Reading Matters Winter 2019

rural districts with fewer resources and, yet, these districts must still meet federal mandates. Rural schools often experience sanctions under NCLB and suffer the financial consequences of reduced monies for their schools (Bryant, 2010). In South Carolina, 80% of students graduate from high school; that is seven points lower than the national average. South Carolina is also in the top ten regarding critical needs in the area of college readiness (Showalter, Klein, Johnson, & Hartman, 2017). As rural schools struggle to meet NCLB, now ESSA, the push toward literacy goals have become crucial. High poverty backgrounds are often associated with less developed vocabulary skills, lower comprehension rates, and less overall academic knowledge (Carlisle, Cortina, & Zeng, 2010). In a study of Michigan Title I schools, these researchers found that by third grade, students in poverty were reading 70% below grade level, and their decoding, fluency, and comprehension decreased over time as students moved through elementary school (Carlisle, Cortina, & Zeng., 2010). In this study, students in first, second, and third grade participated in the Reading First Initiative program. Although the Michigan study included rural and urban schools, this research demonstrated that when early reading supports are put in place for students living in poverty, their reading achievement can be improved. These statistics illustrate that teachers and parents play an important role in fostering literacy skills in children who are living in rural poverty. Teachers must focus on appropriate strategies to support students’ overall literacy development. How Does Poverty Affect Early Literacy Performance? Children from families living in poverty are more likely than their peers of higher socioeconomic status (SES) to begin school with poor reading readiness skills (Burchinal, Roberts, Zeisel, & Rowley, 2008). One reason for this occurrence is the limited language experiences of this population prior to formal schooling. Compared to children from middle- or upper-class home environments who enter preschool hearing approximately 45 million words, children living in poverty enter a preschool setting hearing only 16 million words. Hart and Risley (1995) call this the 30 million word gap . This deficit in language exposure leads to children’s limited grasp of sight vocabulary which are those frequently occurring words used in oral and written discourse (Tienken, 2012). The far reaching effect of this early deficit is evident when children enter the third grade. Graves (2006) estimates that third graders immersed in early language know on average 10,000 words, while third graders with limited language exposure know about 5,000 words. Young children with vocabulary deficits often struggle with reading, are less inclined to read, and fall further behind (Arnold & Doctoroff, 2003). This language ability predicts later reading comprehension challenges through high school (Dickinson, 2011). As rural schools struggle to meet NCLB/ ESSA, the push toward more rigorous literacy goals has become crucial.

What Teachers, Parents, and Community Members Can Do to Help Children Living in Rural Poverty Researchers suggest that the earliest literacy opportunities of children living in poverty may occur in settings outside of the home (Neuman, 1999). Therefore, a literacy-enriched environment is one aspect of a high-quality early childhood program and is cited as one of the most important factors in early literacy acquisition (Dickinson & McCabe, 2001). Preschool and elementary school teachers need to be able to implement instructional techniques that effectively increase the literacy skills of students who live in poverty and who may be raised in homes where literacy supports are limited. Presented below are five ways that teachers, parents, and community members can intentionally support the literacy development of young children living in poverty. Idea #1: Provide opportunities for parents to see their students’ literacy in action Parental involvement is a multidimensional construct that is affected by a multitude of factors such as parents’ personal experiences in school, their perception of how they are received by the school community, their limited free time due to work and life obligations, and their time constraints when they are taking care of multiple children (Gorski, 2013; Mendez, 2010). In spite of these factors, children whose families are more involved in school display higher levels of achievement than children whose families are less involved in school. Specifically, parental involvement demonstrates an increase in students’ academic performance and self-efficacy as well as their feelings of and attitude towards school (Turner & Kao, 2009). When the first author taught elementary school, the parents in this rural Title 1 school struggled with some of the constraints mentioned above. Many of the parents had not graduated from high school, had worked multiple jobs, and had child care needs. Due to these circumstances, events like parent teacher conferences and open house meetings were usually not very well attended. On average, between 15% and 25% of parents attended these meetings. However, when there was a student performance event such as a music recital, the school’s cafeteria would be full and bursting at the seams. The administrators and teachers capitalized on these kinds of performance events by “double dipping” on the evening’s activities. Before performances would begin, parents were given 30 minutes to visit their children’s classrooms where the teacher would share important information and parents would have the opportunity to see their children’s work products and talk with the teacher. Following the classroom visit, parents would reconvene in the cafeteria to watch their children demonstrate their literacy learning. Primary-aged students such as 2nd and 3rd graders performed reader’s theater plays (Garrett & O’Connor, 2010). In these performances, students used their voices to bring a script to life through their well-rehearsed reading. Select

Reading Matters Place Matters

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