Literacy Development in Elementary & Middle School

Week 15Course 05:300:495

Joseph Campisi

Week 15

Assigned Reading&

Reading Diversity

Assigned Reading

• Culturally Responsive Literacy Instruction– Challenge of Teaching Today…• Optimize (literacy) learning for students while

allowing students to maintain their cultural identity.• For culturally and linguistically diverse students

to become successfully literate they must be functional participants in literate communities (such as the classroom)

Implications in Multicultural Settings

• Willingness to use literacy• Reading & Writing• Constructing Meaning• Printed Text• Social Context

What does culturally responsive literacy instruction do ?

• Bridges the gap between the school and the world of the students…

• Consistent with the values of the students’ own culture aimed at assuring academic learning…

• Encourages teachers to adapt their instruction to meet the needs of all students…

Leads to culturally responsive pedagogy, which includes…

• Communication of high expectations• Usage of active teaching methods• Facilitation of learning• Positive perspectives on parents & families of

culturally & linguistically diverse students• Demonstrate cultural sensitivity• Reshapes the curricula• Culturally mediated instruction• Promotes student classroom discourse

Please complete the entrance assessment at this time

Language Systems

• Language is several integrated systems:–Oral language & Written Language • In order to be successful in terms of

using language for literacy, every reader must understand the subtle but important differences between oral and written language.

Oral Language Systems

• Phonological Systems– The sounds that make up language– Based on the smallest units (phonemes) of

sounds that speakers of a language understand– Speakers hear the syllables

Oral Language cont’d

• Semantic System– The meaning conveyed by language– The smallest units of meaning (morphemes)– Speakers learn words are made up of sequences

of phonemes that begin to create meaning (morphemes)

Oral Language cont’d

• Syntactic System–This is the structure of language• The rules by which words are put

together in phrases and sentences that have meaning for speakers.

Written Language

• Graphemic System–The written symbols that represent

phonemes–The letters represent the phonological

system–Letters grouped together provide for

syllables (but are not defined by spaces) represent breaks in words

Written Language cont’d

• Morphemes are represented by letters and sequences of letters

• Words are represented by sequences of letters in print and defined by white spaces

Written Language cont’d

• Syntactic System–The words are sequenced from left to

right and top to bottom in print to represent the rule-governed structure of the English language.

Differences between the Oral & Written Language Systems

• Written Language is:– Symbolic– It is representational of the oral system(s)– Syllables (letter groups) are physically represented– It is represented by letters and sequences of

letters– Written language has a higher level of rule-

governed structure.

Using texts that reflect Diversity in Language & Culture

• Look for texts/literature that reflect the many languages & cultures represented in your classroom/school.

• Even if you do not have great diversity in your classroom, you will want your students to recognize many cultures and languages.

Diversity & Literacy InstructionAcknowledgment of difference and diversity is not enough. Being inclusive, sensitive, and against bias is not enough. Teachers must explicitly share their expert knowledge about the conventions of mainstream behavior and mainstream discourse, of the code, while acknowledging the expert knowledge of the learner. This will respond to the challenge offered by Luke to "create and manage school environments that are fair, enabling and effective to ensure equity of access" (Luke & Luke, 1995, p. 8).

Cultural Mediators

Teachers must act as cultural mediators, helping children to feel comfortable with their own identities within the school context. Children should not feel that they have to choose between their own success and their cultural identity. If teachers do not create an environment in which children's abilities and values are recognized, then the children may adopt patterns of resistance to the authority of teachers and schools, which they will perceive as a pervasive constraint on their feelings of well-being.

We owe our pedagogical stance to teachers who shared multicultural literature with us during our formative years. We often wonder why-despite the research that suggests the importance of culturally relevant texts for students of color-the idea of multicultural literacy continues to be contested and in some cases ignored.

Book clubs such as Scholastic or Children's Book of the Month, which reach large numbers of teachers, parents, and young people, infrequently feature books about parallel cultures. Perhaps this makes it easier for multicultural literature to be overlooked and appear unimportant.

Why is it that some educators embrace multicultural literacy while others do not? As teachers of color teaching preservice and inservice teachers who are often reluctant to teach multicultural literature for various reasons (e.g., fear of difficult topics such as racism; little, if any, use of such literature in their districts; or fear of parents' responses), we decided to look reflectively at our personal experiences to see what made it important for us to teach literature from a multicultural standpoint.

Considering your own education

We must look at our own experiences as students of color were in settings where issues of importance, such as race, class, and gender injustice, were seldom taken up.

Knowing what was lacking in our formal education encouraged us to consider how we might help teachers incorporate the type of instruction we believe was important to our literacy development.

Literacy development, in the face of students' diversity, is a pivotal concern in the direction that must be taken in teacher education. Charting this concern is a major challenge. According to some observers, the manner in which the challenge is met will largely "determine whether the United States can remain both a pluralistic and democratic society" (Kuder & Hasit, 2002, p. 296). If the challenge is to be met successfully, some critical changes are needed in the language and diversity education of teachers who are primarily responsible for students' literacy development.

Typical teacher education programs tend to spend too much time on acquainting teachers and teacher candidates with strategies for teaching basics related to literacy development and too little time on helping them understand why the strategies they are taught may or may not be useful. Because of this emphasis in their training programs, many teachers develop the mindset that the mastery of various strategies is at the heart of literacy development. In many cases, this emphasis should be replaced by first helping teachers understand language and how it is developed. They should also be helped to realize the influences of culture on that development. Their educational programs should be designed to help them understand important relationships among language, culture, and literacy development.

Please write your thoughts about…1. Are our teacher-education programs including the appropriate emphasis on the influence of students' diversity on their learning?2. Is diversity being considered an adjunctive rather than integral element in teachers' preparation?3. Are problems faced by teachers, as they strive to help students develop literacy, being considered apart from prevailing ideologies?

In essence, do you feel prepared to teach various cultures and diverse backgrounds of your students?

Across many measures, evidence shows that schools have done poorly in helping children from diverse backgrounds attain the same levels of academic achievement as mainstream children. Uncovering and reconstructing assumptions about language and learning must be the foundation of increased achievement for all children. This is a difficult task because nearly 90 percent of teachers come from mainstream backgrounds. While good intentions always prevail, it's a rare educator who does not unconsciously subscribe at some level and at some times to the deficit perspective. Flores, Cousin and Diaz (1998) outline four major "myths" composing the deficit perspective on non-mainstream children

Myths

* They have deficient language, culture and experiences that cause their learning problems. * They need sequential, skills-based instruction separate from regular classroom instruction. * Their language and learning problems can be accurately diagnosed and labeled with standardized tests. * Their learning problems are caused by parents who don't care, don't read, or don't work with them.

Facts (from Research)* Children from diverse backgrounds use language proficiently and bring rich experiences to school. * Using engaging literature, discussing texts and learning in integrated rather than separate settings enriches all children's language and literacy development. * Educators should use a variety of authentic assessment methods to diagnose and plan instruction. * And finally, parents of children of diverse backgrounds are interested in their children's schooling and can be effective educational partners.

Nonlinguistic Strategies

1. Used in many forms2. Must identify crucial information3. Students must explain their nonlinguistic

representations4. Can be time consuming5. Students should revise their nonlinguistic

representations when necessary

Therefore…Putting this research into practice requires not only implementing new learning structures, tasks and resources but developing a critical stance to understanding why you as a teacher may not be facilitating connections between home and school, and from there, ensuring all students' access to academic learning. The root of this reform is a constructivist view of teaching and learning, and a multicultural literature-based approach to literacy instruction.

Please complete the Exit Assessment