Literacy and Social Organization

by Carol Padden, Department of Communication, UCSD
(web site)   (email: cpadden@weber.ucsd.edu)  

The nature of reading

·        First order vs. second order skills

Natural language as first-order

–   Reading and mathematics as second-order

·        First-order skills

–   Acquired without instruction

–   Universal

·        Second order skills

–   Require instruction

–   Not universal

Literacy and mathematics

·        Both are culturally expressed

–   Many languages do not have written systems

–   Mathematic expressions vary across cultures

• Base systems

• How to count, what is countable

·        Knowledge of both can vary a great deal within a community

The problem

·        Large numbers of school-age children in the US, across all social classes, have significant difficulties learning to read

·        But failure to read is much more likely among poor children, among nonwhite children and nonnative speakers of English.

Questions

·        How much of reading difficulty is due to biological factors, e.g. processing problems or dyslexia?

·        Or are there social causes for reading difficulty?

·         

The skill of reading

·        Individual: developing skill in silent reading

–   Must learn code for spoken language in visible form

–   Must develop fluency in reading

• Slow reading impairs comprehension

The skill of reading

·        Yet also social: highly dependent on instruction

• Few children teach themselves to read

• Most children need adult guidance

• Learning to read requires many hours of practice

• Must have access to materials

Skills needed for reading

·        Phonemic awareness: the challenge of the alphabet

–   Symbol for sound

• Segmenting the spoken stream into symbolic units

–   “Deep” orthography of English

• Sequences of letters for a sound

• COBRA and not CKOBRA

• BACK and not BAK

• Night, neighborhood, philosophy, morphology

More skills needed for reading

·        Morphological awareness: spoken word vs. written word

–   (read, red, reading, reader, ready, redden)

·        Multiple levels of recognition and comprehension

–   Scanning from left to right

–   Memory for words, sentences, chunks of text

Understanding written text

·        Higher-order skills of interpretation and inference

–   Adopting the author’s perspective

–   The structure of a book

–   Genres (lists, narratives, descriptions)

Sources of reading difficulty

·        Biological

–   Cognitive bases:  difficulties in phonological processing

–   Language delay

·        Social

–   Poor instruction

–   Low expectations

–   Unavailability of books

–   Detrimental school practices

Interaction of biological
and social in reading

·        Begins long before the school years

·        Normal language and cognitive development

–   Language skills

–   Memory and processing skills

·        Interacting with readers and writers: learning literate behaviors

Deaf readers

·        As a group, children with hearing loss are more likely to experience reading difficulty.

·        Because of group effect, reason must be due to deafness, most likely impairment in phonological processing

Biological and social factors
in reading

·        A small group deaf readers manage to learn to read despite hearing loss

–   Biological factors alone insufficient to account for reading difficulty

–   Skilled deaf readers share certain social characteristics

·        Reading is interaction of biological and social resources

Skilled deaf readers

·        Early language acquisition

–   Many deaf children experience language delay (late diagnosis, little communication at home)

–   Skilled readers have early language experience

·        Availability of exposure to skilled adult deaf readers

·        Learning to read visually, then phonologically

Multiple modes of reading

·        Deaf children learn how words look, then how they might sound

·        Early spelling mistakes reflect attention to orthography

–   GRIL (switching letter position)

–   BEROW (preserving relative letter position)

–   OGEALE (recalling letters in a word)

–   QENNY (doubling in the right position but wrong letter)

Becoming a skilled reader

·        As deaf children acquire larger written vocabulary, learn more English, which in turn helps with reading development

·        Older readers show evidence of phonological awareness despite deafness

·        Phonological awareness not only about sound, but about relationships between symbols

·        This awareness can develop without sound

Children at risk: Social factors

·        Shirley Heath: ethnographic research in “Piedmont” - area in North Carolina and South Carolina

·        Two working-class communities

–   White working-class

–   Black working-class

·        Children from these communities more likely to show reading difficulty

Social factors in reading

·        Biological factors alone unlikely to explain persistent reading difficulty

·        Look to social characteristics

·        What characterizes these communities and why should they differ from middle-class communities?

White working-class

·        Strong emphasis on teaching of statements and labels

·        Children are expected to repeat information as precisely as possible, to learn to “talk right”

–   Oral performance is rigidly controlled

–   Strong emphasis on literal interpretation texts

Black working-class

·        Oral performance involves wide-ranging language play and imagination

·        Strong emphasis on stories as community events, involving the audience as participants and commentators

·        Stories detail actions and results through discourse or sound effects and gestures

From home to school

·        Working-class home traditions conflict with classroom expectations

·        Text is flexible and can be interpreted in multiple ways (conflict w/ white working class)

–   Causes conflict for children who are socialized to understand texts in prescribed ways

From home to school

·        Text is bounded and single-themed (conflict w/ black working class)

–   At home children are encouraged to tell richly themed stories that do not need closure, or bounded structures

Different practices

·        White and black working-class children come to school with different sets of knowledge about language and talk

·        Both experience difficulty with school practices

–   For different reasons

Key points

·        Child is socialized into practices of her community, including practices involving reading and writing

–   Socialization into a constellation of practices including discursive practices of the community

–   Discursive practices: defined as organization of talk and presentation of talk to an audience within a community

More key points

·        American communities vary along dimensions of class and ethnicity, with varying traditions of discursive practices

·        Literacy is located differently in these different communities

·        Causes conflicts between home and school practices

More key points

·        Certain narrative styles are emphasized in school contexts

–   Children who know them are rewarded

–   Children who use different styles are met with resistance or non-support

·        Acquisition of advanced skills are highly interdependent with social contexts

·        Learning to read is not “natural,” but taught

Summary

·        Biological factors can interact with social and cultural factors in reading

–   Late diagnosis because of unfamiliarity of deafness can lead to language delay, impairing the ability to learn to read

–   Poor nutrition can cause cognitive difficulties, affecting memory and other skills needed to learn to read

Further interactions

·        Social resources can redirect children to alternative modes of reading acquisition

–   Deaf children learn read from other skilled deaf adults

–   School instruction can help children learn to read even if home environments do not have books and other reading practices

Summary

·        Group effects in reading disability

–   Poor early reading instruction

–   Difficulty of transition from home to school

–   Low expectations, or injurious teaching practices

–   Poor teacher training

–   Poorer school districts are more likely to have lower reading performance scores

·        But: children can learn to read