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Craig, Holly and Washington, Julie. (2006).
Malik Goes to School: Examining the Language Skills of
African American Students from Preschool–5th
Grade. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates
Pp. xi + 175 ISBN 0-8058-5811-3
Pp. vii + 310 $39.95 ISBN 0-8058-3402-8 |
Reviewed by Melaney Michael Sanchez
College of Notre Dame of Maryland
March 9, 2007
Craig & Washington
The Craig and Washington text begins with an introduction to Malik, an African American 4-year-old speaker of African American English, living in the Metropolitan Detroit area with his mother who was a single, blue collar worker. Malik had average cognitive ability, was energetic and enthusiastic, and was a moderate to heavy dialect user. The authors followed Malik through elementary school and found his academic achievement to be low and found that it continually declined as he became older. Craig and Washington said they wrote this book for students like Malik, “Improving understanding of the reasons why the educational outcomes of Malik and other young African American students are poor is the motivation that underlies our intensive program of research at the University of Michigan.” (p. 4) They go on to point out that conditions have not improved for these students since the beginning of the 21st century.
“Past explanations for the Black-White Achievement Gap have focused primarily on the role of poverty in low achievement, and the nature of early literacy learning experiences for African American Students. Our research indicates that dialect has explanatory potential as well…” (p. 6) Craig and Washington dedicated ten years of their lives to studying, “…ways to improve current understanding of the language and literacy skills of African American students.” (p. 6)
Craig and Washington found that many African Americans are bidialectical meaning that they speak African American English and Standard American English. African American English production rates are affected by grade level, socioeconomic status, gender, and age. As exposure to Standard American English is increased the frequency of African American English is lessened in school contexts. “A dialect shift occurs in first grade for spoken discourse and at third grade for reading aloud.” (p. 51) The authors found evidence to support their hypothesis that, “…the dialect shifters are the more linguistically advanced students.” (p. 48)
Evaluation instruments were blamed for the overwhelming misidentification of African American students for speech services. In order for testing to be culturally and linguistically fair the authors recommend three major components be included: “screening for a language problem, identification of a language problem, and assessment of language skills.” (p.65) The authors noted that assessments should include evaluation of expressive and receptive language skills, informal and formal methods, notation of growth, repeated evaluations of skill, and authentic assessment by a competent clinician.
Factors contributing to the Black-White achievement gap were found to be, “…poverty, classroom environments and attitudes to schooling, and early family literacy practices.” (p. 83) Craig and Washington emphasized that poverty cannot be based on income alone. For example, lower socioeconomic status homes tend to have fewer books and their children are cared for by individuals that have lower reading levels. School quality, or the fact that African American students attend the worst schools on average, was also cited as a negative outcome of poverty. In the classroom environment it was found that high quality teachers who gave positive feedback and had high expectations for their students experienced the results of better overall achievement.
Teachers must understand African American English so that they will not mistakenly treat dialect variations as reading or writing errors. In Craig and Washington’s research it was found that weak syntactic skills were a likely indicator of a language disorder. Educators should also look for a dialect shift toward Standard American English around the age of 7 or 8 as most African American students learn to do this as part of their formal schooling. “Dialect shifting develops spontaneously for significant numbers of elementary-grade African American students and adoption of mainstream linguistic forms is positively associated with reading achievement.” (p. 106)
The authors concluded by stating that no single variable can explain the difficulties African American English speakers experience and they encouraged the reader to realize the complexities involved in variables that affect achievement such as, “…poverty and associated low family literacy levels, health risks, poorer quality classrooms and teachers, …low teacher expectations, and gaps between family and school perceptions and expectations.” (p. 109) Craig and Washington suggest that research must continue so that educators can better understand risk factors. We must continue to search for resiliency factors that enable students to be successful under complicated circumstances.
I personally felt, as an educator, that this text requires one to be familiar with linguistics and research. The recommendations made were helpful but most classroom teachers would not have the time or patience to read the text in its entirety in order to review the list of variables and recommendations that authors suggest one consider when educating African American English speakers.
This book would be helpful to researchers in building on the present findings. Graduate students may also find it helpful as they create their own studies in preparation of writing a dissertation. This text is an excellent resource for research students because the appendixes include methods and examples of coding systems, scoring details for expressive and receptive language measures, the Complex Syntax Scoring Taxonomy, prompts for tasks, surveys, and a checklist of African American Features. Perhaps the authors could claim that the text provides a “toolbox” for further investigation.
Craig and Washington challenge the reader to do just that, “…we hope that the case of Malik…will provoke discussion and further research.” They go on to say, “It is our hope that this book will provide practicing clinicians and beginning teachers with a framework for interpreting the new research that will continue to emerge.” (p. 111) The background of African American English that is provided, the clear explanation of evaluation procedures, and the suggestions for improved evaluation of African American students lead the reader to want to continue this quest. We must seek general education based solutions, through further research, so that children, like Malik, will no longer fail.
Harris, Kamhi & Pollock
The Harris, Kamhi & Pollock volume is a compilation of information that was presented from fourteen papers at the 1998 Memphis Research Symposium. These essays present a life-span focus regarding literacy and African Americans. Throughout the chapters topics such as the history of African American literacy, emergent literacy, language acquisition, dialectical differences, computer literacy, comprehension strategies, and academic literacy in the church are included.
Chapter Summaries
1. Public and Personal Meanings of Literacy
Qualls begins the essay with a definition of literacy as,
“a requisite for human existence and
“successful” survival” (2001, p. 3). She
reviews the historical and social events that have shaped the
African American literacy profile including slavery, literacy
tests that were given for voter registration, and equal access to
education.
2. Come Sit Down and Let Mama Read: Book Reading Between
African American Mothers and Their Infants
Chapter two observes the interaction that occurs between an
African American mother and her child with books. Hammer found
that the literacy style of school more closely resembles that of
Whites which implies that educators need to become knowledgeable
about the literacy experiences that African American students
possess.
3. Spoken and Written Narrative Development: African American
Preschoolers as Story Tellers and Storymakers
Bloome et al. in chapter three focus on the early spoken and
narrative developments that African American preschoolers evolve
through as they learn to make and tell stories. The authors
found that the children could differentiate between language
genres at an early age.
4. Emergent Literacy: Home-School Connections
Chapter four investigates emergent literacy and home-school
connections. Scott and Marcus found that there are barriers for
collaboration between home and school that educators must
consciously overcome. Teachers were encouraged to build on the
strengths of each student by getting to know each child and his
or her culture. This empowers children to share home-based
literacy experiences. This can assist in bridging the
discontinuities between home and school.
5. Literacy in the African Diaspora: Black Caribbean
American Communities
Chapter five cites Ogbu’s Cultural-Ecological Theory to
explain the differences in beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors in
relation to literacy between African Americans and Caribbean
Americans (Horner, p. 105). African Americans are considered to
be involuntary immigrants and Black Caribbean Americans are
generally considered to be voluntary immigrants. The history of
each effects beliefs about school and literacy which results in
differing school outcomes.
6. Reading the Typography of Text
In chapter six Hartley and Harris explain that well-designed
texts that consciously utilize reader friendly text features can
assist the reader in understanding and reading the text. In
addition to well-designed texts readers must be taught how to
navigate text conventions so that comprehension is
supported.
7. The Path to Reading Success or Failure: A Choice for the
New Millennium
Chapter seven compares low literacy and high
literacy homes. The findings suggest that storybook reading does
assist in predicting oral language skills and parent teaching can
assist in predicting written language skills (Kamhi & Laing,
p. 137). Kamhi and Laing caution that four factors have been
found to hinder reading development. They include deficits in
phoneme awareness and development of the alphabetic principle,
developing and acquiring reading comprehension strategies,
development of motivation, and inadequate teacher preparation (p.
136)
8. Reading Performance and Dialectical
Variation
Washington and Craig suggest that further research is needed
on dialects because previous research has been conducted with
methodological concerns. They cited numerous studies in chapter
eight that concluded that, “…there was no
cause-and-effect relationship between increased dialect
involvement and low proficiency” (p. 158).
9. Language Variation and Literacy Acquisition in African
American Students
Chapter nine looked at the historical development of African
American language and related historical events to outcomes in
education. LeMoine suggested that students fared well when the
language of school matched the home language. She saw the
responsibility of the teacher as a key component in knowing
students and teaching strategies that would build upon the
African American experience in connection with language,
literacy, and learning (p. 191).
10. From the Pews to the Classrooms: Influences of the
African American Church on Academic Literacy
Three church communities were studied in chapter ten. Moss
discovered that church activities are rich in literacy
experiences and include interacting with the sermon, reading the
Bible, response readings, and verse memorization. Sites of
conflict were acknowledged in relation to the academic essayist
model as the literacy norms in the church do not consistently
translate into academic school norms (Moss, p.
208).
11. Design and Delivery Issues for Literacy Programs Serving
African American Adults
Crowe, Byrne, and Hale provided an overview of state, federal,
and private literacy training programs. Strong participant
motivation, family support, and goal setting were factors that
were identified in successful programs (2001, p. 214). It was
found that African American adults seem to be at a greater risk
for low literacy (2001, p. 229).
12. Effects of Structure Strategy Instruction on Text Recall
in Older African American Adults
Meyer et al. conducted a study using older African American
women in chapter twelve. Five organizational structures were
taught and tested and it was found that an,
“…effective use of reading strategies in everyday
life is one way older adults can compensate for some of the
cognitive declines associated with aging such as slowing and
reduction in working memory (2001, p. 233).
13. An Age-Related View of Computer Literacy for Adult
African Americans
Computer literacy was discussed by Huff and Rogers. They
suggested that educators should try to provide better access,
training, and technology in order to provide African Americans
with skills to work successfully on computers in order to avoid,
“…the creation of a technological
underclass”(2001, p.266).
14. Coming Full Circle: Some Circumstances Pertaining to Low
Literacy Achievement Among African Americans
In the final chapter Baugh provided an overview of sociopolitical, sociocultural, and sociolinguistic influences on literacy. He noted that not one indigenous African language survived from the days of the slave trade. Baugh suggested one cannot ignore the past racism and social injustices that have occurred. A solution that was offered focused upon the need for educational training that is sensitive to history while it looks to the future to close gaps by providing necessary resources for literacy instruction (2001, p. 286).
Literacy in African American Communities provides the reader with a broad overview of literacy including its history, cultural values, and present conditions. This text could serve as an excellent resource for teacher candidates, classroom teachers, librarians, staff development educators, and researchers due to the fact that chapters provided questions for further research, suggestions for extended studies, and strategies for the classroom. Factors that could impede or support literacy were identified throughout.
This book provides research studies that cover broad topics in a single text. As a graduate student I personally found a need for this book because it provided a range of topics for me to consider as I approach my dissertation. Terms were defined throughout the text so that I could continue to read without interruption in comprehension. This text could be a resource in research design as one could emulate a research study that has already been completed or one could extend present research. In addition the references that are listed throughout have provided me with resources for my literature review.
I can envision this text being used by educators in a book club as it covers a variety of interests while providing questions for discussion. Chapter nine, on literacy acquisition, includes five pages of strategies, methodologies, and classroom interventions that could immediately be applied to meet the needs of students. Mentor teachers could use this chapter to work with new teachers or staff could review the list of suggestions and share strategies for implementing changes.
One weakness of the book is that it would be helpful to have a second edition that could include updated research studies by the authors. For example, Julie Washington and Holly Craig's book reviewed above. I found the research helpful but desired a more current review of existing data.
Another weakness was the balance of topics that were included in this volume. The introductory chapter defined literacy and the final chapter provided an overview but the balance of topics in the book was skewed as it focused on emergent literacy in four chapters with outliers such as text features, computer literacy, literacy programs, and literacy within the church as chapters dispersed throughout. It seems as though the authors could have created a logically sequenced presentation with overall themes supporting chapter topics so that the reader could more easily assimilate the information.
Despite these weaknesses the authors attain their goal of providing a text that includes information that is easily read with applicable suggestions and solutions for those seeking to close the achievement gap that exists in literacy for African Americans.
About the Reviewer
Melaney Michael Sanchez is a fourth grade teacher for Calvert County Public Schools in Maryland. She is an adjunct faculty member for the College of Notre Dame of Maryland where she is pursuing a PhD. Her interests are in the areas of minority achievement, reading instruction, teacher education, and second language learning. She received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Michigan-Flint and a master’s degree from McDaniel College in Curriculum and Administration.
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