A discussion of the effects of lack of congruency between children's language and the written language of reading materials is presented. The premise that written language is simply “talk written down” is challenged. Differences between these two forms of language in sentence patterns, vocabulary, intonation, and context exist. Failure to take into account the mismatch between oral language and written language can result in inaccurate assessment of the reading abilities of children and can affect their reading performance. Implications for reading instruction of learning disabled students are suggested by the differences in these two language forms.
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