A quote from Sheila Caroll, founder of Living Books Curriculum regarding children and our human development:

Literacy is the ability to read and write; orality is the ability
to speak and listen. All four modes -- reading, writing, speaking,
and listening -- make up human communication. In language
arts instruction, the emphasis is usually on literacy -- reading
and writing. This is unfortunate because orality is an equally
necessary competency. In fact, without it, a child cannot
learn to read or write well. Orality must precede literacy.

The first language skill a child learns is to listen, then to
speak and only much later to read and still later to write. A
very young child is pre-literate and has what is called a
complete primary orality. That is, the child experiences the
world by seeing, touching and hearing. In that time before
formal instruction, the child and parent engage in "baby talk"
that includes rhythms, rhymes, and most of all stories.
Through these oral experiences, the infant or toddler learns
patterns of language. Gradually the child understands the
world through hearing and imitating sounds. In other words,
the meaning of words is associated with the sound.