Have you ever thought about what skills a child needs to learn to read? One major component of reading is understanding the words that you are reading, which is called Receptive Language.
Receptive language is the ability to understand words and language. If you struggle with receptive language skills you will struggle with reading comprehension, following directions, taking notes in class, etc.
Many children with a receptive language deficit have difficulty understanding what is being said/ asked. Because it is difficult for her/him to listen and respond correctly, she/he is often misdiagnosed as having attention or behavioral difficulties. Due to this confusion, students who have receptive language deficits tend to go unidentified for a longer period of time.
Even further, students with a receptive language deficit often have lower reading comprehension scores and difficulty with reading. If you struggle with receptive language, you are not understanding what you are listening to or reading. This means that you are able to read the letters, say the right sounds, make words/sentences with them, but are unable to make sense of the sentence or words.
In speech therapy, we utilize strategies that help these students improve their reading comprehension, like compensatory strategies. (i.e. highlighting/ underlining key content words, reading aloud to themselves, re-reading passages multiple times, reading the comprehension questions before reading the passage, breaking down a passage by paragraphs to focus on one paragraph at a time then summarize it, etc.).
The Speech-Language Pathologists at Charlotte Speech and Hearing Center have been expertly trained in helping students with receptive language deficits. If you think your child has a language deficit, please contact our Center to schedule a Speech-Language Evaluation!
For more Speech-Language Resources for your family, please visit our Resources page or our YouTube page.
Blog written by Jenn Ferzoco, M.S., CCC-SLP, Speech-Language Pathologist at Charlotte Speech and Hearing Center