or kitchen supplies. You don’t need to buy anything new to do this- just find items around your house that you don’t mind letting your child use. Then model pretend scenarios for your child, such as using pots and pans to cook in a play kitchen or loading up to go to the store. (In our house we like to use the stairs as the car and put stuffed animals in the “carseats” and the “stroller” in the “trunk.”) If pretend play does not come naturally to your child, you may need to do a lot of modeling at first, but give your child a role and keep them engaged. Eventually you can ask them what they think should happen next and over time let them take the lead. As they get older, you can create problem scenarios for them to figure out with either logical solutions or imaginative ones!

2. Small-scale pretend play is acting out scenes using dolls or figurines and props scaled to that size. One major benefit small-scale pretend play offers is that you can pretend to be multiple characters and use different voices, which can enhance the scene. Just like in life-size pretend play, model scenes that your child will be familiar with and give them a role to keep them engaged. Over time, let them lead the way more and more and present problem situations for them to solve.

Play language games

Language games are games that require children to pay close attention to the words spoken to them in order to perform the game correctly. Many of these we also grew up playing as kids and didn’t even realize we were strengthening our temporal lobes!

1. Memory. Remember this game? You have two sets of cards with matching pictures. Lay all the cards out and let your child get a good look at all of them, then flip them over to see if they can pick out the matches. Print pictures you want your child to learn and cut them into cards. I won’t recommend laying out more than 8 cards at a time (that would be only 4 different pictures) so that your child can focus on learning just a few new words.

2. I-spy. This is a great game that encourages the use and understanding of lots of adjectives! Try using words beyond just the color so that your child draws their attention to other aspects of an object. For example, say, “I spy something soft,” or “I spy something that has circles.”

3. Simon Says. This game builds a child’s ability to listen carefully and follow directions. Make sure to throw in several things that, “Simon didn’t say,” in order to keep them on their toes and listening closely. Eventually you can do two step directions like, “Simon says to touch your head and then spin in a circle.” It may also be an additional challenge to say what “Simon says” but not act it out for them. This will require them to really listen and remember what was said.

4. Scavenger hunts. These are a great way to keep your child’s working memory active around language. Send them on a hunt around the house for an object that you describe rather than saying it by name. For example, “Go find something shiny,” or “Go find something green and soft in the kitchen,” challenges them to think a bit more deeply about what they should get. Play around with being very specific and very vague. Keep the searched-for objects close by or in the same room at first and slowly send them on larger searches around the house or outside.

Dialogic read-alouds

Dialogic reading is a specific way of reading aloud to your child that focuses on engaging them in conversation throughout the book. This can be done with any book that they would find interesting and can have a basic understanding of. There are two acronyms to remember when using dialogic reading with your child.

PEER: While reading with your child, stop every 2 or 3 pages to dialogue, following the process from the acronym P.E.E.R.

P - Prompt the child to say something about the book. (see the CROWD acronym below for a list of prompts)

E - Evaluate what the child has said. (i.e. “I agree! I think that’s true!”)

E - Expand their response by adding more information or asking a follow up question. (i.e. “I also think… Do you agree or disagree…?”)

R - Repeat what you discussed to reinforce the learning.

CROWD: In order to do the first step in PEER well and create good prompts for your child to respond, use the acronym C.R.O.W.D.

C - Complete the phrase or sentence (great for rhyming books!)

R - Recall something that has happened in the story (i.e. “What happened when…?”)

O - Open-ended questions that require a child to describe something from the story in their own words (i.e. “What do you think about…?”)

W - Who, what, when, where or why questions (i.e. “Where is the story happening right now?”)

D - Distance questions that require a child to connect something from the story to something in their own life (i.e. “How does this remind you of…?”)

Conclusion

Don’t forget – all brains are malleable and are capable of being changed. If you are patient and diligent with activities like these, your child will not struggle with speech comprehension and reading their whole lives. Do these activities early and often to help create foundational change at the brain level. To learn more about how to change your child’s brain and better equip it for reading, check out the rest of the articles in this series, consider purchasing our course “A Parent’s Advantage for Struggling Readers,” or book an affordable consultation for some tailored next steps!

Here’s to setting your pre-reader up for success!