Transcript Teaching Reading from a Culturally Responsive Perspective

Teaching Reading from a
Culturally Responsive Perspective
HPS Summer Conference
Ann Stalnaker
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
What is it?
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Instruction that bridges the gap between
the school and the world of the student
Instruction that is consistent with (or
supportive of) the values of the students’
own culture aimed at assuring academic
learning
Instruction adapted to meet the learning
needs of all students
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
Why Should We?
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Pedro Noguera Speech:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEfbLZ
00NVM&feature=related
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
Why Should We?
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Because of Demographics
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Student population is growing more culturally diverse.
Teaching population remains largely white, middle
class
Cultural mismatch
Students need to connections to teachers that
provide positive models of an educated citzenry
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
Why Should We?
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Because our Data indicates Disparate
Outcomes for Minority Students
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Achievement Gap on EOG/ EOCs
Disproportionality in Special Education
Drop Out Rates
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
Why Should We?
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We have a moral imperative as public
school educators to reach all the children
we can.
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Democracy
Teaching Codes of Power
Social Justice- education as practice of
freedom
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
Why Should We?
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New North Carolina Teacher Evaluation
addresses cultural responsiveness
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Standard II: Teachers establish a respectful
environment for a diverse population of
students.
NC Teacher Evaluation Instrument
Elements of Standard II
A.
Teachers provide an environment in
which each child has a positive,
nurturing relationship with caring adults
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Encourage an environment that is inviting,
respectful, supportive, inclusive, and flexible
NC Teacher Evaluation Instrument
Elements of Standard II
Teachers embrace diversity in the school
community and in the world:
B.
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Demonstrate knowledge of diverse cultures
Select materials and develop lessons that
counteract stereotypes and incorporate
contributions
Recognize the influences on a child’s development,
personality, and performance
Consider and incorporate different points of view
NC Teacher Evaluation Instrument
Elements of Standard II
Teachers treat students as individuals
C.
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Maintain high expectations for all students
Appreciate differences and value contributions by
building positive, appropriate relationships
Teachers adapt their teaching for the benefit of
students with special needs:
D.
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Collaborate with specialists
Engage students and ensure they meet the needs
of their students through inclusion and other
models of effective practice
NC Teacher Evaluation Instrument
Elements of Standard II
E.
Teachers work collaboratively with the families
and significant adults in the lives of their
students:
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Improve communication and collaboration between
the school and the home and community
Promote trust and understanding and build
partnerships with school community
Seek solutions to overcome obstacles that prevent
family and community involvement
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
What does it look like?
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Consider the You Tube Clip
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California charter school:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W3AbBFzI
okg
Think Pair Share:
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Is this a culturally responsive school?
What are the elements of the instructional
program that make it culturally responsive?
Culturally Responsive Instruction:
What does it look like?
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High Expectations for all students
Positive Relationships with family and
community-demonstrating connections
with curriculum content and relationships
Culturally sensitive/reshaped curriculum
that is mediated to connect to students
background
Framework of Research Based
Instruction for Diverse Learners:
The Five Standards
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Teacher and Students Producing
Together
Developing Language and Literacy
Connecting Learning to Students Lives
Teaching Complex Thinking
Teaching Through Conversation
Why in Reading?
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85% of delinquent children and 75% of
adult prison inmates are illiterate.
90 million adults in the U.S. are at best
functionally illiterate.
The cost to taxpayers of adult literacy is
$224 billion a year (welfare, crime, job
incompetence, lost taxes)
Good Reading Instruction
Research Based Principles
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Purposeful and Explicit Teaching-provide
scaffolded instruction
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Explicit explanation and modeling of a strategy,
discussion of why and when it is useful, coaching
students to apply the strategy
In reading comprehension: predicting, thinking aloud,
attending to text structure, constructing visual
representations, generating questions, summarizing
Good Reading Instruction
Research Based Principles
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Supporting the understanding of specific
texts
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Discussion
Balance of lower and higher-level questions
Writing in response to reading
Multiple encounters with complex text
Good Reading Instruction
Research Based Principles
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Demonstrate the skills of expert readers
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Model using text AND own knowledge to build
a model of meaning, revising model as new
information comes.
Consider author’s intention and style and vary
reading strategy to match it
Ensure that all students are exposed to
high level text and interactions
Good Reading Instruction
Research Based Principles
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Provide a wide variety of genres
(narrative, informational, procedural,
biographical, persuasive, poetic) to match
course content
Teach about words, including the
morphology of words (more than just
giving a vocabulary list to match the story
or chapter)
More on Five Standards
Joint Productive Activity
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Facilitate learning through joint productive
activity among teacher and student.
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Designs instruction that requires student collaboration
to accomplish a joint project
Provides time
Arranges seating to accomplish, manages materials
and technology to support
Organizes a variety of groupings (friendship, mixed
ability level, interests)
Explicitly teaches students how to work in grous
Developing Language and Literacy
Across the Curriculum
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Develop competence in the language and
literacy of instruction across the
curriculum.
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Listens to students talk about familiar topics
Responds to students’ talk, making
instructional changes that relate to comments
Assists language development through
modeling, eliciting, probing, restating,
clarifying, questioning, praising
Developing Language and Literacy
Across the Curriculum
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Interacts with students in ways that respect
their preferences for speaking
Connects language and literacy with content
through speaking, listening, reading and writing
activities
Encourages student to use content vocabulary
Provides frequent opportunities for students to
interact with each other and the teacher during
instruction
Encourages use of first and second languages in
instructional activities
Making Meaning: Connecting
School to Students’ Lives
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Connect teaching and curriculum with
experiences and skills of students’ home and
community.
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Begin with what students know from home,
community and school
Learn about local norms and knowledge by talking to
students, parents and community members
Design instructional activities that are meaningful to
students (incorporation of local norms, knowledge)
Teaching Complex Thinking
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Challenge students toward cognitive complexity.
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For each instructional topic, assures that students see
whole picture as basis for understanding the parts
Designs tasks that challenge student understanding,
advancing to more complex levels
Assists students in accomplishing complex
understanding by relating to real life experiences
Provides clear, direct feedback on how student
performance compares with challenging standards
Teaching Through Conversation
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Engage students through dialogue,
especially the instructional conversation.
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Has clear academic goal guiding the
conversation
Ensures student talk occurs at higher rates
than teacher talk
Guides conversation to include students’ views
and rationales, using text evidence and other
support
Listens carefully and assesses understanding