Junior Oral Language Screening Tool

J.O.S.T. is a screening tool that has been compiled to meet the expressed needs of teachers who require more information on children's oral language.

The aim is to give teachers useful information around which they can:

• build a programme
• group children appropriately for language groups
• make a decision about referral to a Speech-Language Therapist.

We suggest you use this with children whose oral language is of concern and/or who score poorly on the Record of Oral Language. It is intended for use with five-year-olds but is also suitable for older children where appropriate.

There are three sections:

• vocabulary
• pragmatics (social language)
• grammar.

Speech sounds are not included.

The main focus is on expressive language, as understanding of concepts such as colour, shape and size will be evident through other curriculum activities. This information should be considered together with the results from the J.O.S.T. Information gained should be useful for planning further classroom activities.