<div dir="ltr"><br><br><div class="gmail_quote"> Forwarded From: <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:fsimp123@charter.net">fsimp123@charter.net</a>></span><br>Date: Fri, Dec 20, 2013 at 12:37 PM<br><br> Proven and viable instructional reading program for Black underachieving students..<br>
<br><br><br><div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana"> <font size="3"><b> </b></font></font></div><div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> An overriding theoretical philosophical and political consideration of the cross-cultural approach to education designed to accommodate the culture and language of Black non-mainstream students is; that any educational program for Black non-mainstream students must be part of, and sympathetic to the students' culture, language, experiences and interests.. A second major consideration is the importance of language in the educational program.. The culture and experience of students are reflected in their language.. They speak the language of those with whom they identify and those who are most meaningful to them.. African American Vernacular English (AAVE) aside from being central to human communication and identity, has been the convenient whipping boy of programs which have sought to normalize Black non-mainstream students under the guise of remedying a defective language and culture.. A basic premise of the cross-cultural approach is that the repertoire of language skills and competencies brought to school by Black non-mainstream children can and should be used to facilitate new learning.. This approach represents an attempt to utilize the learning that Black non-mainstream children have experienced outside of school.. The strategy of this approach is to engage the students by using a starting point in the learning process, the verbal behavior of the students in their familiar cultural context.. In educational pedagogy, there is almost universal belief in the Dewey axiom, "Start where the child is.." In the field of linguistics, this axiom becomes a battle cry, "Begin with the child's cultural- linguistic knowledge and experiences as an educational foundation upon which to build.." </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> The cross-cultural approach views language as the common denominator between what students know and what they are expected to learn.. It embraces the presupposition that reading, or any other subject matter, can be best taught by beginning with the verbal behavior that is available to learners, and utilizing instructional materials that incorporate language with which the learners already have phonetic, lexical, syntactical and cultural familiarity.. It assists the learners in comprehending concepts that otherwise may appear strange and confusing.. It is assumed in the cross-cultural approach that Black non-mainstream children have the same cognitive apparatus and abilities as mainstream children; that differences in academic performance occur because their cognitive apparatus is differentially triggered by cultural context.. The differential triggering of the cognitive apparatus cause learning to be more effective for students "in the streets" than in the classroom.. Similarly, as with the phenomenon that occurs in reading, the student must perform an additional cognitive operation in order to grasp many concepts taught in the schools.. They must translate incoming conceptual material into their familiar cultural context.. </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> If one studies as Dr. Simpkins had, the behavior of Black non-mainstream students at the entering college level, one will observe evidence of this phenomenon.. The following is one of similar observations made by him: "Hey, man, what was he talking about? I , ain't understand a word of that stuff.. I was completely lost, and everybody look like they know what was going on..I'm gon drop this class;that stuff </b><font> </font><b>is hard as Chinese algebra.." The other student responded, " No, man, hang on in.. That stuff is light..It's just the way he talk that make it seem hard..Dig it, what the dude was trying to say was.." After the fellow student finished translating the lecture, the first student said "Damn, man, why didn't he say that in the first place? Them White folks always be trying to make stuff hard.." In the above exchange, one student was able to translate the conceptual material into the familiar cultural context and was therefore able to help his fellow student understand the concepts. The problems encountered by these students are not isolated, amusing instances, they are representative of the difficulties experienced by a great many Black non-mainstream students at all levels of the school system throughout this country..Many students sit through classes confused, never understanding the concepts that are being presented.. Many students manage to pass classes, some with high grades, by mimicking back the instructor's lectures and the contents of their texts without ever understanding the concepts.. The underlying academic problem of Black non-mainstream students appears to be a mismatch in the two languages and the instructional system; most teachers do not possess the knowledge and ability to eliminate the additional cognitive operations that many of these students have to perform in translating from Standard English to-African American Vernacular English (AAVE)..Instructional materials can be developed in the students' familiar cultural context..The cross-cultural approach addresses the problems encountered by Black non-mainstream students which pertain to the mismatch in the instructional system.. There are two teaching-learning strategies in the cross-cultural approach in teaching reading in the "Bridge Program.." </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> These two educational strategies are designed to accommodate the culture and language of Black non-mainstream students.. They are designed to bridge the void which exists between learning in the Black community and learning in the schools..It is reflected in almost every aspect of the approach.."Peer Control" is a specific educational strategy designed to give students control over the learning process and to accommodate the oral tradition of the Black community..The Peer Control Procedure is autotelic.. The term "autotelic" describes the quality of an instructional sequence which becomes an end to itself, so that perceiving the sequence is intrinsically reinforcing. Students tend to engage in Peer Control for its own sake rather than for extrinsic rewards or punishment.. Teachers have reported that often students do not want to disengage from their Peer Control groups when the bell rings to end the class..The Peer Control Procedure also draws heavily on the "call and response" oral tradition of the Black community, which is seen in the call-and - response behavior of the Black church where the audience becomes an active participant with the speaker ("Between the Rhetoric and Reality" 2009 pp-90-93)..The Associative Bridging strategy, broadly speaking, is an extension of the Dewey axiom-start where the children are and take them where you would like them to be in a series of steps, utilizing their cultural-linguistic knowledge as an educational foundation..It is the process of going from the familiar to the less familiar in a series of steps, associating the familiar elements with the less familiar elements..The familiar is African American Vernacular English in the context of Black non-mainstream culture..The less familiar is Standard English in the context of mainstream culture.. </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> Associative Bridging uses African American Vernacular English as a starting point(assuming that the students are most familiar with this language and possess their most accomplished verbal skills in it)..This method seeks to to improve the students' reading ability by first teaching them in their dialect, and then extending that learning via a series of steps to the Standard mainstream English..Reading in the mainstream dialect is thus taught as an extension of reading in the students' familiar dialect..In this way, Black non-mainstream English (AAVE) serves as a springboard from which to move to the presentation of Standard mainstream English..The Bridge Reading Program took into consideration that Black non-mainstream children know more about reading and Standard English than they are able to display on tests..The problem is that there are gaps in their learning which prevent them from putting it all together.Black non-mainstream children are immersed in Standard English..They do not spend as many hours as they do looking at television and movies without understanding a great deal about Standard English.. Often, they have good receptive abilities but have not quite acquired productive abilities..They do not know where AAVE stops and where SE begins..They find it difficult to perform the fine discriminations that are necessary to"code -switch.." While they know a great deal about Standard English, the gaps in their learning prevent them from seeing it as a unified whole..The Bridge Reading Program was designed to fill these gaps..The goal of Associative Bridging </b>, <b>is to help the students improve their reading ability and to enable them to read the Standard English materials they must read and understand in school and everyday life..Reading in Standard English is taught as a logical extension of reading in the students' dialect..The students' vernacular and Standard English are presented on an equal footing.. Black cultural expression is recognized, respected, and utilized, while at the same time, students learn to understand and read Standard English.. </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> The stories within the program are sequenced so that students start with Black vernacular, proceed through several steps of Associative Bridging from Study Books One, Two, Three and Four, and finish with Standard English in Study Book Five..Associative Bridging is intended for both Junior and Senior high school students who are under-achievers in reading, although it is suitable for adults with reading problems..The Bridge Reading Program makes effective use of peer influence on learning, providing for differences in individual learning rates and styles..It provides for differences in individual levels of achievement and accommodates cultural differences..There is a need for further experimentation with the cross-cultural approach to reading..Future studies should be of both an experimental and field test nature..Measures should be taken of attitudinal variables such as"sense of control of the environment," student motivational levels, and interest in reading..Behavior measures such as time on task should also be taken..It would be interesting to ascertain the amount of test variance the Peer Control procedure accounted for, and there exists a great need to develop materials for students in the elementary levels.. </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b>Another great need is for long-term studies to ascertain whether or not the gain last across time and is generalized to other subjects..Since the publication of the Houghton Mifflin Field test on Bridge(Simpkins and Simpkins, 1975) which have been cited by numerous linguists, I find , despite an extensive review of the literature, know of no large-scale research, or for that matter any medium-scale research, using the difference model on reading or any other subjects..Although non dare call it racism, I firmly believe the stereotyped concepts of African American Language, embraced by government and foundation research money brokers has a great deal to do with the poverty of funding for research and development in this area..The Black non-mainstream student is literally between a rock ( the simulative dialect) and a hard place (the government and educational establishment plan to implement standardized testing for retention/prevention)..I hope that this book will enlighten governmental and educational policy makers to the fact that" there are many roads which lead to Rome and it is not always desirable take the royal road" "The Unfinished Business of the Civil Rights Movement: Failure of America's Public Schools to Properly Educate its African American Student Populations" 2013, Rosedogbooks.. </b></font></div>
<font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><br></font><div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> Sincerely, </b></font></div>
<div align="LEFT"><font color="#000000" face="Verdana" size="3"><b> Frank Simpkins </b></font></div></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>
=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br>
<br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br>
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