Publication: The Relationship Between Reading and Speaking Skills

• Hilferty, Ann
• Garner, Barbara

Ann Hilferty, Assistant Professor of English at the
Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, has
been exploring the research literature on the relationship
between the development of reading and speaking skills,
especially with adult English for speakers of other
languages (ESOL) learners. While she assumes that oral
mastery, when it exists, influences reading, she finds that
much recent research reveals the influence of reading on
speaking. There also seems to be reciprocity between them,
which may have implications for ESOL instruction. Focus on
Basics editor Barbara Garner interviewed her to learn more.