Evaluating Reading Programs

African-American (AA) and English Language Learners (ELL) students are groups that traditionally suffer in standard reading and English classrooms. A 1965 Harlem study cited by William Labov (Labov, Can reading failure be reversed pg. 40, laay ) contrasts two groups of students: one group that is not affiliated with street culture and one group that is. The findings are startling. AA students that did not associate with “street” groups on average read two grade-levels below students. This figure is alarming but nonetheless, two grade-levels can be remediated with the right intervention. However, the group that associated with “street” groups persisted to stall at an average plateau of a 4.9 grade reading level. A plateau indicates a systemic failure to address the underlying issue of instruction. The times have changed but the fact that AA and ELL youth are not being served has remained constant. One would (like to) believe that non-responsive students are wholly neglected, however, often times it is not a negligence in intervention, but a lack of appropriate reading curriculum/tools that creates the dire situation that underperforming students are in. AA and ELL students pose an educational challenge because they already possess language structures that vary from standard academic English in grammar, phonics, and cultural experience. The Ann Arbor decision reaffirms that although different, African American Vernacular (AAVE), is not mangled or fragmented Standard Academic English (SAE). According to Judge Joiner who presided over the Ann Arbor case AAVE is a “distinct linguistic system but that it is not a foreign language.” Furthermore, AAVE has many features of southern US dialects..” and “it has distinct marks of an Afro-Caribbean ancestry reflecting the earlier origins of the Black community.” (pg 151 recognizing black English in the classroom Labov) Therefore speakers of AAVE should be identified and their AAVE knowledge should be taken into account when being instructed in reading SAE.
In this case I will study “What Works: An Introductory Teacher Guide for Early Language and Emergent Literacy Instruction.” (NCFL, 2009) I will identify strategies that teach phonological awareness, and vocabulary acquisition, against underlying assumptions that students have been raised in an environment that emphasizes Standard English. I will assess if the underlying program incorporates structures that either build on AAVE or address the differences between AAVE and SAE. More so, I will present considerations for improvement in the guide.
What Works advocates for “direct code” instruction. According to the guide direct code instruction “needs to consider both the cognitive operation and the complexity of the language skills being taught – the size of sound units children are manipulating and in what way they are manipulating them. “ (What Works pg. 15) The three main type of tasks that are being used in the guide are listed in order of difficulty as, identify, synthesis, and analysis. An identity task might require students to select words from a list that share a beginning sound. Synthesis will included the blending of syllables or phonemes to make words. Analysis tasks ask students to use their own recollection to list words that use certain phonemes or syllables. The guide also ties phonics to phonological awareness stating “when phonological awareness instruction is paired with phonics instruction, children show the greatest gains in their literacy development.” (What Works pg. 20) One of the more interesting phonic strategies is to delete the beginning sound of a word, to focus on the end sound as “blip” becoming “lip.” “Changing onset” has the teacher directing children to focus on the phonemes in words and altering the word such that the “t” in “tap” is replaced with an “m” with a new pronunciation of “map.”

What Works addresses vocabulary in a lukewarm manner, describing there is a “relatively weak relationship found between vocabulary and conventional literacy skills” elaborating “that well developed vocabularies are necessary, but insufficient for literacy.” (What Works, pg. 32) Vocabulary instruction strategies include “think aloud,” to model vocabulary and grammar usage, “shared reading” which involves an adult reading to a small group, and introducing new vocabulary in context. To supplement shared reading, the guide recommends that students be presented with items that are connected to the vocabulary and that activities that contextualize the vocabulary be used prior to reading. In the case The Carrot Seed the guide recommends that students complete an activity with shovels, seeds, and watering cans. More so, the guide elaborates that trips can be good source of vocabulary introduction; citing a trip to a zoo, the guide mentions “a visit to the zoo incorporates an entire vocabulary specific to that environment, with names of animals,” etc. The guide reminds instructors to “look within the contexts of all experiences for meaningful ways to boost oral language skills. (Pg. 45)

The guide does not address or does very little to address: the mental dictionaries, grammars, and phonologies of ELL and AAVE speakers. First, the guide does not advocate the use mental lexicon of AAVE or another language for SAE instruction. Further, the guide makes no mention of a mental dictionary or mental lexicon. Grammars and phonologies are addressed but not with regard to AAVE and SAE instruction. I believe that because What Works is geared towards early language and emergent literacy, the underlying assumption being is that students have not had a large amount of time to adequately acquire AAVE or a language other than English. On a superficial note, the guide does include pictures of Asian, Latin American, and African-American children, yet no mention of the effect that those backgrounds have in the choice of strategy is discussed.

Seeing as the guide provides no specificity for instruction of AAVE speakers and ELL students can be said that there is a clear underlying assumption that all learners of English come from an SAE background. More so, the strategies presented in the guide corroborate that AAVE speakers and ELL students are not addressed in the guide. Changing the onset does not address the fact that research such as the one completed by Labov concludes that the AAVE dialect “losses information at the ends of words in a more extreme fashion that other dialects.” (pg. 162 recognizing black English) Hence a word like “told” turns into “toll” thereby an exercise that explores the changing or “told” to “bold” will not succeed. Another strategy “changing the onset” implies that students are proficient in the use of English phonemes. My mother and myself included struggle with the following phonemes that do not exist in our native Spanish: Ζ /∫ / ð / ν / ʤ / ʒ . Expecting students to change “clip” to “blip” makes the limiting assumption that the phonemics of the word “lip” are in the student’s mental/phonemic register. In regards to grammar, “thinking aloud” is a strategy that solely relies on the fact that students are able to comprehend and assimilate metacognitive strategies being thought out by the teacher. Even in the case of ELL students who register and understand the words, there might be cases of syntactic problems leading to comprehension issues. Without a clear comprehension, lessons that use thinks alouds will fall short of instructing grammar and vocabulary. Also there is no mention of cognates in teaching. Although it is important to mention that cognates mostly (not always) share the same meaning, but they do share phonemic, spelling features. Cognates are extremely helpful in addressing ELL populations whose native tongue is of a Romantic or Germanic origin. More so, the use of cognates activates mental dictionaries and grammatical structures in the student’s mind.

The program studied, What Works, leaves a lot to be desired in terms of reading instruction for AAEV speakers and ELL students. This portion of the paper will address ways of bolstering What Works, to better serve AAVE speakers and ELL students. To improve the guide it is relevant to draw upon the study that William Labov did of Holt et. al. ,Bridge program. The Bridge program was created by Grace Holt, Gary and Charlesetta Simpkins to address SAE reading inadequacies of AAVE speakers in light of the fact that by the fourth grade “resistance to school instruction is first solidified.” (Labov, can reading failure be reversed, pg. 44) The Bridge program was executed in 21 classes with a control comparison of 6 classes. During the 4 month experimental duration The Bridge groups had a 6.2 month learning gain compared to the control group which had a 1.2 month gain. The main strengths of The Bridge program that should be incorporated into What Works are the cultural and lingual approach the program takes and the strength in using AAVE diction. The Bridge however, was tested in predominantly African-American classrooms, meaning that to reflect the current cultural and lingual diversity of today’s schools the program would have address ELL speakers.

Labov and other researchers have determined that one of the biggest hindrances to the development of SAE reading in AAVE speakers is a systematic cultural opposition of AAVE by teachers, school administrators, and even parents. Labov concludes “that the principle problem was a cultural and political conflict in the classroom.” (Labov ,recognizing black English in the classroom, pg.152) AAVE speakers in effect react oppositional-ly to the negative treatment of and dissonance created by non-acceptance of AAVE. A reading program, will successfully address AAVE speakers’ culture and explain that SAE is a lingua franca. This explanation must be done carefully to recognize the value of SAE, but not at the expense of AAVE, but rather as an addition to the advantages that AAVE speakers already enjoy. More so, a thorough guide will address the phonemic and grammatical factors that separate AAVE and SAE such as the reduction (in the case of ELL elimination) of word-final consonant clusters, the effect that has in interpreting past tense, the grammatical absence of “are” and “is” in present tense, as well as elimination of “s” from action verbs in the present tense.

There many simple ways that phonemic instruction can be improved to address differences in AAVE and SAE. To address the reduction in word-final consonant clusters, the presentation of word can be changed to avoid that difference. Whereas “test” is read as “tess” changing the word to “testing” will minimize the reinforcement of the mispronunciation “tess.” Another example has students reading “old” as “ole” or “ol” however, placing another word afterward can shift emphasis to the –d in “old” as in asking students to read “old eggs.” There has to be an instructional focus on the pronunciation of word endings. Seeing as students struggle with word endings, the use and instruction of contractions should minimized if not alright eliminated until students are sophisticated enough to have mastered the interpretation and reading of word endings. Additionally, grammar instruction has to be done in an explicit manner. Otherwise, students will keep using AAVE grammar in settings that SAE grammar. Finally, a good reading program will also emphasize differences in reading proficiency that includes comprehension and phonemic deficiencies.