An Informal Reading--Language Test

Professionals working with children who need help in language development and reading have reported a positive relationship between reading performance and the development of language skills (Mattingly, 1972; Goodm3n, reported in Gutknecht and Keenan, 1978; Berger, 1978; Semel and Wiig, 1975; Stark, 1975). Semel and Wiig (1975) report that many reading problems are due to a child I s difficulty or inability to understand the ideas being expressed by complex syntactic structures, and Rupley (1974) states that problems in understanding the vocabulary used in reading texts may contribute to reading problems. The relationship and parallelism between reading and language development becomes more evident when considering some of the the correlates that can have an effect on either or both of them: auditory or visual preceptual problems; motivation. Although such correlates are not synonymous with etiologies for poor developmental reading skills, they are conditions often accompanying an inability to read (Kirk, Kliebhan and Lerner, 1978)