Chapter 56: Literacy for All CHildren In the Increasingly Diverse Schools of the United States

The article, “Literacy for All Children in the Increasingly Diverse Schools of the United States,” by Claude Goldenberg discusses eight ambitious goals t he United States has committed to for the year 2000. Three goals in particular are the focus of this chapter. They are:
1. Goal 1-All children will begin school “ready to learn”.
2. Goal 3-All students will leave grades 4, 8 and 12 demonstrating competency
over challenging subject matter.
3. Goal 8-Every school will promote parent involvement to support the social,
emotional, and academic growth of children.

There is strong interrelation among these goals. School readiness predicts school success, and parent involvement has deep implications in both. The literacy experience along with the skills students begin school with will influence their literacy development and a big part of this is parent involvement. Parents are the forerunners of their child’s literacy experience. That is, they influence how much experience their children have with books and other reading materials, familiarity with letter and sounds, their vocabulary development, and even their reading and writing habits. The children’s’ experiences and opportunities in and outside of school also play an important role in their literacy development. All this will help lay the foundation for success later in school and in life; in order to ensure this we need to engage parents as partners in education.

This chapter focuses on environmental factors: the sorts of experiences schools and families can provide that will enhance literacy development for all children. With the previously mentioned goals, this is a lofty challenge for the US to consider when at the end of the 20th Century there were nearly 19 million children under age 5 and nearly 40 million more were between the ages of 5 and 14. This seems even more challenging when the Census predicts that by the end of the 21st century these numbers will nearly double to 36 million and 72 million, respectively.
In order to make schools work for all students, attaining these education goals is essential. One question that is on the minds of researchers is how to do this for children from low-income families who are linguistically and culturally different from the U.S. mainstream. Especially since each year, they make up a greater percentage of the US population. While there are no simple answers, some answers are found on a wide range of considerations. These considerations deal with the nature of early literacy and how best to promote it; the influence of SES, language, and culture on children’s formal schooling; and what home–school connections or partnerships can and should be.

One controversial topic in education focuses on questions that center around what early literacy is and how children learn to read, which are central to the goals previously stated. Research done by Alexander & Entwisle; Snow, Barnes, Chandler, Goodman, & Hemphill shows that children from low-income families are more dependent on school experiences for academic literacy development than middle class children. There is not the lack of literacy experience for low-income children in their homes; it is because their experiences are more limited than that of middle class children.

Another dimension of this controversy is the classic dilemma of how much emphasis to put on letters and sounds and their combination in forming words. The significance of this controversy comes from the reprinting of Reading Research Quarterly’s “First Grade Studies,” which demonstrates the importance of “code” emphasis in beginning reading instruction. This is also coincided with another controversy about preschool years. This is where the importance of phonological awareness as an important component to learning how to read became an issue. While there is agreement on its’ importance, there is not so much agreement on how to use it in practical application.

Supporters of strong training in both phonics and phonological awareness will recommend different practices to achieve the goal of literacy. Two different types of perspectives are sociocultural, developmentalist and cognitive-linguistic. A sociocultural, developmentalist perspective on literacy puts emphasis on the importance of meaningful and functional literacy experiences, while a cognitive-linguistic perspective puts emphasis on the critical role of phonological knowledge in learning to read. Although these perspectives are contrasting, work is being done to forge a broad consensus about what literacy is and how to best promote it.
A successful literacy program will address each of the components necessary to read and write. This will promote literacy growth in the earliest and later years. Optimal instruction will vary by learner and stage of literacy development, but the basic ingredients of a healthy literacy diet are the same for all children (and adults) learning to read an alphabetic language Effective instructional practices to promote emergent and beginning literacy for all children include the following:
• Literate environments
• Direct, explicit, systematic instruction in specific skills that will
Promote transfer and automaticity
• Discussions and conversations about books
• focus on word-recognition skills and strategies
• Strategically sequenced instruction and curriculum materials
• Organizational and classroom management strategies to maximize academic
engagement and appropriate use of materials
• an explicit focus on language development
• Valid and frequent assessments to allow teachers to gauge development and
target instruction appropriately
• Parental involvement (home–school connection)

There are several interrelated factors bearing on children’s literacy development.
They are:
Socioeconomic Status- This is central to the discussion of how schools can meet the needs of low-income students and their families. Studies (Baker et al., 1995) have found that students from low-income homes have fewer opportunities for interactions involving literacy, than students from middle-class homes.

Language- This plays a large part in education as in the United States, there is a disproportionate number of children from certain ethnolinguistic groups. This is in conflict with the matter that may of these groups that are from low-income households. The debate of how to best instruct English Language Learners is rampant, should it be in their primary language or treated as a second language?

Culture- Even the method of instruction is different in other cultures and this plays a role in American instruction as this could be perceived in an ill manner. This is due to how the children in each culture are socialized. This causes issue when the style is different from that of the teacher.

Educators have been exploring numerous avenues to improve outcome, in particular literacy outcomes since at least the 1990’s. There are several types of programs and interventions undertaken to try to address the literacy achievement gap between low- and higher-income students. The following are some programs that have seen success.
Parent Involvement and Parent Training- Since home life affects school life, it is important for parents to take interest in their children’s lives at school. The more teachers attempt to involve parents, the better parents feel. The training is a firm ground for parents and will enhance their involvement in their children’s learning.

Tutoring- The ultimate in focused, targeted instruction. Tutoring is the ideal program. It is however restricted by funds and time. It is actually an old form of teaching that dates back further than group-based teaching, which is now considered the norm. Bloom suggests tutoring is the most effective instructional arrangement. He continues saying that compared to regular classroom instruction involving one teacher and roughly 30 students, effective tutoring raises student achievement by 2 standard deviations. Some examples of tutoring programs are Reading Recovery, the Howard Street Model, and Book Buddies.

Comprehensive School Based Efforts- This is an attempt to influence numerous aspects of child’s environment simultaneously. Sometimes these models incorporate tutoring in them. One program that follows the comprehensive model is Success for All.

The end of the article mentions implications and future directions. Here the question becomes “What is to be done if these goals become attainable?” The first step is to put into practice instruction and intervention programs that work. Tutoring and comprehensive programs suggests productive areas but are not being utilized in enough places. One of the biggest obstacles to this is cost. While just as important as the latter information, effective instructional practices for the classrooms should be more prevalent than they are currently. Beyond this, there is a ubiquitous need for further research.

In conclusion, the US, as a nation, has committed itself to all children beginning school ready to learn, attaining competency in subject areas, and increasing parental involvement that will help our children to succeed. We need to keep striving towards this so we can see success for all students regardless of other situations in their lives.