Before a child can make sense of a story or answer questions about what they’ve read, they first need strong skills in understanding the language itself. This connection can sometimes explain why a child who seems to read fluently may still struggle to grasp the meaning behind the words.
My name is Jessica Abawag, and I’m a speech-language pathologist and owner of Fluens Children’s Therapy. We have locations in Tacoma, Washington, and in Columbia, Tennessee. Today we’re going to talk about how reading comprehension starts with receptive language.
The Connection Between Reading Comprehension and Receptive Language Skills
Receptive language is the understanding of language, whereas expressive language is how you use or communicate with language. When it comes to reading, we get a lot of parents who are understandably concerned as their kids get older, how language skills can affect their reading if they’re already in speech therapy; or if kids are struggling with reading, how we as speech therapists might be able to support their children.
One thing that we talk about is that there’s a difference between struggling with reading because of not knowing how to read, as in, not understanding how the sounds go together to sound out different words and to put those together. That’s one aspect which we as speech therapists could help with. But today we’re going to talk about it from a comprehension standpoint.
Here, we’re talking about when a kid is having difficulty understanding what they’re reading, maybe they’re reading fluently just fine, but understanding specifically.
Signs Your Child May Struggle with Receptive Language
One thing we talk about with parents is how to know if your child may be struggling with receptive language. It could be very subtle, but here are some tips that we have:
Trouble with Following Directions
Maybe they follow directions just fine at home, but in a new setting such as a classroom or an afterschool club with a different person giving them a new direction, they might have challenges with that.
Parents might hear things from teachers such as, it takes their child a long time to follow directions. The rest of the class has already moved on, and they’re still trying to follow the first direction that the teacher gave. When it’s one-on-one at home, you can more easily support a child. But when it’s in a group setting, teachers don’t always have the time to individualize their instructions for every child.
If parents are hearing that type of feedback from teachers, that may be a sign that receptive language is a concern.
Struggling to Understand Figurative Language
Another area we tell parents to look out for is if kids are having a hard time understanding what we call figurative language. That includes things that aren’t very literal, like sarcasm, jokes, or maybe idioms (i.e. “It’s raining cats and dogs”). If they take that very literally, that may be a sign that receptive language is a concern and an area to work on.
As kids get older and stories get more complex and more literary terms are introduced, kids really need to be able to understand figurative language and how that appears in stories. We could work on that outside of stories and just talk about it in conversation. We could do activities so that kids, as they’re reading more complex stories and novels and books, can better understand where some of that figurative language comes from and what it means.
Difficulty Answering Questions Appropriately
Sometimes you’ll ask a kid a question like, “Where did you go for breakfast today?” And they might answer, “Pancakes.” Well, they picked up on breakfast and they answered appropriately, but they didn’t pick up on the question, which has a specific type of answer that we’re looking for, and so their response wasn’t appropriate to the question asked.
Part of what we want to focus on as speech therapists is helping kids understand and appropriately answer questions, as that’s a big part of reading comprehension as well as receptive language.
Reach Out to Fluens Children’s Therapy for An Assessment
Those are just a couple of areas that we can work on when it comes to receptive language as it’s tied into reading comprehension. And if that’s an area where your child seems to be struggling, don’t hesitate to reach out to us. We’ll do an evaluation to see what we can do to help support your child. We look forward to hearing from you soon.