Literacy Matters - Winter 2020

Meeting the South Carolina College and Career Ready Standards with Culturally Responsive Academic Language Instruction

by Lillian G. Reeves

Reading Matters Teaching Matters

of student identities, abilities, and backgrounds, this article is concerned with the performance of students identified as African American and Hispanic by NAEP assessments. Reference to each diverse student group’s performance on the NAEP assessment is beyond the scope of this article. The NAEP and SC Ready data indicate that some diverse student populations are not being prepared for success on standardized assessments that impact future opportunities and access to higher education. Nationally, this may result from disparities, including continued cultural and linguistic bias in the formation of standardized tests (Kim & Zabelina, 2015; Kruse, 2016; Taylor, 1978;) combined with limited vocabulary instruction throughout K-12 schooling (Scott & Nagy, 1997; Wanzek, 2014). An evaluation of the South Carolina state standards suggested that learning academic vocabulary is considered valuable, “but lack specificity with regard to the complexity levels (despite requiring students to read grade-level texts)” (“A review”, 2015, p. 12). With limited guidelines from the standards, South Carolina’s students may not be getting enough practice and use of academic language instruction needed to “meet expectations” on common reading assessments. Following the failed NCLB (2001) reform, the federal government turned its attention to ways to improve the United States’ academic standing among developed nations. This concern resulted in the mandate that each state adopt College- and Career-Ready Standards (n.d.). While many states adopted the Common Core Standards, some states like South Carolina crafted their own College- and Career-Ready Standards. These standards broadly identified goals and content necessary for K-12 students to be successful in the workforce and in college (n.d.). From the standards, states wrote and adapted their own extensive curriculum goals across the content areas. Achieve (“About us”, 2017), a nonpartisan, nonprofit education organization, conducted a comparative review (“A review”, 2015) between the ELA and math South Carolina College-and Career-Ready Standards and the Common Core Standards and the Indiana Academic Standards. In their review of the SC ELA standards, Achieve’s key findings included that the standards did not “address the need for all content areas to address the issue of literacy skills in instruction” (p. 5). A Brief Review of the Literature Students’ language demands only increase as they move out of elementary grades and into middle and secondary classrooms.

ABSTRACT — In this article, the author shows that there is a clear demand for academic language knowledge in the South Carolina College and Career Ready Standards, on standardized tests, and in content area classes in middle and high school. Despite this, research indicates that students are given limited exposures to explicit vocabulary instruction throughout their K-12 experiences. Consequently, the article suggests effective culturally responsive pedagogies and best practices in vocabulary instruction to illustrate ways to better support diverse, 21st century youth in their efforts to meet the academic language demands of South Carolina’s College and Career Ready Standards. Standards (CCRS). To meet the standards, it may be advantageous for teachers to routinely practice explicit academic language instruction. Vocabulary practices that create multiple, meaningful exposures to academic language and that resonate culturally and linguistically (Hollie, 2012) with students may help them build the type of academic language needed to competently meet and exceed the College- and Career-Ready Standards. The Problem In 2017, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reported eighth-grade students identifying as Black scored 26 points below their White counterparts on the reading assessment and students identifying as Hispanic scored 20 points below their White counterparts (NAEP, 2017). Though NAEP reported gains in eighth-grade reading scores, it also cautioned that already high-achieving students accounted for the documented gains. On the 2017 SC Ready English language arts (ELA) assessment (SCDE, 2017), 44.4% of African American eighth- grade students and 32.4% of Latino students scored “does not meet expectations.” An additional 35.1% of African American eighth graders and 34.4% of Latino eighth graders scored “approaches expectations”. Combined, 79% of African American eighth graders did not meet expectations on the ELA SC Ready assessment and a combined 66% of Latino eighth graders did not meet expectations. I use the designations of “does not meet” on assessment as it has been reported by NAEP while also recognizing what Gay (2010) acknowledges about labeling students as at risk. Gay (2010) suggests that these are context specific labels for students operating in complex circumstances who may not have had access to curriculum and assessments that adequately validate and incorporate cultural and linguistic diversity (p. 228). Additionally, while “diverse students” refers to a range The United States’ Department of Education has called on states to establish and meet College- and Career-Ready

Literacy Matters | Volume 20 • Winter 2020 | scira.org | 43

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