The OLAI quickly provides you with information about the most common language structures children use expressively. The Oracy Instructional Guide, a companion component, shows you how to elicit meaningful conversation and develop prompts that expand and refine language with English Language Learners and children who could benefit from language instruction.
These tools can help you:
- Identify the five stages of language development typical of children acquiring English
- Link OLAI results to explicit language and literacy instruction for each child or group of children
- Obtain a baseline and measure progress over time with the use of three equivalent reproducible versions (Forms A, B, and C)
- Guide interactions to increase opportunities for children to talk about text
- Enhance children’s ability to read and write for meaning
- Match reading and writing experiences with text
- Conduct daily instruction in planned listening, speaking, reading and writing activities
The OLAI contains four components:
- Component 1: Repeated Sentences and Sentence Transformations (Forms A, B, and C)
- Component 2: Story Reconstructio and Narrative Comprehensions (Forms A, B, and C)
- Component 3: Picture Drawing, Narration and Dictation
- Component 4: Information Processing and Critical Dialogue (Forms A, B, and C). (Optional for preschool, kindergarten and the first half of first grade; required in subsequent administrations in Grades 1 through 3.)