Reading Assignment 1: Beginning Reading Instruction in Urban Schools

Beginning Reading Instruction in Urban Schools: The Curriculum Gap Ensures a Continuing Achievement Gap by William H. Teale, Kathleen A. Paciga, and Jessica L. Hoffman

This article talks about literacy achievement gaps among groups based on income, culture, gender, and so forth. I find these types of articles extremely interesting because of the disparities within these types of groups and areas. As the article states, “children from poverty backgrounds score significantly lower in reading and writing than children from middle and high income backgrounds and that a similar gap exists between African American students and Latino students and their higher scoring Caucasian peers” (page 344). This always made me wonder about what factors cause this discrepancy. From just reading the introduction from the article, it already brings me to questions such as: Is it the parents fault for not reading to their children or helping with homework? Are the parents not helping because they are forced to work long hours just to provide for their children? Is it because the schools lack the necessary supplies needed to aid in literacy? Is it because the schools lack proper teachers that have the patience and drive to teach these students literacy? Many of my questions were focused on in the second paragraph where it states how much funding was made available for teachers to learn proper reading instruction, materials, and assessment programs.

The article also brings up the fact that districts have been reducing instructional time in social studies and science by an average of 90 minutes and 94 minutes per week respectively in primary grades (page 346). This is a huge disadvantage for those children even if it means more time with reading speed and reading accuracy because they will not only lack knowledge in these two subjects but they also won’t be able to understand texts in these subjects when they get to higher grade levels. When I was in school, whenever our Language Arts or Math periods were cut short or ran long, my teachers always borrowed the time from science and social studies. It wasn’t until 6^th grade when I actually began to learn about these subjects and I feel like I lost out on a lot of information. My teachers could have easily incorporated science and social students into language arts by using texts from these two subjects to draw on important literacy aspects. Reading a book on the solar system can teach students about a science topic while letting them practice their reading speed and accuracy. In my clinical classroom I now see things like this implemented, which I think is extremely beneficial. My first grade students are learning about water and complete different science experiments dealing with water throughout the week. There are big books that go along with the water unit that allow children to read aloud with the teacher, master sight words, and learn new vocabulary. They also practice their writing during science by filling out papers with what they think will happen and what did happen. I believe that all the subjects are important for children to learn and master and if they struggle in one subject it will often cause difficulty in another subject.

Although the article tracked the performance differences between “different groups” it made me think about a lot of different aspects. There are many factors that lead to these discrepancies amongst students and some of them are harder to detect than others. Ultimately I believe that there needs to be a way to promote literacy among students that does not involve taking them away from other areas.