Oral language development and access to school discourses.

Rivalland, Judith

Introduction

In Australia, over the last decade, there has been an unprecedented political focus on literacy attainment levels. In 1998 the Commonwealth released the National Plan that focussed on the need for states to plan for system wide early assessment and early intervention. As well the plan introduced the requirement to develop minimal standards, against which all children would be assessed and the outcomes reported to the Commonwealth. In 1998, the Ministerial Council on Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs (MCEETYA) resolved that all states would conduct full census testing in Years 3, 5 and 7 and that these would be reported to the Commonwealth against national benchmarks. Similar pressures were impacting on the work of teachers in the United States as evidenced in The National Reading Panel Review Teaching Children To Read (2000).

In the 1980s and 1990s there was a growing body of research demonstrating that literacy was a social practice (Heath, 1983; Heath and Mangiola, 1991; Ogbu, 1987; Luke, 1993; Luke and Freebody, 1995). From this perspective, literacy development was seen to be shaped by the social practices of the cultural context in which learning takes place (Freebody, Ludwig, and Gunn, 1995, Luke 2000). This research suggested that:

 The socialisation processes in which children are engaged have a
 strong influence on the ways in which they participate in the
 pedagogical routines of school classrooms (Baker, 1991; Comber,
 1993; Dyson 1993, 1997); and The social, cultural and linguistic
 backgrounds of children influence success in school literacy
 learning (Luke, 1997 ; Freebody, 1992, Purcell-Gates, 1989).

Since 1998 the Commonwealth, in order to support improved literacy outcomes, has funded a number of research projects that focussed on developing our understanding of children's literacy development and how to support children with literacy difficulties. These studies, reported in 100 Children Go to School (Hill et al., 1998), Mapping the Territory (Louden et al., 2000) and 100 Children turn 10 (Hill et al., 2002) provided important insights into the ways in which children in Australia were accessing literacy. Through the use of case study methodology, it was possible to make close observations of how individual children engage in the literacy activities of the classroom. This research made explicit the important relationship between the oral language and routines that children brought to school with them and how they were able to take up what was on offer in the school context.

Although oral language has been seen to be an important underpinning for school literacy (Snow, Burns & Griffin, 1998), few major studies of literacy development have included a focus on the oral language uses of children, despite the growing body of knowledge that demonstrates the important interplay between oral language use and the ways in which children access school literacies.

This article explores some of the issues that arose from the first round of data collected as part of a longitudinal study that questioned issues related to development (Australian Research Council-funded project Questioning Development in Literacy). The study examined how oral language development was used as children moved from pre-primary to Year 1, the types of oral language interactions in which different children engaged and how this development was related to what children learn as they move into become literate. The objectives of the study were:

* To analyse how the oral language of three case study children developed as they made the transition from pre-primary to Year 1;

* To document the oral language interactions in which the three case study children engaged as they participated in pre-primary classrooms; and

* To analyse how these oral language interactions changed over time as the children progress from Pre-primary to Year 1.

A school context that provided considerable diversity was deliberately chosen for the study so that we would have the opportunity to study children whose repertoire of oral language uses would be likely to differ widely. The study was set in an urban school within the metropolitan area of Perth in Western Australia. The school, of around 400 students, serves a multicultural community, including a group of Indigenous students who speak English as a second dialect. This dialect differs from Standard English through systematic phonological, syntactic and semantic differences. The school community is diverse. Parents work in low-income employment or receive financial assistance from government agencies in the form of unemployment benefits or supporting parent benefits. Many of the families own their own modest homes; some families rent and other families live in low cost rental properties provided by the government.

Data was collected that would facilitate the examination of the types of oral language interactions in which different children engaged and would show how three focus children's oral language developed over time as they moved from pre-primary to Year 1. Qualitative case study methodology and some quantitative measures were used. The focus children were selected to provide a range of children whose home experiences and linguistic backgrounds varied from one another. These children and their parents agreed to allow a researcher to record their talk while they were in their pre-primary classrooms. The focus children were provided with a lapel microphone that allowed the recording of their language as they interacted with other children and during whole class discussions. The researcher kept case notes to provide contextual detail about the oral language interactions and conducted interviews with the parents and the teacher of these children which provided some insights into the children's different paths of development and how these pathways were shaped by the discourses of the home and the preprimary classroom.

The qualitative data included tape recordings of children's oral language within the pre-primary classroom context. Oral language development was analysed through the tape-recorded data using the Time for Talk assessment (Education Department of Western Australia, 1998). This assessment tool allows for assessment of oral language using the indicators of progress on the First Steps Oral Language Continuum and also includes an oral comprehension and narrative production task. Quantitative data was collected using the Albany District Oral Language Focus (ADOLF) metalinguistic assessment used to assess the children's phonological, syntactic, semantic and print awareness (Albany Education District, 1997). This useful assessment tool was developed in Western Australia and has been widely used in schools in the State.

This article will focus on two of the case study children, Ashley and Milo, in order to examine how oral language development can shape the ways in which children operate differently within school discourses. These children were selected because their home literacy practices and oral language development differed markedly when they entered preprimary. Ashley was a vivacious self-confident child who used language most effectively for the purposes of maintaining interpersonal relationships and who had learnt some of the routines of school literacy through regular attendance at church. During her pre-primary year, despite developing her phonological skills and print awareness, she did not show a great deal of interest in using language for a wide range of purposes and was far less confident when she had to use language for learning, such as for explaining and reasoning.

Milo on the other hand, had some speech difficulties in his early years and when he entered pre-primary he found it difficult to communicate with others. As the year progressed, with a great deal of support from the teacher, his speech improved and he showed that he had the potential to develop effective language for learning if he was able to develop his phonological awareness and print knowledge. The accounts of these two children's oral language development gives us an insight into the importance of teachers being aware of how to assess the quality of oral language children bring to school with them and how to employ strategies to help children develop a wide repertoire of oral language uses that will enable them to engage with language for learning within a classroom setting.

Ashley

Ashley was five years and two months when the study commenced and she had an eight year-old brother and a ten-year old sister. She lived with her parents, who had moved from the school area to a new home but decided to keep the children at their present school because they were happy there and they had first cousins attending the school. Ashley's maternal grandmother lived near the school and provided 'backup' for taking care of the children.

Teresa, Ashley's mother, is of Aboriginal descent. She grew up in the northern suburbs of Perth and had attended the high school around the corner from her children's school. Ashley's father was from the West Indies. Her parents met when her father was serving in the United States Navy and Teresa said, 'He's the best thing that ever happened to me'. They were both active members of a church and attended meetings twice weekly.

Ashley's father worked shifts and was able to drop and pick up the children from school sometimes. He escorted Ashley into class in the mornings. Teresa worked in the Juvenile Custodial Services, with young teenage offenders many of whom were from rural areas. She was concerned about her own children because she was aware of all the problems that other indigenous families experienced. She felt that she may be over-protective and commented that 'I kept my children at the school to protect them.' Teresa was adamant that a good education would help the children later in life. She was concerned about the future for them. '... you want them to be independent and be able to stand on their own two feet'.

Ashley lived in a protective environment where she was taken care of carefully by all members of the family including her brother and sister. Her home literacy practices had been strongly influenced by the religious practices of the family. In pre-primary she was accustomed to taking her library book with her when the family went to Jehovah Witness meetings twice a week. She soon became practised at sitting down and listening to the bible readings or reading her library book. Her mother also commented on how she often copied her own writing practices by using a note pad and copying words from the food bottles on the table and in the kitchen. Ashley's home literacy routines that had been shaped by the family religious practices enabled her to learn the participative routines of school before she began formal schooling.

Teresa described Ashley's home play as inventive, imaginative and accompanied by talk. She explained that she often heard different voices coming from her room as she chattered away to herself and that she loved to sing and dance. Ashley's relationship with her mother was reflected in her play at preschool. She spent a lot of time in the play kitchen and her talk there indicated that Ashley's oral language practices appeared to be strongly mediated by her understanding of family gender roles.

In this example we see how Ashley showed her knowledge of food preparation and kitchen routines as she acted out the role of mother in the play kitchen. She asked the children to eat all of their vegetables and encouraged the children to eat all their breakfast and dinner by offering them 'two lollies' as a reward. She set up a caring relationship with the children by providing positive re-enforcement in the form of 'good boy' and also carefully managed the children's behaviours with a very firm 'go and play outside please.' As the play moved on, another child, Annie, tried to get attention by pretending that she was sick. At this point Ashley again showed her mothering expertise by providing sympathy and an imaginary something to relieve the pain. In this situation Ashley was confident in using language for controlling the topic and maintaining her relationship with the other children in the group.

Ashley Just what I needed. I'm going to get some vegetables ... There's your vegetables. Eat them all up. And if you chuck them out well then you're a good boy () ... Good Boy! Are you going to eat yours up? Thank you. I'm going to give you two lolly. If you two eat your your breakfast up and dinner well then you're getting two lollies. Here you go Annie. (Serves play food) Good tucker tucker. Good girl. Good girl ... Now I'm going to have my (). Let's go and play outside. Go and play outside please (command to Paul).

Annie It hurts. I'm sick

Ashley Are you ...? Do you want to go into your bed?

Annie I want a drink.

Ashley Okay. I'll give you a drink of apple juice. Do you like apple juice? Okay. That's what I was thinking about you. (moves off to get it) Do you want a big cup or a glass cup?

Annie A big cup.

Ashley Okay.

Annie And you're still the mummy in this. Still Mum.

Ashley (under breath) Yes yes ... I'm putting apple juice in because ... your little girl is very sick.

The following transcript recorded after lunch and a sleep in preprimary was collected while Ashley was at a table drawing with other children. Here we see a child who was very confident in social discussion with her peers. She demonstrated that she was easily able to control the topic as she explained to the group that she would go in a rocket when she was ten. However, when the teacher asked her to explain why and where she would go in the rocket she had difficulty providing the explanation and knowledge the teacher was seeking, so she quickly changed the subject to tell the group her father had gone in a rocket. In this way she introduced information unknown to the others and was able to maintain control of the discussion. Once again, when the teacher sought elaboration of her statement she was unable to provide sufficient information to clarify the incident. Ashley found it difficult to provide appropriate information as the teacher attempted to scaffold the discussion further, so she once more changed the topic to introduce a gorilla and thus ensured that she recaptured the attention of the group.

Ashley Mine's not going to be a coloured rocket because it's a bit coloured rocket ... just imagine that I think that I might go on a rocket/a big one/a real big one.

Mrs M And why are you going to go on a rocket?

Ashley If only I be good and I I'm and I'm a big I'm a big ten.

Mrs M When you're ten?

Ashley Yeh.

Mrs M Oh.

Ashley Cause when you're ten ...

Mrs M Where are you going to go in your rocket?

Ashley What?

Ashley I know where my father went took along time ago my father toured a rocket and me but I don't remember being there.

Mrs M You went to a rocket?

Ashley Yep/a long time ago/when I was..

Mrs M Was it in an aeroplane/did you go in an aeroplane or did?

Ashley In an aeroplane/we drove.

Mrs M You drove was it in Australia ... or was it in another country?

Ashley In another country.

Mrs M Do you know where that was?

Ashley An airport.

Mrs M In an airport?

Ashley There was a large () in a car park and we went in a car and we saw a gorilla.

Linda You saw a gorilla?

Louise No way.

Mrs M Where did you see the gorilla?

This exchange suggests that Ashley had not yet learned how to display her factual knowledge to the teacher. She had learned many of the routines of school literacy such as selecting books from the book comer, turning each page of the book from beginning to end pointing to the pictures in the book as she went and 'reading' the story in a soft singsong voice. Nevertheless, when she was questioned and scaffolded by the teacher she did not extend the question/answer/evaluation routine introduced by the teacher beyond a one-word response. Ashley appeared to be far less confident when interacting with the teacher to carry out pedagogic work than she was when she socialised with her friends in order to maintain her relationships and social status with them.

Ashley's strong focus on using language for the maintenance and control of her friends was evident when the children were playing in the dress-up corner. In this excerpt Ashley introduced some of her literary knowledge about a familiar fairy story as well, again, as her knowledge of family gender roles as she played out the role of mother. Most of the discussion related to Ashley maintaining command of the play by controlling the topic and telling others what they should do. She told Jeremy, 'to go and see his mates right now,' and attempted to persuade Louise to give her the doll she wanted, 'you can get one from over there.' When she realised that she would not be successful with this strategy she then cleverly changed the topic by encouraging Louise to get dressed for the ball but at the same time ensured that she would be able to take on the main character of Cinderella and 'have the beautiful beautiful dress'.

Ashley Okay ... you can make your bed darling. Okay ... Umm just need to.. some (musingly) ... Just pretend we're going to the ball?

Jeremy Are you pretend its bedtime?

Ashley No we're going to the ball.. the ball means that we're going we're going out a dance some.. we're going to dance

Jeremy I'd go and see my mates then have to go out

Ashley Go and see your mates/Right now (commands) ... What are you going to wear? (to Annie getting dressed up) We're ... going to

Jeremy Everyone's finished now (cleaning up the kitchen area)

Ashley No. You gotta get/keep waiting ... until we're ready (interrupted by Louise who wants Ashley's baby that is asleep in the cot)

Louise That's my baby

Ashley You can get one from over there

Louise No that's my baby ... That was my baby

Ashley No this this one was in the bed

Louise Well I had her ... you wanted the other one

Ashley Is that one a hard baby ... oh ... Your baby's already dressedded up because we're going to the/you're going to the ball too

Louise No I'm not

Ashley So you're ... okay well then you're not getting dressedded up to go the ball (to Annie)

Annie (quietly) Yes

Ashley Oh well then get your () already organised ... Why isn't your baby organised?

Annie She will be

Ashley Okay ... Okay now ... hehheh ... I'm taking this (indicates basket with baby)

Annie But I am

Ashley I'm taking the other one then ... I'm taking the oth ... I want to take it this ... I want to get this ... I want to take this ... to get this baby out and take herrr ... (dressing baby) ... Come on let's get it all organised ... for the ball so we can go to the ball ... and see who's going to get married ... Now it's a woman ... I think it's going to be Cinderella ...

Annie I'm () ... Who are you

Ashley Well my name is Cinderella

Annie My name's Cinderella cause I've got the real beautiful dress

Ashley Well I'm going to have the beautiful beautiful dress

Ashley particularly enjoyed managing and organising her friends and engaging in similar discourse practices to those that are found in her home and community life. There is little doubt that this oral language repertoire would serve her well in the family and community in which she lives. She had already formed routines for caring for a family and organising a household that would be very useful in managing and maintaining strong family links. She also demonstrated the capacity to sustain strong interpersonal relationships that would stand her in good stead as she grew up within this close-knit community.

It would be easy for a busy or inexperienced teacher, who did not have time to carefully observe individual children's oral language both during their small group interactions as well as when they are participating in pedagogic routines with the teacher, to believe that Ashley had highly developed oral language skills that would serve her well in learning school literacies. However, careful examination of her oral language development within pedagogic contexts suggests that her strong interpersonal uses of oral language might not necessary serve her as successfully when participating in school learning, unless she was able to make the transition to more effective use of language for learning.

This particular school had a well-developed program for monitoring children's oral language development. All of the children were screened by a speech pathologist when they began pre-primary. The teachers collaborated with the speech pathologists and also received professional development to help them provide the children with a rich oral language environment that would meet the needs of the particular children who attend the school. Ashley's teacher explained:

 She comes across as a very confident capable person but when you
 start testing, some of her skills and understandings are lacking.
 She's very vocal. She does beautiful drawings. Her fine motor skills
 are gorgeous but when you start asking her confusing type questions
 about stories and there is not more than one (answer)? If you asked
 her a different type of question she'll be confused. She won't be
 sure about the answer. She likes to be right.

The class teacher was concerned about Ashley's ability to provide extended answers to questions or to answer questions that required her to use more complex functions of language such as predicting, logical reasoning or hypothesising. She was also worried about Ashley's fear of taking risks or providing incorrect responses to questions. While Ashley at one level understood a great deal about how to participate in school language and literacy routines, it appeared that her social concerns might lead her to be somewhat diffident about making mistakes or attempting to use language in ways with which she was unfamiliar.

Assessment

In order that we might provide another perspective on the oral language of the focus children, two informal assessment procedures were used that have been developed in Western Australia. Time for Talk assessment procedures have been organised to assess language areas shown in the First Steps Oral Language Continuum (EDWA, 1994) and make use of two oral sampling activities; an oral comprehension and narrative production task.

Ashley was recorded on the Oral Comprehension Task during third term of the pre-primary year. The children were shown a series of four pictures that they discussed with the teacher. This discussion prepared them for a narrative production task where they were asked to tell a story about the pictures using the pictures to help them. Although assessment was conducted as a normal classroom activity, Ashley was very quiet and reserved, appeared anxious in this context and was reluctant to respond. Her comprehension when profiled according to the level of responses was at the literal level: 'The dog got into the water and getted it out so the little boy could have his kite. And when the dog got it the little boy was happy and all the family was happy.' This assessment to some extent confirmed the teacher's views about Ashley's oral language usage. It also reflected the oral language used by Ashley when she was asked to participate in verbal displays by the teacher and contrasted with her confidence and proficiency when participating in interpersonal language use with her friends.

Ashley was also assessed using the (ADOLF) assessments in term two and again in term four of the pre-primary year. This resource assesses metalinguistic awareness and looks in particular at rhyming, phonological awareness, word segmentation, print awareness, semantic awareness and sentence segmentation. The children responded to a number of tasks on which they are scored at three levels--Unable to complete the task (1), Emergent (2) and Known (3). The graph above shows Ashley's results.

An interesting mix of results showed that Ashley was already proficient with rhyming, word segmentation and sentence segmentation in the second term of her pre-primary year when she was five years and two months old. She developed significantly in phonological awareness and print awareness during the pre-primary year but interestingly her semantic awareness (knowledge about the world and word meanings) had not developed during this year. It appeared that Ashley would be likely to have some of the resources: phonological awareness, print and word awareness, that would support her move into school literacy. However, it might be that Ashley's oral language repertoire would need to be expanded to develop control of the language uses found in school discourses, such as those of reasoning and explanation, if she was to be able to fully engage with the meaning making involved in reading and writing complex texts.

Milo

Milo was five years and six months old and in the same pre-primary class as Ashley. He lived alone with his mother Linda in a low rental unit provided by the government that was located 200 metres from the school. He had never known his father who disappeared after his mother obtained a restraining order to prevent any further domestic violence. Linda's extended family did not live nearby and thus she had few support systems.

Linda had no private transport because her car had been found to be un-roadworthy by the police and she could not afford to have it repaired. This limited her activities, although the shopping centre was within walking distance. Milo had one friend who lived around the corner and he occasionally played with other children in the unit complex where they lived. He had a dog that he had taught a number of tricks but he tended to play on his own in his room with Nintendo or other toys. Milo also spent a lot of time talking to his mother and watching TV. Linda often read up to four books to him before he fell asleep at night because he resisted going to bed and it was not uncommon for him to be awake until ten or eleven o'clock in the evening. At pre-school the teacher noticed that he often slept throughout the afternoon and that he could be very difficult to wake.

Milo's baby album showed that he reached what are considered 'typical' milestones for physical development. Linda could not remember when he said his first word but she described how he babbled constantly as a young baby. As he grew older she said he did not stop chattering although she had a lot of difficulty in understanding much of what he said. Nevertheless she didn't really begin to worry about his speech until he began pre-primary where it was evident that his speech was difficult to understand when compared with most of the children in the class.

It appeared that because Milo was an only child, and he and his mother did not spend much time socialising with others, that his difficulties with expressive language had not been apparent to Linda. The interdependent relationship she had with Milo supported the communication patterns that were part of their everyday discourse patterns. It was evident that Milo arrived at pre-primary with very different patterns of talk from those of Ashley. He had difficulty in maintaining interpersonal communication or participating in 'group talk', although it seemed that his receptive language enabled him to understand what was being discussed in the classroom. His inability to be understood by others initially caused him much frustration.

The pre-primary teacher described how hard it had been to understand Milo when he first went to pre-primary.

 Milo was very difficult to understand (his language), but he
 used hand signals and other things to try and make himself
 understood. He used to get very frustrated and throw himself
 on the floor and cry. It took us a while to get him out of
 that one. We would have to really calm him down before he
 would talk to us. He used this tactic quite a lot rather than
 trying to use language to solve the problem. Once he realised
 that we would take a bit of time to try and find out what he
 was doing, and the rules, and some of the other children were
 able to understand what he was saying it made it a bit easier
 for him.

The pre-primary teacher had suggested speech therapy in the first week of pre-primary. However, therapy sessions had been restricted due to cancellations of appointments by the therapist and Milo's transport difficulties. The therapist had supplied sheets of words and pictures for Milo to practise, but he was reluctant to do so even when a reward system was offered. The pre-primary teacher assisted with this whenever she could.

The following transcript recorded during fruit time shows how the pre-primary teacher provided time for Milo to reformulate his speech so that others could understand him. This was a painstaking task for the teacher but as she carefully scaffolded his discussion she succeeded in helping him formulate a sentence that could be understood by the whole class, 'No/I eat my lunch at Kalinda's/help with fruit.' Although 'I' was omitted in this phrase the children could understand what he had said.

Milo Ooh

Mrs M Oh Milo/what was that noise?

Milo I ate your cape um help me with toot.

Mrs M Who?

Milo No um.

Mrs M The zoo?

Milo Noo I ate the tooth to Kalinya Kalinda.

Mrs M You've eaten something at Kalinda's?

Milo No/I eat my lunch at Kalinda's/help with fruit.

The teacher explained that Milo did get on quite well with the other children. He used gestures and actions to support his oral language so that he would be understood. Being an only child he had not learnt to share before going to pre-primary and he had now started to share with the other children. At first he tended to play in parallel rather than interacting with the others. Sometimes he played with one other child but he did not participate in 'group play'--especially in the playground. It took him until about half way through second term to contribute to a whole class discussion.

With the support of the teacher, Milo's expressive oral language gradually improved during his pre-primary year. The teachers gave him the space and time to allow him to formulate his speech so that others could understand him, and they also modelled and scaffolded his oral language interactions whenever they could. Below, we see an example of the teacher as she supported an oral language discussion while the children were playing. By third term, Milo began to play with other children and was able to be understood much more effectively even though there was no extended language evident at this point and Milo was still struggling with linguistic structures. Although he correctly formulated, 'Hey Mrs M, look at our farm', he was unable to select the appropriate pronoun for 'them animals' and he had not used the auxiliary verb accurately to describe that the animals 'are sleeping'.

Milo Hey Mrs M/look at our farm.

Mrs M What is that ?/is it a farm?

Bob It's a fire truck.

Mrs M Is it a farm on wheels?

Milo Yes.

Mrs M Is it a farm on wheels ... so are you going to transport those animals?

Con Yes.

Milo And them animals sleeping.

Mrs M Do they lay down when they're sleeping do they?/they don't stand up with they're eyes closed.

When the teacher facilitated a different play scenario transcribed below, Milo again used the demonstrative conjunction incorrectly as he said 'this animals fight' and he had difficulty with the negative form 'but not lambs fight'. However, with careful scaffolding and engagement in the task he correctly stated 'yes, yes that's a fox', making use of the demonstrative pronoun effectively. As the talk continued he made a well-formulated statement in which he predicted what might happen if 'the lamb came down'.

Mrs M Oh I haven't got a hospital here/so if you're crashing into something we're going to end up with injured people aren't we/and we haven't got a hospital here ... these animals don't fight.

Con Some animals do some..

Milo This animals fight.

Mrs M Those animals fight/these animals don't fight.

Milo But not lambs fight.

Mrs M Oh ... do the pigs fight?

Mrs M Sometimes they do do they?

Milo Yes.

Mrs M What's this/is this a fox in the middle here?

Milo Yes, yes that's a fox.

Mrs M (to others) I think you had better watch those chickens ... you ate that one ... oh you have a cruel streak you do? Poor chicken/let it go back up here/its safer up there/the goats are looking after it, you don't want yours eaten / if your chickens get eaten where are you going to get the eggs from?

Milo You know what /if that lamb comes down that will eat that wool

Interestingly, although Milo was still having some difficulty in constructing his sentences accurately, he was using language for describing, reasoning and predicting. His social interactions were limited by his capacity to structure his language in such a way that his friends understood him although he was attempting to use language for a wide range of purposes. His language repertoire focused much more on understanding the world around him than on the maintenance of relationships and managing the social world in which he was immersed. Many of the language practices he demonstrated are those that children are called on to use in school tasks, particularly for in-depth explorations of written texts. Milo was willing to take risks and to respond to the support and help provided by the teacher. He was concerned to make sense of the world of school by attempting to understand the information that was on offer in the classroom. At the same time he was still struggling with the structures of English and this was most likely to impact on his capacity to read and write effectively.

The question is whether or not Milo's receptive language had been developed to the point that he would be able to develop the metalinguistic skills that underpin learning literacy and that would be important in allowing him to learn to decode the text in order to gain meaning from it. Classroom transcripts demonstrated that Milo had become sensitive to rhyming and that he was willing to experiment with language in order to practise these skills. Further information was gained from the formal assessments.

Assessment

The information gained from the qualitative data was confirmed by the Time for Talk assessments. Despite Milo's expressive language difficulties he was very keen and persisted in trying to help the teacher understand what he was saying. He used a lot of hand signals to enable the teacher to grasp his meaning. He was able to give appropriate explanations to many of the questions but in some cases he was also able to draw on more sophisticated world knowledge to interpret events. His responses incorporated more explanation and elaboration than information from the picture. When discussing one picture he said:

 Took kite from doggy. Drying the kite because it won't fly when
 its wet. When me had a kite and me dropped it in my pool and you
 know what happened it wouldn't fly.

In the ADOLF assessments shown below, it is evident that Milo was not as advanced in the areas of phonological awareness, word segmentation and sentence segmentation as was Ashley. However, his semantic awareness had increased considerably throughout the pre primary year. This data suggested that if Milo could develop the prerequisite phonological skills to learn effective decoding it would be likely that he could cope with the semantic demands of texts.

Milo's time in pre-primary appeared to have been a happy and profitable one. He learned to make friends, to communicate and share with others and to develop his expressive language in ways that allowed others to understand him. He also developed an interest in exploring and understanding the world of school. In the process he had learned to use language for the purposes of asking questions, describing, reasoning and predicting. However, it is possible that he might not be given the time he needs in order to communicate effectively in a Year I class where the pressures of learning to read and write increase the speed at which children need to work. Milo's move into Year 1 occurred at a delicate time. It was very difficult to anticipate how he might make that transition and whether or not his ability to engage with a wide range of language uses would be capitalised on.

Conclusion

This analysis has shown the ways of talking that Ashley and Milo engaged in during their pre-primary year. Ashley showed sophisticated social skills and was very adept at managing and organising her social world. She had well developed phonological and print awareness knowledge but her semantic awareness was not strong. Her oral language repertoire had many strengths but it also had limitations, as she rarely engaged in talk that took her beyond the discourses of home and community. At the time when she left pre-primary she did not appear to be interested in extending her talk into enquiry, reasoning and explanation even when the teacher attempted to scaffold such talk.

At first glance it appeared that Milo's oral language repertoire had great limitations. Certainly his readiness to take up school literacy was fragile. He was not as capable as Ashley at managing his social world and this could emerge as an issue for him as he grew older. Nor had he developed the phonological and print awareness shown by Ashley at the end of pre-primary. Nevertheless a closer look at the range of ways in which he used language demonstrated that his oral language use could provide a valuable platform for his literacy development if he could develop the metalinguistic skills that would enable him to decode texts and engage with the meanings of texts. His interest in explaining, reasoning, predicting and enquiring could be of benefit to him in developing school literacies. On the other hand, it might be that his difficulties with expressive language would cause him to become so frustrated that he would lose interest in school and learning literacy.

We do not know what how well these two children are likely to make the literacy journey to the end of their primary years. What this research does tell us is that children who live in the same community arrive at pre-primary with a very different range of language uses and differing language repertoires. These differences in oral language structures and uses impact on how and in what ways children are likely to take up school literacies. This analysis shows just how important it is to have teachers who are skilled at observing and recording children's oral language with insight and understanding; teachers who can build upon and transform the language these children bring from their homes and communities so that they can develop a language repertoire that will enable them to fully engage with school and subject specific discourses.

References

Baker, C. (1991). Literacy practices and social relations in classroom reading events. In C. Baker, A. Luke (Eds.). Towards a Critical Sociology of Reading Pedagogy. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

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Judith Rivalland

EDITH COWAN UNIVERSITY

Adolf Metalinguistic Assessment Pre-Primary

Ashley

 Pre-test Post-test

Rhyming 2 2
Phonological Awareness 1 3
Word Segmentation 2 2
Semantic Awareness 2 1
Print Awareness 2 3
Sentence Segmentation 3 3

Note: Table made from bar graph.

Adolf Multilinguistic Assessment Pre-Primary

Milo

 Pre-test Post-test

Rhyming 2 1
Phonological Awareness 1 1
Word Segmentation 1 1
Semantic Awareness 1 2
Print Awareness 2 2
Sentence Segmentation 1 1

Note: Table made from bar graph.