An implication of considerable impact from this conclusion is that, while skill in reading decoding is necessary for accuracy and efficiency in comprehension of what is read, it is not sufficient. Limitation in reading comprehension may reflect both decoding problems and restricted oral language and conceptualizing competencies. Thus, decoding may be excellent, but if vocabulary, knowledge, and thinking processes are limited, reading comprehension (and, hence, performance contingent on such comprehension) will suffer.
To some, the foregoing statements may appear true but trite. After all, haven't reading teachers and other educators always recognized the need to teach both reading decoding and comprehension skills? The answer is yes-except that, as we have seen, reading comprehension skills do not depend as much upon reading as they do upon language and conceptualizing competency developed largely by means of oracy skills. Thus much of what is referred to as a reading comprehension problem could, just as readily, be' referred to as an auding comprehension problem. In turn, the latter process will be limited by the person's linguistic and semantic knowledge, and his ability to use that knowledge to get more knowledge from the spoken language display (ie., to conceptualize).
The fact that the distinctions being drawn here between conceptual base, oral language competency, and reading have frequently been blurred is evidenced by the following practices which, when considered in light of the developmental model, are ill-advised.