Throwback Thursday: The Language Basis of Reading Comprehension Difficulties

For this month’s Throwback Thursday, we’re revisiting a CISLL video featuring Dr. Hugh Catts discussing the language basis of reading comprehension difficulties.

Reading comprehension is often thought of primarily as a reading skill, but successful reading involves much more than decoding words on a page. Language plays an essential role in how readers understand, interpret, and connect information within a text. Difficulties with oral language can therefore have important implications for reading comprehension and literacy development.

In this video, Dr. Catts explores the relationship between language and reading comprehension difficulties, highlighting the importance of considering students’ underlying language skills when understanding literacy challenges. This perspective remains particularly relevant for educators, speech-language pathologists, researchers, and other professionals working to support children’s literacy development.

As we look back at this CISLL video, it is a great reminder of the interdisciplinary connections between language, literacy, and learning—and why understanding those connections continues to be an important area of research and practice.

Watch the video: Language Basis of Reading Comprehension Difficulties ft. Dr. Hugh Catts

Whether you are familiar with Dr. Catts’ work or are exploring the connection between language and literacy for the first time, this Throwback Thursday is a great opportunity to revisit an important conversation and reflect on how language contributes to reading comprehension.

Role of Visuals and Multimodal Learning in Multilingual Literacy - Minju Kim

Literacy is more than just the ability to read and write; it is a fundamental skill for navigating modern life. As children enter school, literacy becomes essential for learning and effective communication. Therefore, building strong emergent literacy skills from an early stage is crucial. For multilingual children, literacy instruction should extend beyond traditional reading and writing. Incorporating visuals and multimodal strategies enhances comprehension and communication, fostering an inclusive and engaging learning environment.  

What is Multimodal? 

“Multimodal literacy” means that two or more means or types of communication are being used and aims to utilize multiple senses or modalities (e.g., speech, music, images and gestures) during the learning process. The purpose is to engage all students with all learning styles (King, A., n.d.).

How to Encourage Multimodal Learning for Multicultural Literacy with Your Children

1. Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) is a teaching method that helps children develop critical thinking, communication, and visual literacy using images. A picture or artwork is presented, followed by three open-ended questions to guide discussion: 

• What’s happening in this image? 
• What do you see that makes you say that?
• What else can we find?

By discussing the image without a single “right” answer, children learn to observe closely, think deeply, and explain their ideas. VTS is especially helpful for multilingual learners as it reduces reliance on written text and encourages expression through pictures, gestures, and storytelling. Over time, it helps build vocabulary, improve sentence structure, and strengthen storytelling skills, all of which support multilingual literacy (Barton, 2023).

2. Talking Drawings is a literacy strategy that helps children, especially multilingual learners, visually express their understanding of a topic. It involves two main steps: First, students create an initial drawing before learning about a concept, and then they revise and expand it after gaining new knowledge. This process allows students to reflect on their learning and visually represent their understanding in a way that goes beyond just reading and writing. 

This strategy is particularly beneficial for multilingual children, providing a visual and low-pressure way to process and communicate ideas. It supports comprehension across languages, helps them connect their home and school languages, and builds confidence in expressing ideas through multiple modes of communication (Barton, 2023). 

3. Using songs, movement, and games related to a book supports multilingual literacy by making learning more engaging and accessible. These activities enhance comprehension, build vocabulary, and strengthen phonological awareness through repetition and interaction. Acting out stories and singing familiar songs make it easier for children to grasp new concepts. 

• Sing the Song: If the book has an associated song (e.g., Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?), singing it helps reinforce language patterns and rhythm, supporting phonological awareness. 
• Act It Out: Have your child act out parts of the story! Pretending to be the characters and re-enacting scenes helps them understand the story better and remember the order of events. 
• Play a Memory or Matching Game: Using characters or key elements from the book in a matching or memory game helps strengthen recall, vocabulary, and story connections. 

Supporting Multilingual Literacy: Storytelling, Reading, and Writing Across Cultures 

1. Storytelling Styles 

• Different cultures have unique storytelling traditions. Some encourage creativity and imagination, while others focus on facts. In many communities, stories are passed down through spoken word, shared through conversation, songs, or performances instead of books.   
• Try This: Share family stories, traditions, and folktales. Encourage your child to tell stories through drawing, acting, or using digital tools like storytelling apps. 

2. Story Structure 

• Different cultures tell stories in different ways. Some follow a clear order with a beginning, middle, and end, like many storybooks. Others share stories by connecting ideas or experiences without a set order. For example, some cultures use storytelling to teach lessons or share real-life experiences instead of following a strict storyline. 
• Try This: Read books in both languages and discuss how stories are structured. Encourage your child to create their own stories using different styles. 

 3. Reading Direction and Letter Order 

• Languages are read in different directions. English and most European languages go left to right, but Arabic and Hebrew are read right to left. Traditional East Asian books are sometimes written top to bottom.  
• Try This: Read books in different formats with your child. Use your finger to guide them along the words and help them get used to different reading directions. This builds their awareness of different writing systems! 

References 

King, A. (n.d.). What is multimodal literacy? Ellevation Education. Retrieved from https://ellevationeducation.com/blog/what-multimodal-literacy 

Heo, S. (2023). Promoting multimodal literacy pedagogies in elementary immersion classrooms with refugee-background students. University Digital Conservancy. https://hdl.handle.net/11299/258751 

Taylor, S.V., Leung, C.B. Multimodal Literacy and Social Interaction: Young Children’s Literacy Learning. Early Childhood Educ J 48, 1–10 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00974-0 

Barton, R. C. (2023). Beyond the label: Multimodal strategies for working with multilingual learners. The Montana English Journal, 44(2). Retrieved from https://scholarworks.umt.edu/mej/vol44/iss2023/2

Providing AACcess to Literacy: Tips to Support Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC) Users During Reading - Noelle Veome

Literacy, or the ability to read and write, is an important skill needed for everyday life. Literacy skills are crucial for academic success, vocational success, connecting with peers, and furthering cognitive skills. For augmentative and alternative communication (AAC) users, providing a literacy-rich environment allows the opportunity to expand communication skills. Below are some key factors to consider when working on reading skills with AAC users.

Targeting Emergent Literacy Skills

This is an area that is often overlooked due to the fact that some emergent literacy skills require verbal output from the student in a typical teaching setting. However, these skills are crucial in laying the foundation for reading. There are multiple ways to target these skills for AAC users: 

Book Handling Skills: Allow the student to familiarize themselves with the physical print structure of books (which way to hold the book, turning the pages, etc.). After they become familiar with this, help them become familiar with the text (identifying that the title is the largest print on the cover, there is text on the pages, etc.). 

--> Example: Instructors can “sabotage” the situation by giving the student the book upside down and backwards to see if they will orient the book correctly. As students advance, instructors could ask students to point to the title, point to the text on a specific page, etc. 

Phonological Awareness: In order to develop strong reading skills, phoneme-grapheme correspondence must be established. AAC users may have a harder time developing this skill set due to the auditory nature of this learning. 

--> Example: Present the student with a few letter cards. Have the student point or look at the letter that corresponds to the sound the instructor auditorily produces. 

Decoding Skills: Once phoneme-grapheme correspondence has been established at the letter level, the next step would be to continue to develop these skills at the word level. 

--> Example: Present the student with a few word cards. Have the student point or look at the word that corresponds to the auditory production of the word that the instructor produces.  

Developing Reading Skills 

Shared reading experiences provide the student with the opportunity to grow their reading skills, as well as their conversational language skills. Historically, reading partners of AAC users tend to monopolize the conversation during the reading experience. Giving the student space to interact and respond to the text is essential to growing reading and conversational skills. Instructors should also make sure that the student’s device is present during the interaction in order to give them the appropriate tools to communicate. 

Choosing a text that is repetitive in nature allows more opportunities for the client to engage, as they can predict the language structure of what is coming. This also provides multiple opportunities for the instructor to model engagement in a repetitive manner. 

--> Examples of books that are repetitive in nature: Brown Bear Brown Bear by Eric Carle, Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed by Eileen Christelow, Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown 

--> Example: In the book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, model the word “see” on the AAC device, every time the word “see” is used in the book. After a few times, the instructor should encourage the student to choose the word “see” on the AAC device every time they hear it in the story. 

Adapting the reading material to fit the reader’s specific needs promotes higher engagement, which in turn fosters an environment for learning. Providing some high-frequency AAC symbols throughout the book alongside the text allows readers to engage with the text even if they do not have the skillset to identify every word on the page. An example of a symbolated book page from There is a Bird on Your Head! by Mo Willems is shown below. Symbols should mainly consist of words that the student is familiar with, and a few new target words to find. The instructor should encourage the student to find these words on their device as they come up in the story. 

This is a symbolated storybook page from There is a Bird on Your Head! By Mo Willems. Only keywords are chosen to be symbols, which reduces visual clutter on the page and emphasizes the main ideas. Encourage the student to find these words on their AAC device during reading.

Some books require extremely specific vocabulary in order to engage with the text. Developing low-tech core boards that are specific to the book would be useful during discussions and related activities with the book. An example of a core board for the book I Really Like Slop! By Mo Willems is shown below. 

This is an example of a low-tech core board for the book I Really Like Slop! By Mo Willems. This board gives the student easy access to main character names (Gerald, Piggie), novel words (slop), and common words that might be used to describe the text (eat, like, don’t like).

Finally, find books that reflect the unique interests of the student. This will increase motivation and enjoyment levels, which in turn will result in greater AAC usage and learning outcomes. Happy reading!

Resources 

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. (n.d.). Augmentative and alternative communication (AAC). American Speech-Language Hearing Association. https://www.asha.org/Practice-Portal/Professional-Issues/Augmentative-and-Alternative Communication/#collapse_1

Enhancing AAC interventions with literacy skills: Strategies for SLPS and educators. Able Net, Quick Talker Freestyle. (n.d.). https:// quicktalkerfreestyle.com/blog/enhancing-aac-interventions-with-literacy-skills/ 

Erickson, K. (n.d.). Reading comprehension in AAC. The ASHA Leader. https://leader.pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/leader.FTR1.08122003.6 Lambert, Susan (Host). (2021). 

Science of Reading: The Podcast. https://www.buzzsprout.com/612361/episodes/7707625-s3-03-deconstructing-the-rope-phonological-awareness-with-louisa-moats 

Leroux, E. L., Biggs, E. E., & Shin, D. E. (2024, January 11). Views of Parents on Supporting Language and Literacy for Their Children With Complex Communication Needs. ASHA Wire. https://pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/2023_LSHSS-23-00009?url_ver=Z39.88 2003&rfr_id=ori:rid:crossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%20%200pubmed Light, 

J., & Kent-Walsh, J. (n.d.). Fostering Emergent Literacy for Children who Require AAC. ASHA Wire. https://leader.pubs.asha.org/ doi/10.1044/leader.FTR1.08102003.4 

Threlkeld, M.S. CCC-SLP, K. (2022, September 13). Literacy intervention strategies for individuals who use AAC. Forbes AAC. https:// www.forbesaac.com/post/literacy-intervention-strategies-for-individuals-who-aac 

Samperi, A. (n.d.). Amanda Samperi: Adapted books -- what are symbolated stories and how do we use them? - AAC in the Cloud 2017 conference. AAC in the Cloud. https://presenters.aacconference.com/videos/UXpZMg== 

Spracher, M. M. (n.d.). Reading and writing (literacy). American Speech-Language-Hearing Association. https://www.asha.org/public/speech/ development/literacy/ 

Zangari, C. (2013, September 20). Literacy lessons for beginning AAC learners. PrAACtical AAC. https://praacticalaac.org/strategy/literacy lessons-for-beginning-aac-learners/