In this Literacy Connect podcourse, we are joined by Leanne Dall’s, an ASHA- and EBLI-certified pediatric SLP, as she explains the reciprocal relationship between oral and written language, noting literacy can strengthen phonemic awareness, vocabulary, and metalinguistic skills, and that children with developmental language disorder or speech sound disorders are at risk for reading and writing difficulties.

She outlines structured linguistic literacy principles (letters spell sounds; sounds can be spelled with 1–4 letters; multiple spellings per sound; spellings can have multiple pronunciations), links benefits to cognitive load theory, and shares practical ways to incorporate print into sessions, including using letters for phonemic awareness and speech-sound work and integrating curriculum-based disciplinary literacy tasks.