Preventing Reading Difficulties in Young Children (1998) / Chapter Skim
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7. Organizational Strategies for Kindergarten and the Primary Grades
7. Organizational Strategies for Kindergarten and the Primary Grades
Pages 226-246
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From page 226... ...
This kind of change may involve modifying classroom and school structure, for instance by reducing class size or restructuring the instructional program of an entire school. For other children, necessary changes may include the hiring of bilingual teachers who can provide initial literacy training in the children's native language.
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From page 227... ...
. Low income level can be accompanied by other factors that place children at risk, for instance, attending a school that has chronic low academic achievement.
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From page 228... ...
When Title I (reauthorized as Chapter I in 1981) was reauthorized as part of the Hawkins-Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improvement Act, the legislation mandated that the services be linked to the regular school curriculum; that schools in high-poverty areas develop school-wide programs, rather than focusing on individual students; and that curriculum reform efforts stress higher-order thinking skills.
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From page 229... ...
We review two major organizational strategies found to be effective in schools with chronically low academic achievement: class size and school restructuring. Class Size The abilities and opportunities of teachers to closely observe and facilitate the literacy learning of diverse groups of children are certainly influenced by the numbers of children they deal with.
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From page 230... ...
Four studies examined the effects of reduced class size throughout the primary grades, and only one reported a sustained effect for reduced class size (also see Mosteller et al., 1996)
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From page 231... ...
Tutors work individually with students who are experiencing difficulty in their reading classes for 20 minutes daily, employing the same curriculum in place in the classroom but providing individually tailored, intensive teaching. The classroom reading periods are 90 minutes long and are generally conducted in groups of 15 to 20, with the classroom teachers and the tutors serving as reading teachers to allow for smaller-sized groups.
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From page 232... ...
The evaluation research found significant treatment effects across grade levels and at follow-up. In first through third grades, average performance was maintained at grade level, but from fourth grade on, students in Success For All did not reach grade level, although they continued to progress significantly more rapidly than did comparison-group children.
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From page 233... ...
(n=5) FIGURE 7-1 Comparison of Success For All and control schools in mean reading grade equivalents and effect sizes, 1988-1996.
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From page 234... ...
In this section we outline sources of evidence supporting these conclusions, conceding, however, that the definitive study has not been carried out. The evidence presented here relates to findings concerning effects of language of initial literacy instruction and effects of longer-term support for first-language literacy; in many specific cases, it is impossible to tell whether positive or negative consequences for patterns of achievement relate to initial or to ongoing support or lack thereof in the native language.
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From page 235... ...
One clue in answering this question comes from accounts suggesting that English speakers in French immersion programs in Canada acquire literacy in French first with little difficulty, subsequently transferring their literacy skills successfully to English (cited in August and Hakuta, 1997)
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From page 236... ...
Several studies have documented the transfer of literacy skills from a first to a second language. These studies are important in that they suggest a mechanism explaining the positive effects of time spent on first-language literacy for second-language literacy.
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From page 237... ...
Non-English speakers have much less basis for knowing whether their reading is correct because the crucial meaning-making process is short circuited by lack of language knowledge. Giving a child initial reading instruction in a language that he or she does not yet speak thus can undermine the child's chance to see literacy as a powerful form of communication, by knocking the support of meaning out from underneath the process of learning.
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From page 238... ...
It is clear that initial reading instruction in the first language does no harm, and it seems likely both from research findings and from theories about literacy development that initial reading instruction in the second language can have negative consequences for immediate and long-term achievement. This conclusion leads us to urge initial literacy instruction in a child's native language whenever possible and to suggest that literacy instruction should not be introduced in any language before some reasonable level of oral proficiency in that language has been attained.
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From page 239... ...
Addressing Dialect in Reading Instruction In order to reduce the gap between what children speak and what they are expected to read, many nations use the vernacular for early reading instruction and introduce the language of wider communication only in higher grades (Feitelson, 1988)
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From page 240... ...
field tested this program over a period of 4 months with 540 students from seventh through twelfth grades. They reported that the experimental students showed significantly greater gains on the Iowa Test of Basic Skills in reading comprehension than did 123 comparison students who were engaged in remedial reading activities.
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From page 241... ...
Teacher Knowledge Across Reading Programs Recent research has suggested that, across reading programs, teachers should attend to the following principles when providing instruction with dialect speakers, including children who use AAVE, Latino-influenced English, and other nonstandard dialects: (a) distinguish between mistakes in reading and mistakes in pronunciation, (b)
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From page 242... ...
TEACHING READING TO CHILDREN WITH CULTURAL DIFFERENCES Although there is widespread agreement that minority groups differ from each other and from mainstream cultures in several respects, less certain is how and whether cultural differences contribute to reading achievement. A persistent and troubling aspect of reading difficulties is the differential in reading success between mainstream and minority children -- African American, Hispanic, Native American, and some Asian and Pacific Islander groups.
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From page 243... ...
, in one of the most widely cited studies in this area, found that when a teacher engaged Native Hawaiian children in reading lessons congruent with sociolinguistic patterns from the children's native culture ("talk-story," a Native Hawaiian discourse style) , students participated more in academically productive interactions than when taught by a teacher who was unaware of these interaction styles.
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From page 244... ...
Its researchers and teachers developed instruction guides and curricula on reading that significantly improved early reading achievement among Native Hawaiian children, at the original laboratory site on Oahu and in other sites around the state. It is uncertain, however, what role culturally accommodated instruction played in the results (Goldenberg and Gallimore, 1989)
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From page 245... ...
First, there are circumstances that place groups of young children at risk for reading difficulties. A number of efforts have been made to provide reading instruction for these groups of children regardless of their individual status on child-based predictors of reading achievement (see Chapter 4)
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From page 246... ...
Fifth, a major challenge to society is the persistent disparity in reading outcomes between African American and European American youth. Although it has long been suggested that the dialect features of African American Vernacular English (AAVE)
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