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By the Rubric of Rhythm, They'll Read
Cherie A. Ward M.A.T. B.A.
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eBook - ePub
By the Rubric of Rhythm, They'll Read
Cherie A. Ward M.A.T. B.A.
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About This Book
By the Rubric of Rhythm, They'll Read
offers alternative keys for children
reading below basic to succeed.
Opening doors and new horizons
for students placed at risk,
tapping into their multiple intelligences
that systemic approaches and standardized tests have missed.
It discusses the history of public schooling
and the reading literacy paradigm,
stating the problem while presenting solutions
that stimulate and liberate students' mindsâ
Into real-world social
and interactional contexts,
using poetry to renegotiate narrative texts
to promote individual agency through
oral, audio, visual, written language,
fusing technology and arts at its best!
The book is for parents, teachers,
educational stakeholders and laypeople alike.
It's for anyone who wants to step outside of the box
and in our children igniteâ
The spark that will make students
want to learn as they dance and sing,
taking into account their prior knowledge
and the cultural capital they bring.
An educator's creation through imagination
and willingness to take the lead,
creating multimodal communicative texts using poetry
so that by the rubric of rhythm, they'll read!
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Information
Topic
EducationSubtopic
Learning DisabilitiesChapter I
Whatâs Going On?
Background of the Problem
Reading Illiteracy:Background of the Problem
At the time this study was conducted, there were an estimated 8,166,353 African American children attending public schools in the United States, and more than half were represented as students placed at risk due to their below basic literacy skills, particularly in the area of reading (United States Department of Education 2009). This number reflected approximately 4% of the ethnic population of students attending public school. As of 2013, the percentage of African American students had decreased 1 or 2 percentage points (National Center for Education Statistics, 2013). Many of these students have âspecial educationâ labels that are only applied because these selected learners require more assistance and time than teachers have during the course of the day. This label appears to be directly relational to the systemic constraints of time that teachers must dedicate to each subject. Additionally, students with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) have multiple challenges, included among them learning disabilities. An IEP is a legal document which includes the input of the general classroom teacher, special education teacher, the student, the family, and practitioners who will support the special needs of the student.
For these students, alternative methods must be made available to their teachers, including ways to implement curricula that promote social and interactional contexts, as well as individual agency/engagement for all students, specifically those with mild intellectual disabilities. Such curricula appear to be a necessary complement or alternative to the rigid structure of the antiquated methods of measuring learning effectiveness as identified by the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities (AAIDD 2006). These measurements include the inability to memorize many lines or the inability to work well in group situations, among other measuring tools.
After fifty-eight years since March on Washington, the passing of Public Law (PL) 94-142 and the influx of technology, selected African American learners are still represented as underachievers in the area of reading, particularly those ages 4â8.
PL 94-142 is a federal law that was enacted in 1975 as a part of the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) which guarantees all students with disabilities (ages birth to 21) the right to a free and appropriate public education designed to meet their individual needs (Gariguillo & Metcalf 2008). Teachers remark, âIt is only when students are engaged in the learning process that the intended tasks in a classroom can be achievedâ (Ward, Witherspoon & Houston 2013). The subject of reading has borne the brunt of the ineffectiveness of the sole use of traditional narrative texts historically (Boykin, et al. 2000). Since the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s and the founding of the national Head Start (1964) program, where African American learners excelled in the reading readiness process (United States Department of Education, 1970), the progress for this population of students in this group has been meager.
As mentioned earlier, alternative approaches (e.g., Boykin 1995; Davis 1998; Gaines 2002; Heath 1978; Welsh-Asante 1993) to learning progress have been found to be effective for African American learners. Unfortunately, the current systemic structure has not continued to build upon and expand the resource base for these kinds of diverse approaches across the mainstream of classrooms in urban public schools. Moreover, the enforcement of the mandates, which the laws specify has been seriously lacking, and the overriding systemic constraints when implementing diverse teaching and learning pedagogy has continued unabatedly (Cartledge & Dukes 2008). Additionally, because state and local school districts are able to manipulate mandates of the law which do not specifically outline their responsibilities, they tend to barely meet the requirements for the students, while fulfilling their legal obligations.
It is not that the system has not implemented texts which are engaging to students. Instead, such systems are just not in place as mainstream standard reading materials to be used on a daily basis. Since critical discourse allows the researcher not only to critique a paradigm but also to create original solutions or to alter existing modalities, this investigation examined using poetry as an alternative text to the traditional narrative texts currently used to teach, to assess, and to articulate the studentâs intelligence strengths.
The setback in reading literacy for selected African American learners with mild learning disabilities becomes even more unsettling when reading below basic is not treated as a special need until a student has an Individualized Education Plan (IEP) within the current systemic framework for receiving additional help. According to Public Law (PL) 94-142, an IEP is a document which is developed in conjunction with the parent(s)/guardian(s), and is an individually tailored statement describing an educational plan for each learner with exceptionalities. It is required to address (1) the present level of academic functioning; (2) annual goals and accompanying instructional objectives; (3) educational services to be provided; (4) the degree to which the pupil will be able to participate in general education programs; (5) plans for initiating services and length of service delivery; and (6) an annual evaluation procedure specifying objective criteria to determine if instructional objectives are being met. (Garguillo & Metcalf, 2008)
It is only under these circumstances that a student may receive consistent specialized services in public schools. For African American students who may need extra help, the current practices alone are not effective (National Center for Educational Statistics 2011). An exploration of the discourse on the history of public schools, whereby Charles Mann, also known as the âFather of Education,â in the early 1800s, sought to create an educational system for Caucasian children as a way to keep them off the streets for truancy purposes (Cremin, 1957; Bennett, 1968). During his years as Secretary of Education, Mann published 12 annual reports on aspects of his work, programs, and the integral relationship between education, freedom, and Republican government. At that time, African Americans were not considered in the educational paradigm because it was illegal for them to be literate.
Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had passed, public educational privileges for African Americans were still not equal. In defense of the system, however, discrimination based on race, color, religion or sex was addressed in the language used in the legislation, but the implementations of anti-discriminatory legislation were not immediately forthcoming. Consequently, the lack of priority to enforce the implementations stated by the law continued the discourse of underachievement and inequality which still predominates today.
As stated earlier, Public Law 94-142 requires all children to have a free and appropriate education (FAPE), which includes their cultural, familial, and communal environments through teaching and learning, specifically those with special needs. However, an exploration of such subjects reveals these contexts are not readily available through the sole use of the traditional narrative text which is currently being used to teach and assess students with mild learning disabilities. Rather, traditional narrative texts, told in short story format, were written in prose form were used. The only studies which found positive effects on African American students using narrative texts were those where the language of the text was renegotiated (language adapted to communicate using various learning styles) into multimodal (various ways to communicate, i.e. written/oral, audio, and visual) possibilities (Asante 1997; Asante & Welsh-Asante 1993; Boykin & Mills 2011; Swanson & Mayben 2011).
Moreover, the public school system adopted standardized testing and classification (labeling) as a way to categorize students with special intellectual needs, and African American children became the predominant population in the categories of ADHD, mild learning disabilities, and reading âbelow basicâ (Hardman, Drew, & Egan 2001). Although over the years, the name was changed from handicapped to disabled to discredit the stigma that came with the label, still, students were often ostracized and left out of the mainstream student population. If this was among tested populations, the general course for all races of students in this population showed African Americans as lagging behind in the area of reading literacy (Hardman, et al.). As for African American students with mild intellectual disabilities, the need to focus on engaging them prior to teaching and assessing them is essential for the reading readiness process.
The positive effect of the renegotiation of text for all students, specifically African American students with mild learning disabilities, is engagement, according to the research of Asante, 1997; Asante & Welsh-Asante, 1993; Boykin & Mills, 2011; & Swanson & Mayben, 2011. When students can connect to a text, their involvement with the learning process is deeper than when they are asked to just respond based on what they read, thereby limiting the ways in which they can communicate meaning and understanding. Engagement represents the pivotal point from the articulation of the message to the intended receiver that impacts the communication dynamic in a classroom of learners. It is the integral component to be encouraged for success in the reading readiness process. If the attention of children is not âgrabbed,â as Rickford (1993) writes, then the teaching and assessment using narratives or any text will be difficult for these challenged readers.
Next, alternative approaches which have been successfully implemented within the discourse of underachievement and are in alignment with those used in this investigation will be highlighted in the following section and discussed in more detail in the literature review. The focus of the research was a child-centered curriculum versus the systemic-centered paradigm, which is more widely used in urban public schools (Ward, Houston, & Witherspoon 2013). Therefore, it is essential that studies be examined that use multimodal approaches to engage African American students in the reading process and help to understand how they provide students with a multiplicity of ways to communicate understanding and meaning.
Alternative Approaches to Traditional Narrative Texts
Presenting Alternative Approaches
The successful uses of traditional narratives (short stories written in prose) by various scholars (e.g., Asante & Asante Welsh 1993; Boykin 1995; Cho 2010; Gaines 2002; Halliday & Hasan 1989; Harris & Trousdale 1993; Parks-Lee 2001; Parn 2006) among others, have occurred by renegotiating the written/oral text. In most of these cases, renegotiation has included the fusion of movement, dance, drama, imagination, technology, repetition, rhythm, meter, and tone into the curriculum that have made previously reluctant readers in those studies more inclined to participate in the learning process. Using innovative ways to communicate the text offers...