Victoria Purcell-Gates

Low-Ses Children's Success and Failure at Early Literacy Learning in Skills-Based Classrooms

This study examined low-SES, urban childrens ways of interpreting traditional skills-based literacy instruction in kindergarten and first grade. Thirty-five randomly selected children from three inner-city schools were tested for entering and end-of-first-grade knowledge of six domains of written language. Their scores on two standardized achievement tests were also collected. Twelve children were randomly selected from this sample for close observation over 2 years in their classrooms. Qualitative and quantitative analyses revealed four patterns of success/ nonsuccess in literacy development within the classroom context: (a) the Independent Explorer children who began kindergarten with the big picture of written language and successfully interpreted the skills-based instruction while engaging in numerous self-directed explorations of print, (b) the Curriculum Dependent children who did not have a big picture of written language from the start and exhibited major mismatches between their understandings and those required by the curriculum, (c) the Passive Nonweavers who failed to actively construct relationships between the many skill activities required of them, and (d) the Deferring Learners who moved from a knowledgeable active stance to a passive one after confronting mismatches between their knowledge of print and the curriculum.

Authentic literacy activities for developing comprehension and writing

Authentic literacy activities in the classroom replicate and reflect literacy activities that occur in peoples lives outside of school and instructional contexts. A growing body of research supports use of such activities in teaching and learning. The authors elaborate on the definition of authentic literacy, describe supporting research and theory, and give examples of authentic literacy activities documented in a research study. They identify strategies teachers can use to implement these activities for reading and writing, focusing particularly on science instruction.

Learning Written Storybook Language in School: A Comparison of Low-SES Children in Skills-Based and Whole Language Classrooms:

This study examined three data sets from previous studies to determine if children who begin kindergarten with significantly less implicit linguistic knowledge of books, as compared to well-read-to kindergartners, acquire this knowledge through experience with books in kindergarten and first grade. Further, the impact of instructional method on acquisition of this linguistic knowledge was examined by comparing children who experienced skills-based beginning literacy instruction to those who participated in whole language classrooms. Results show that all of the children who began school with low levels of knowledge of written syntax and vocabulary catch up to the well-read-to children’s baseline kindergarten scores on this dimension by the end of first grade. In addition, those children in whole language classes with increased levels of storybook readings, book discussions, and opportunities to explore books and to write, as compared to the skill-based curriculums, showed significantly greater growth in their knowledge of written language and more extensive breadth of knowledge of written linguistic features.

“So What's Going on in Research on Emergent Literacy?”

The journal editors asked the two authors to reflect on this question, noting that “nothing much” seemed to be happening. The authors converse about where the field of emergent literacy research has moved in the recent past.

On the Outside Looking In: A Study of Remedial Readers' Meaning-Making while Reading Literature.

This study compared remedial readers to more proficient readers in their meaning-making processes during the reading of literary text. Six children attending a university-based Literacy Center read aloud two stories and verbalized their thoughts during reading. Langers categories (1990) were used to compare the resulting think alouds. Langer found readers assume four stances as they make meaning while reading literature: (a) being out and stepping into an envisionment, (b) being in and moving through an envisionment, (c) stepping back and rethinking what one knows, and (d) stepping out and objectifying the experience. Langer described readers as always working toward an evolving understanding of the whole, and their envisionment of the whole affects their momentary understandings. A qualitative analysis was also conducted as other categories emerged and all the responses were recategorized for difficulties experienced by remedial readers. Analysis revealed that the remedial readers spend a disproportionate amount of being out of envisionments—either attempting to step into one or failing to step in. Also, these readers consistently failed to construct evolving wholes and struggled with the language of literary discourse. The overall picture of remedial readers gained from this study is one of being on the outside looking in. Implications for and of instruction are discussed.

Measuring Situated Literacy Activity: Challenges and Promises

This report presents the results of the development of a methodological approach to provide empirical evidence that family literacy programs “work.” The assessment techniques were developed within the action research project Literacy for Life (LFL) that the authors designed and delivered for 12 months, working collaboratively with three different cohorts of immigrant and refugee families in western Canada. The goal was to develop valid and reliable measures and analyses to measure the impact on literacy skill and knowledge in a particular version of a literacy program that incorporated real-world literacy activities into instruction for low-English-literate adults and their prekindergarten children, ages 3 to 5. The authors offer this approach to assessment as a promising way to measure the impact of socially situated literacy activity that requires taking the social context of literacy activity into account. They offer this work not as the answer to the challenge of documenting the value of working with families and literacy, but as one way to think about focusing curriculum and assessment within programs that validate the real lives of the participants and build bridges between those lives and literacy work within family literacy programming.

Adult Literacy Instruction: Degrees of Authenticity and Collaboration as Described by Practitioners.

The degree to which U.S. adult literacy classes use materials and activities reflective of real-life literacy functions and the degree to which the relationships between teachers and students reflect mutuality and shared power were the foci of this exploratory study. Questionnaires were mailed to adult literacy programs across the United States requesting descriptions of these factors. Results were based on the responses from 271 adult literacy programs. Categorical coding of these responses revealed that the majority of the respondents described programs in which students are involved in literacy activities that do not reflect real-life literacy uses and in which the relationships between teachers and students are more teacher-directed than collaborative. These results are discussed in light of theory and implications for practice and research.

Special education and family literacy: Perspective through the lens of critical discourse

Book reviewed in this article: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Family Literacy Practices: Power In and Out of Print. Rebecca Rogers. 2003.

Can early reading achievement be predicted with traditional learning disabilities tests? A case study

This case study examines how a first grade boy, for whom difficulties in literacy acquisition were predicted from tests, progressed in learning to read and write. Data included: (a) test scores from a psychologist, a speech therapist, an audiologist, and standardized school tests; (b) samples of school reading and writing tasks; (c) samples of writing and reading attempts done outside of school; (d) samples of talk about reading and writing and the nature of written language by the child; and (e) observation and tracking of school instruction. Actual progress in first-grade reading indicated that no relationship existed between the test results and the childs actual level of success. The limited view of literacy acquisition reflected in the Learning Disability (LD) test battery and an approach to diagnosis which accounts for experience with written language are discussed.