Children’s language skills can be improved: lessons from psychological science for educational policy

Journal article

Oral language is crucial for social interaction and for learning in the classroom; it also provides the foundation for reading comprehension. It follows that children with language difficulties are at high risk of educational failure. Recently, a number of studies have demonstrated that it is possible to produce small but significant improvements in children’s oral language through targeted language interventions (d = 0.16) and, furthermore, that studies with high-quality implementation show larger effects (d = 0.24). There is also evidence that effects of language intervention can generalize to produce improvements in reading comprehension. Although further research examining the long-term effects of language interventions are needed, current findings have important implications for educational policy and practice.

Authors: Hulme, C; Snowling, M; West, G; Melby-Lervåg, M; Lervåg, A

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: SAGE Publications
• Journal: Current Directions in Psychological Science
• Volume: 29
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 372-377
• Publication date: 2020-07-08
• Acceptance date: 2020-02-12
• DOI: 10.1177/0963721420923684
• ISSN: 0963-7214
• Language: English
• Keywords: FFR