The National Reading Panel created The Literacy How Reading Wheel.  They determined that oral language is at the core, indicating that both speaking and listening skills are the foundation for learning to read.  Some people may think that children only need to be taught how to sound out words and they will learn how to read. In fact, learning to read and write involve many complex skills that need to be explicitly taught.  The Literacy How Reading Wheel also includes the following skills:

Phonemic Awareness

Phonics and Spelling

Syntax (sentence-level skills)

Vocabulary and Morphology

Text Comprehension and Written Expression

Speech-language pathologists are uniquely qualified to address all of these skills with children to help accelerate their learning in a cohesive, systematic manner.