The contribution of oral language skills to school improvement and outcomes for children and
young people
Headteachers are increasingly concerned about the numbers of pupils with limited language skills,
often linked to social deprivation. Numbers of children learning English as an Additional Language
also continue to rise and now stand at over one in seven of the school population.
The revised Early Years Foundation Stage curriculum gives a high priority to language and
communication as one of three prime areas of learning, and there is currently great interest in
schools and settings in how to implement the new curriculum. Government have noted, in their
vision for the Foundation Years, that they intend to ‘Drive improvements in the quality of free early
education, promoting a strong emphasis on speech, language and communication as central to good
provision’
We await the revised National Curriculum for 5- 19 year olds, but it is likely also to prioritise
speaking and listening. The new standards for teachers include a requirement that all teachers,
whatever subject they teach, must be able to promote ‘articulacy’ as well as literacy. Finally, Ofsted
have identified effective practice in speaking and listening as a key feature of outstanding schools in
a number of recent thematic national reports.
‘In the most effective schools visited, inspectors saw teachers thread rich opportunities for speaking
and listening into lessons. In turn, this led to improved standards in writing.’ (Ofsted Annual Report
2009/10)
‘A common feature of the most successful schools in the survey was the attention they gave to
developing speaking and listening.’ ( Removing Barriers to Literacy – Ofsted January 2011)
Similarly, recent research (Effective primary pedagogical strategies in English and Mathematics, DfE
Research Report 129) found that teachers in highly effective schools used dialogic teaching and
learning, involving collaborative talk and instructional conversations.
For all these reasons, language and communication is a ‘hot topic’ for all those who work in
education.
Schools which ‘turn the dial’ on language and communication are able to turn the dial on a number
of key school improvement priorities, from raising attainment to narrowing the gap and improving
behaviour.
Attainment
Good speech and language skills predict school attainment.
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Vocabulary at age 5 is a very strong predictor of the qualifications achieved at school leaving
age and beyond (Feinstein and Duckworth, 2006)

Early speech, language and communication difficulties are a very significant predictor of
later literacy difficulties (Snowling et al 2006).

At the age of six there is a gap of a few months between the reading age of children who had
good oral language skills at five, and those who had poor oral language skills at five. By the
time they are 14, this gap has widened to five years’ difference in reading age (Hirsch, 1996).

Research in one local authority found that children achieving below Level 2 in Reading and
Writing at the end of KS1 had an average standardised score of only 75 on a test of oral
language skills – 11 points less than those who achieved Level 2+. There was no difference
between the groups on nonverbal intelligence. At KS2 there was an even bigger gap – of 19
points - between the language skills of those who achieved Level 4+ in English and those
who didn’t (Gross, 2002).
As headteachers know, the barrier for many children in achieving Level 4+ in English at the end of
Key Stage 2 is their lack of oral language to support reading comprehension and writing. There is also
evidence that good oral language skills contribute significantly to attainment in maths.
Narrowing the gap
A school strategy to promote improved speech, language and communication skills is vital in
narrowing gaps between outcomes for disadvantaged children and their peers. Language skills are a
critical factor in social disadvantage:

On average a toddler from a family on welfare will hear around 600 words per hour, with a
ratio of two prohibitions (‘stop that’, ‘get down off there’) to one encouraging comment. A
child from a professional family will hear over 2000 words per hour, with a ratio of six
encouraging comments to one negative (Hart and Risley, 2008).

Low income children lag their middle income counterparts at school entry by nearly one year
in vocabulary. The gap in language is very much larger than gaps in other cognitive skills
(Waldfogel et al, 2010).

More than half of children starting nursery school in socially disadvantaged areas of England
have delayed language - while their general cognitive abilities are in the average range for
their age, their language skills are well behind (Locke and Ginsborg, 2002)

Vocabulary at age 5 has been found to be the best predictor (from a range of measures at
age 5 and 10) of whether children who experienced social deprivation in childhood were
able to ‘buck the trend’ and escape poverty in later adult life (Blanden, 2006).
Behaviour and wellbeing
Speech and language skills also predict behavior and wellbeing. Good language skills act as a
‘protective factor’ which reduces the likelihood of poor school attendance, truancy, delinquency and
substance misuse (Snow, 2000).
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Two thirds of 7-14 year olds with serious behaviour problems have language impairment
(Cohen et al 1998).

Two thirds of young offenders have speech, language and communication difficulties, but in
only 5% of cases were they identified before the offending began (Bryan, 2009).
Employability

The changing jobs market means that spoken communication skills, along with influencing skills,
computing skills, and literacy skills, have shown the greatest increase in employer-rated
importance over the last 10 years (UK Commission for Employment and Skills, 2010).

47% of employers in England report difficulty in finding employees with an appropriate level of
oral communication skills (UK Commission for Employment and Skills, 2010).
Evidence of the impact of investment in improving children and young people’s oral language skills
No studies have so far directly followed up the later impact of interventions to improve children and
young people’s language skills on end of key stage attainment or employability. We know, however,
that:
 Children whose language difficulties were resolved by 5½ were more likely to go on to
develop good reading and spelling skills – and keep pace with their peers, passing as many
exams on leaving school as children without a history of language disorder (Conti-Ramsden,
2009)
 KS2 children with poor reading comprehension made greater improvements in reading when
provided with an intervention to develop their oral language than they did when provided
with an intervention directly targeting reading comprehension skills (Snowling et al, 2010)
 Socially disadvantaged children can catch up with other children in language skills after just
nine months if their teachers are trained to have the right kind of conversations with
them(Hank and Deacon, 2008)
 Small group interventions to boost language skills have a rapid, measurable effect on
vocabulary and other aspects of language development – themselves very strong predictors
of later academic achievement. KS1 children receiving one such intervention, for example,
made on average 14 months progress on a test of vocabulary and language development
after just ten weeks of twice weekly group help.
 Community-wide, interagency strategies to upskill the children’s workforce and get key
messages across to parents can be very effective – in Stoke on Trent the percentage of for
year olds with significant language delay has reduced from 69% in 2001 to 46% in 2009 as a
result of such a strategy
 It is never too late. Re-conviction rates for offenders who studied the English Speaking
Board’s oral communication course fell to 21% (compared to the national average of 44%) greater than the fall to 28% for offenders who followed a general education course (Moseley
et al, 2008).
Office of the Communication Champion
September 2011
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