Coming Home to School

In her podcast on Culturally Responsive Instruction (CRI), Kathy Au nails it on the head when she introduces the phrase "coming home to school". Children should be excited to come to school and view school as a place where everyone can be a successful learner. With the great diversity in classrooms today, CRI establishes an environment that gives academic access to culturally diverse students as well as mainstream cultural groups. 

There is a great deal of discussion on competition versus cooperation in the classroom. A solid classroom will have both, but when each is introduced is a critical factor in CRI. Some cultures value cooperation as a key component of relationships. To expect children raised in such a culture to have an immediate competitive drive could be quite stressful to a child. To ease students into competition (an unavoidable aspect of adult life), cooperative activities may be used to develop a welcoming classroom that includes all students in discussion and does not allow some to dominate the conversation. Pair sharing allows students to share their ideas with a partner before sharing them with the whole group. This gives students an opportunity to practice what they want to say or make sure they are saying what they mean before sharing their ideas with a larger audience. This may be a supportive activity for ELLs who may be too shy to share with the group or may lack confidence in their use of English and gives them a chance to practice in a low risk environment. Quick sharing allows students to think briefly on a question before each student provides a comment on the topic. Such an activity includes all students and does not allow some to control the conversation or others to avoid participation. CRI is one method that is helping to close the achievement gap between dominant and minority cultures. 

I believe that CRI involves more than just looking at a student's broad cultural upbringing in that, as teachers, we will need to look at the student's culture of literacy. What literacy does the student bring to class? Is the student advanced in his or her reading abilities, or has the student never been read to at home before? Whatever the student brings to school in regard to literacy is what we will have to work with. We must meet our students where they are at. 

Vygotsky refers to teaching at such a level as the zone of proximal development (ZPD), the level at which the student can complete a task with the teacher's help. Why would we try to teach a child any other way? For students to "come home to school," we must consider how to make school the accepting, loving, and encouraging environment that homes should be. When a parent teaches his or her child to tie a shoe, the parent first models tying, then the parent might take the child's hands and tie the shoe with the child. The parent might also teach the child methods such as "bunny ears" and remind the child of the method and he or she practices, and finally the parent will have the child practice tying his or her shoe many times and offer help as needed. This is the same strategy we should be using as teachers.

Parents might say they are just teaching their child how to tie his or her shoes; in academia, we call it gradual release of responsibility. Teaching in such a way provides structure and support for all learners, but also gives students confidence that if they need more help, the teacher is right there alongside them. Having such confidence in their teachers requires that teachers know each student's ZPD and can identify which reading strategies each student uses, are beginning to use, and what they will need to use next. It is a tough job for teachers, coming to know all of their students in such a comprehensive way, but it is critical for the success of students and their ability to "come home to school" and learn to love school as though it were another home.   

Teaching tips I've picked up along the way (I will try to make this a recurring section in future posts):

-When grouping students for small-group instruction, vary the types of grouping. One way is by ability level, another is by specific needs. Can you think of other ways?

-Using letters and sounds when teaching children to read are helpful methods, but always keep meaning at the forefront of learning to read. Reading is more than just being able to recite the words on a page. 

Listen to Kathy Au's podcast here: http://www.bamradionetwork.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=301:jackstreet54&catid=59:reading-radio&Itemid=110

Real World Literacy

"Teacher: Let's get ready to sound these words out.

Child: m-a-n

Teacher: Say it quick.

Child: man."

Sound familiar? This is an example of schooled literacy, literacy that has been indoctrinated into our schools and that is, most unfortunately, terribly dull. It is this form of literacy that is being used to prepare students for the high-stakes testing that has become rampant across the nation. This example, provided by Rebecca Powell and Nancy Davidson in "The Donut House: Real World Literacy in an Urban Kindergarten Classroom," shows a removal of literacy from context which is often taught through repetitive exercises and workbooks. This is the type of literacy that is being taught to children as they first enter classrooms, when their minds are fresh and excited to learn. 

How has this method been working for teachers? For students? According to Powell and Davidson, frustrated teachers and restless, rebellious students are emerging as a result. Students are being given out-of-context words to read and write without good reason as to why they are even learning the material. They are asked to analyze nearly every piece of literature they are presented rather than shown how literacy can be used as form of communication. In other words, many students' first interactions with literacy are boring. No wonder so many are struggling! 

What if their first interactions with literacy were real-world situations that empowered students to solve real-world problems? Or if they were shown a thrilling reason to want to learn: that reading can inform, inspire, inquire, intrigue? Situated literacy can be a starting point for just that. By incorporating culturally relevant subject matter, an urban school teacher was able to create a literacy project that engaged her students, exposed them to many forms of literacy, and developed relationships between her students and the community. The class was learning how donuts were made as well as how to start a small business because of the donut shop located nearby the elementary school. The comprehensive project, "The Donut Shop," introduced students to baking, business, and building vocabulary, made connections with local bankers, potential "stockholders," and building inspectors, as well as instilled a sense of accomplishment in students as they worked together to create their "business". This example of real-world literacy provided students with so much more than the ability to pass a test. 

To explore real-world literacy in more depth, several classmates and I took a look at some of the literacy in our town. We decided to go to a roller skating rink to see how literacy manifested itself to children in their everyday experiences. Glowing lights, children of all ages, and an extremely reasonable entrance fee all set the stage for a great time roller skating, and the elderly owners were quite friendly, too. The cashier welcomed and directed visitors to the skate counter and where they might want to purchase food. Once inside, everything was easily navigable with signs showing where to receive ones skates, where the restrooms were, and where to grab a bite to eat. The only thing you had to know to do was to skate in the same direction as everyone else. After a game was played, the phrase "skate in the normal direction" indicated that it was time for things to go back to normal. The skating literacy was fairly basic as long as one listened to the DJ, who directed when games or normal skating was occurring, and watched in which direction everyone else was moving. 

Arcade games, "junk food" (hot dogs, pretzels, nachos), and at-your-own-risk signs provided the primary sources of written literacy. It seemed that the point of literacy was to either induce a profit or prevent the business from injury liability. Students who frequent skating rinks might show their interactions with this literacy by writing stories about the skate rink with pictures of the warning signs and food labels or may list their favorite arcade games. Because of the appeal of skating rinks to youth, the font and design of the rink's name was a graffiti style with the appearance of splattered paint in the background. Such an interesting style might also be observed in students' work as they try their hands at different fonts. 

The literacy of a roller skating rink was very different than that found in the business realm of the donut shop lesson. There were no stockholders, bankers, or building inspectors, but there was a DJ, a cashier, and the person who gives you your skates. Knowing what tunes to play and when, counting change and making small talk, and knowing whether or not the skate sizes run large or small all present unique forms of literacy for those working in a roller skating environment. Frequent skaters will catch on to these more hidden forms of literacy. Skating rink literacy, donut shop literacy, grocery store literacy. You name it. These are the everyday literacies that students may be bringing to the classroom, and these are the types of unique literacy that teachers will need to build upon. If we know what students are bringing with them from their own cultural experiences, we can use their interests and knowledge to excite students about literacy and help expand upon what they know. Shall we get started?

I have never been one who enjoyed social media much, but I think working on this blog will help me to consider with deeper thought the impact of the many types of literacy that are around us.