Poverty and its Affect on Literacy Development
Poverty and its Affect on Literacy Development
Katherine Barney
(Comments in red.)
Professional Statement and Introduction
I am currently a 2nd grade teacher at Patterson Elementary School in Kennedale ISD, Texas. I have taught for a total of 15 years, 11 of the years in the Kennedale ISD system. I have worked with grades 2, 4, 5, and as a G/T teacher k-5. My certificates include Elementary Education 1-8, Speech 1-8, ESL k-12, Gifted and Talented k-12 and I am currently (June 2007) preparing to take a Reading Specialist and MRT k-12 exam for certification. I am interested in learning more about poverty and its affect on literacy because I am very aware of the students who just “don’t seem to get it.” They are shuffled along to one program or teacher to the next with little progress or improvement. With high stakes testing driving curriculum these students are forced to do more of what they already don’t understand. I want to help reach these students by providing information to teachers that may be the key or at least be helpful to all involved. Over the past 15 years I have observed the population grow and change in Kennedale ISD. The influx of minority students and students of poverty has increased and changed the needs of the district’s students and continues to do so. This rise has created a call for change in our teaching strategies, as well as, a need to better understand our students emotionally and academically. I intend to develop a professional development session that not only immediately addresses those needs but will continue to develop teaching strategies through a book study and discussion group.
Background
Patterson Elementary is in Kennedale ISD a small district located in the southern suburbs of Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Over the last 3 years, the homes in the area have become rental property and several new apartment complexes (some subsidized) have been built. This has quickly changed the demographics of the school from primarily middle class families to an increased number of economically disadvantaged, minority, and ESL students. Recently, 2005, Patterson has qualified as a Title 1 campus and receives federal funding and the requirements that go along with it. The staff at Patterson Elementary predominantly comes from white, middle-class backgrounds, (KISD staff 96% white) with limited experience with this changing student population. Strategies for literacy instruction that have been effective in the past are not as effective now. For example, using the basal for reading along with worksheets, suggested activities, and predictable suggestions for struggling readers. While these work for the majority of students there is a group, usually from poverty level homes, that do respond successfully to these strategies. By poverty I am referring to poverty as defined by Dr. Ruby K. Payne, “the extent to which an individual does without resources.” These resources are not only financial, but emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, role models, and knowledge of hidden “class” rules.
There are 438 students currently enrolled at Patterson Elementary School. The majority of students continue to be white. The economically disadvantaged is estimated to be more than 28%. These statistics don’t take into account the other six areas of poverty that affect a large number of our students. For example, I have only 1 student out of 17 that comes from a middle class white family with married parents. Dad has a good job and mom works part-time at a preschool. All of my other students are being raised by relatives, have been homeless, have limited English vocabulary, have a parent in jail, or involved with drugs, etc. Several of these students are emotionally and sometimes physically abused. It is not difficult to understand why many of them are struggling learners. While I try to differentiate for each student I feel that there may be something more I can do help these students be more successful. I’d like to see this support follow these students all the way through their academic careers. Even though our student needs have changed, Patterson has been able to remain above acceptable. In fact we are ranked by AEIS 2004-2005 as Recognized and Commended on Reading/ELA. Our latest ranking continues to be recognized. (I mentioned this in my talk, but did not provide Power Point or handout.)
My goal is to provide teachers with information and experiences that will support them in the classroom when dealing with students who are not motivated by the approaches that have been successful in the past. The Kennedale ISD administration has issued a goal of achieving exemplary status on our campus on the upcoming state mandated tests. While having such a high goal is admirable, this particular goal did not come with the support needed to achieve it. It does not address the needs of lower SES students and the challenges teachers will face to achieve the goal with limited support. The materials that were given to tutors (I tutored last fall) were difficult for average ability students let alone struggling readers. It concerns me that the needs of the students are not being addressed appropriately.
Research Support (I condensed this information on the Power Point)
In this article, Who Said These Kids Don't Want To Learn? Harlin and Murray (2006) share the results of a study they conducted in 2003 with pre-service teachers and urban 8th grade students from a k - 8 that were 99.75% African American. The poverty rate for these students was 96%. The pre-service teachers were from white middle-class suburbs making the teachers and students from two different worlds. The goal was to change the attitude and expectations of students from urban high poverty level schools. The pre-service teachers met for 15 sessions with their assigned student. After the project several of the new teachers sought jobs at urban schools and saw themselves as agents of change. Getting to know the students and seeing that they wanted to be successful in school and have a positive experience changed the teachers’ perspectives. The students performed better academically as a result of the teacher ‘s positive expectations. This is an example of poverty level students improving literacy skills after their teachers developed an understanding of them and their personal educational needs.
Evidence-based Literacy Education and the African American Child (Perkins and Cooter, 2005) addresses the needs of African American students living in poverty through the LEAP program. The operational goal of LEAP was to prepare children to enter kindergarten functioning at an age-appropriate level of development (LEAP, 2005). The LEAP curriculum required a great deal of research and development to find the most effective curriculum for these African American children living at the poverty level. Following is a description of each critical component that resulted in effective teacher development and student learning. Reading aloud to children, books were selected from children's classics and multicultural literature, instructional scaffolding for addressing vocabulary, grammar, and syntax in spoken standard English, Phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, games and dramatic play, and fine-motor activities strengthen the whole hand first before writing. The conclusion made after collecting data from the LEAP program was that talented teachers and relevant curricula are the key. LEAP continues to be a powerful program and has received much attention as an effective pre-literacy program for African American children living in poverty. There is excellent information on the LEAP website www.leapsandbounds.org.
Project Athena (VanTassel-Baska, Joyce, 2005) The Project Athena program employs the use of language arts units from the College of William and Mary, Center for Gifted Education, at grades 3-5 and supplements them with a new set of materials called Jacob's Ladder, a reading comprehension program intended to move students from lower order to higher order thinking skills in the language arts (VanTassel-Baska, Stambaugh, & French, 2004). Supporting the implementation of the program is a series of workshops provided to project teachers over the course of 4 days a year, 3 in the summer, and 1 at the end of the implementation period midyear.
Participants included a random sample of 2,113 students across 3 years and 39 experimental and 38 control teachers. Approximately 43% of the population is White, 27.5% African American, 18% Hispanic, 3.4% Asian American, and the approximately 8% other ethnic origin.
Experimental students did significantly better than control students in both critical thinking and comprehension.
All ability groups and ethnic groups registered significant growth gains from using the curriculum.
Experimental teachers scored significantly higher on both the frequency of use and effective use of differentiated strategies across both years.
Project Athena caught my attention because it combines several of my own interests in education. Combining strategies from gifted education to teach higher order thinking skills and materials (Jacobs Ladder) to support comprehension along with quality staff development and continued teacher support to improve literacy skills in students of poverty. The results from a 3-year study shows improvements in all student ability groups and teacher use of effective strategies. This indicates that struggling learners from poverty level backgrounds can learn and improve H.O.T.S. from teachers that have ongoing quality professional development.
Interview(s)
Contact personnel (Arlington Elementary vice principal) of a school that serves a large economically disadvantaged and high minority population of students. (I would like to add this component for next yea’s presentation). Did not get a hold of person. Plan to add to next presentation.
Need
This project will address the needs of both students and teachers at Patterson Elementary. Instead of being proactive 2 years ago, we are now at the point of being retroactive in providing teachers with effective strategies and necessary awareness of the affective domain for their students.
Goals and Objectives
The goal of this professional development session on poverty and its affect on literacy is to give teachers an understanding of student backgrounds and strategies in order to support students from poverty in literacy instruction.
The teacher will develop an understanding of the affect of poverty on learning through participation in professional development activities.
The teacher will implement the question stem strategy during literacy instruction within one week of training and be prepared to share results through completion of a checklist.
The teacher will complete a pre and post survey on the effectiveness of the poverty awareness presentation.
(Replaced with) The teacher will:
§ Develop an understanding of students living in poverty.
§ Participate in affective professional development activities.
§ Apply question stem strategy with their students and give feedback through teacher checklist.
§ Complete a pre and post survey on their personal knowledge regarding the effect of poverty on student literacy development.
Description of the Project and Methodology The approach I will take to address the topic of poverty and its affect on student literacy development will be in the form of a one hour presentation that will include a survey, Appendix A- A story of a person who experienced growing up in poverty, direct instruction from A Framework for Understanding Poverty, and a group activity. In the future I will condense this even more and replace some of the time with a film clip. To increase teacher interest I will use a Ruby Payne “Could You Survive Poverty?” (p. 38). Activity- Using Eye Movement to follow the Learning and Processing, Payne (2005). Teachers will observe a partner, using a checklist (p.97), while teaching a math strategy to her. Teaching strategy- Question-making stems, teaching students to make questions while they are reading (p.105). I will demonstrate using questions stems to increase comprehension of a passage. I decided to not use this beforehand because I knew that one-hour was not enough time.
Time permitting I would follow with a book study group, using Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne, that will meet weekly for discussion over four week period. This is the format I plan to use next year at the beginning of the school year. This is definitely the best way to cover this topic thoroughly. I need to focus on the affective information regarding the affects of poverty on literacy development.
Timeline
The professional development will be offered April 10, 2007 3:45 – 4:45 after-school in order to provide required SDEC hours for teachers. This was not enough time.
Next school year I will present a similar professional development followed by a 4 week book study supported by a book study blog and 30 minute weekly meetings.
Evaluation
I will use teacher survey and group discussion feedback after all participants have implemented the question stem strategy modeled during the presentation.
References
Howard, Adam (2005). Lessons of Poverty: Towards a Literacy of Survival, JCT. Rochester: Winter Vol.21, Iss. 4; pg. 73, 10 pgs
Murray, Rosemary, Harlin, Rebecca (2006) Who Said These Kids Don't Want To Learn? Early Childhood Education. Olney: Vol. 82, Iss. 5; pg. 275, 4 pgs
Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. (2005). A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Highland, TX, aha!, Process, Inc.
Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. (1998). Learning Structures Workbook, Highland, TX, aha!, Process, Inc.
Perkins, Helen, J., Cooter, Jr., Robert, B. (2005) Evidence-based Literacy Education and the African American Child. The Reading Teacher. Newark: Oct. Vol.59, Iss. 2; pg. 194, 5 pg
VanTassel-Baska, J., Stambaugh, T., & French, H. (2004). Jacob's ladder reading comprehension program. Williamsburg, VA: Center for Gifted Education.
VanTassel-Baska, Joyce, Stambaugh, Tamra (2005) Project Athena. Gifted Child Today. Waco: Spring. Vol. 29, Iss. 2; pg. 58, 6 pgs.
Additional Materials include:
Copies from- Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. (1998). Learning Structures Workbook
Power Point Presentation Appendix A: Howard, Adam (2005). First person story of what it was like growing up in poverty.
Katherine Barney
(Comments in red.)
Professional Statement and Introduction
I am currently a 2nd grade teacher at Patterson Elementary School in Kennedale ISD, Texas. I have taught for a total of 15 years, 11 of the years in the Kennedale ISD system. I have worked with grades 2, 4, 5, and as a G/T teacher k-5. My certificates include Elementary Education 1-8, Speech 1-8, ESL k-12, Gifted and Talented k-12 and I am currently (June 2007) preparing to take a Reading Specialist and MRT k-12 exam for certification. I am interested in learning more about poverty and its affect on literacy because I am very aware of the students who just “don’t seem to get it.” They are shuffled along to one program or teacher to the next with little progress or improvement. With high stakes testing driving curriculum these students are forced to do more of what they already don’t understand. I want to help reach these students by providing information to teachers that may be the key or at least be helpful to all involved. Over the past 15 years I have observed the population grow and change in Kennedale ISD. The influx of minority students and students of poverty has increased and changed the needs of the district’s students and continues to do so. This rise has created a call for change in our teaching strategies, as well as, a need to better understand our students emotionally and academically. I intend to develop a professional development session that not only immediately addresses those needs but will continue to develop teaching strategies through a book study and discussion group.
Background
Patterson Elementary is in Kennedale ISD a small district located in the southern suburbs of Dallas/Ft. Worth area. Over the last 3 years, the homes in the area have become rental property and several new apartment complexes (some subsidized) have been built. This has quickly changed the demographics of the school from primarily middle class families to an increased number of economically disadvantaged, minority, and ESL students. Recently, 2005, Patterson has qualified as a Title 1 campus and receives federal funding and the requirements that go along with it. The staff at Patterson Elementary predominantly comes from white, middle-class backgrounds, (KISD staff 96% white) with limited experience with this changing student population. Strategies for literacy instruction that have been effective in the past are not as effective now. For example, using the basal for reading along with worksheets, suggested activities, and predictable suggestions for struggling readers. While these work for the majority of students there is a group, usually from poverty level homes, that do respond successfully to these strategies. By poverty I am referring to poverty as defined by Dr. Ruby K. Payne, “the extent to which an individual does without resources.” These resources are not only financial, but emotional, mental, spiritual, physical, support systems, role models, and knowledge of hidden “class” rules.
There are 438 students currently enrolled at Patterson Elementary School. The majority of students continue to be white. The economically disadvantaged is estimated to be more than 28%. These statistics don’t take into account the other six areas of poverty that affect a large number of our students. For example, I have only 1 student out of 17 that comes from a middle class white family with married parents. Dad has a good job and mom works part-time at a preschool. All of my other students are being raised by relatives, have been homeless, have limited English vocabulary, have a parent in jail, or involved with drugs, etc. Several of these students are emotionally and sometimes physically abused. It is not difficult to understand why many of them are struggling learners. While I try to differentiate for each student I feel that there may be something more I can do help these students be more successful. I’d like to see this support follow these students all the way through their academic careers. Even though our student needs have changed, Patterson has been able to remain above acceptable. In fact we are ranked by AEIS 2004-2005 as Recognized and Commended on Reading/ELA. Our latest ranking continues to be recognized. (I mentioned this in my talk, but did not provide Power Point or handout.)
My goal is to provide teachers with information and experiences that will support them in the classroom when dealing with students who are not motivated by the approaches that have been successful in the past. The Kennedale ISD administration has issued a goal of achieving exemplary status on our campus on the upcoming state mandated tests. While having such a high goal is admirable, this particular goal did not come with the support needed to achieve it. It does not address the needs of lower SES students and the challenges teachers will face to achieve the goal with limited support. The materials that were given to tutors (I tutored last fall) were difficult for average ability students let alone struggling readers. It concerns me that the needs of the students are not being addressed appropriately.
Research Support (I condensed this information on the Power Point)
In this article, Who Said These Kids Don't Want To Learn? Harlin and Murray (2006) share the results of a study they conducted in 2003 with pre-service teachers and urban 8th grade students from a k - 8 that were 99.75% African American. The poverty rate for these students was 96%. The pre-service teachers were from white middle-class suburbs making the teachers and students from two different worlds. The goal was to change the attitude and expectations of students from urban high poverty level schools. The pre-service teachers met for 15 sessions with their assigned student. After the project several of the new teachers sought jobs at urban schools and saw themselves as agents of change. Getting to know the students and seeing that they wanted to be successful in school and have a positive experience changed the teachers’ perspectives. The students performed better academically as a result of the teacher ‘s positive expectations. This is an example of poverty level students improving literacy skills after their teachers developed an understanding of them and their personal educational needs.
Evidence-based Literacy Education and the African American Child (Perkins and Cooter, 2005) addresses the needs of African American students living in poverty through the LEAP program. The operational goal of LEAP was to prepare children to enter kindergarten functioning at an age-appropriate level of development (LEAP, 2005). The LEAP curriculum required a great deal of research and development to find the most effective curriculum for these African American children living at the poverty level. Following is a description of each critical component that resulted in effective teacher development and student learning. Reading aloud to children, books were selected from children's classics and multicultural literature, instructional scaffolding for addressing vocabulary, grammar, and syntax in spoken standard English, Phonological awareness, alphabetic principle, games and dramatic play, and fine-motor activities strengthen the whole hand first before writing. The conclusion made after collecting data from the LEAP program was that talented teachers and relevant curricula are the key. LEAP continues to be a powerful program and has received much attention as an effective pre-literacy program for African American children living in poverty. There is excellent information on the LEAP website www.leapsandbounds.org.
Project Athena (VanTassel-Baska, Joyce, 2005) The Project Athena program employs the use of language arts units from the College of William and Mary, Center for Gifted Education, at grades 3-5 and supplements them with a new set of materials called Jacob's Ladder, a reading comprehension program intended to move students from lower order to higher order thinking skills in the language arts (VanTassel-Baska, Stambaugh, & French, 2004). Supporting the implementation of the program is a series of workshops provided to project teachers over the course of 4 days a year, 3 in the summer, and 1 at the end of the implementation period midyear.
Participants included a random sample of 2,113 students across 3 years and 39 experimental and 38 control teachers. Approximately 43% of the population is White, 27.5% African American, 18% Hispanic, 3.4% Asian American, and the approximately 8% other ethnic origin.
Experimental students did significantly better than control students in both critical thinking and comprehension.
All ability groups and ethnic groups registered significant growth gains from using the curriculum.
Experimental teachers scored significantly higher on both the frequency of use and effective use of differentiated strategies across both years.
Project Athena caught my attention because it combines several of my own interests in education. Combining strategies from gifted education to teach higher order thinking skills and materials (Jacobs Ladder) to support comprehension along with quality staff development and continued teacher support to improve literacy skills in students of poverty. The results from a 3-year study shows improvements in all student ability groups and teacher use of effective strategies. This indicates that struggling learners from poverty level backgrounds can learn and improve H.O.T.S. from teachers that have ongoing quality professional development.
Interview(s)
Contact personnel (Arlington Elementary vice principal) of a school that serves a large economically disadvantaged and high minority population of students. (I would like to add this component for next yea’s presentation). Did not get a hold of person. Plan to add to next presentation.
Need
This project will address the needs of both students and teachers at Patterson Elementary. Instead of being proactive 2 years ago, we are now at the point of being retroactive in providing teachers with effective strategies and necessary awareness of the affective domain for their students.
Goals and Objectives
The goal of this professional development session on poverty and its affect on literacy is to give teachers an understanding of student backgrounds and strategies in order to support students from poverty in literacy instruction.
The teacher will develop an understanding of the affect of poverty on learning through participation in professional development activities.
The teacher will implement the question stem strategy during literacy instruction within one week of training and be prepared to share results through completion of a checklist.
The teacher will complete a pre and post survey on the effectiveness of the poverty awareness presentation.
(Replaced with) The teacher will:
§ Develop an understanding of students living in poverty.
§ Participate in affective professional development activities.
§ Apply question stem strategy with their students and give feedback through teacher checklist.
§ Complete a pre and post survey on their personal knowledge regarding the effect of poverty on student literacy development.
Description of the Project and Methodology The approach I will take to address the topic of poverty and its affect on student literacy development will be in the form of a one hour presentation that will include a survey, Appendix A- A story of a person who experienced growing up in poverty, direct instruction from A Framework for Understanding Poverty, and a group activity. In the future I will condense this even more and replace some of the time with a film clip. To increase teacher interest I will use a Ruby Payne “Could You Survive Poverty?” (p. 38). Activity- Using Eye Movement to follow the Learning and Processing, Payne (2005). Teachers will observe a partner, using a checklist (p.97), while teaching a math strategy to her. Teaching strategy- Question-making stems, teaching students to make questions while they are reading (p.105). I will demonstrate using questions stems to increase comprehension of a passage. I decided to not use this beforehand because I knew that one-hour was not enough time.
Time permitting I would follow with a book study group, using Framework for Understanding Poverty by Ruby K. Payne, that will meet weekly for discussion over four week period. This is the format I plan to use next year at the beginning of the school year. This is definitely the best way to cover this topic thoroughly. I need to focus on the affective information regarding the affects of poverty on literacy development.
Timeline
The professional development will be offered April 10, 2007 3:45 – 4:45 after-school in order to provide required SDEC hours for teachers. This was not enough time.
Next school year I will present a similar professional development followed by a 4 week book study supported by a book study blog and 30 minute weekly meetings.
Evaluation
I will use teacher survey and group discussion feedback after all participants have implemented the question stem strategy modeled during the presentation.
References
Howard, Adam (2005). Lessons of Poverty: Towards a Literacy of Survival, JCT. Rochester: Winter Vol.21, Iss. 4; pg. 73, 10 pgs
Murray, Rosemary, Harlin, Rebecca (2006) Who Said These Kids Don't Want To Learn? Early Childhood Education. Olney: Vol. 82, Iss. 5; pg. 275, 4 pgs
Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. (2005). A Framework for Understanding Poverty, Highland, TX, aha!, Process, Inc.
Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. (1998). Learning Structures Workbook, Highland, TX, aha!, Process, Inc.
Perkins, Helen, J., Cooter, Jr., Robert, B. (2005) Evidence-based Literacy Education and the African American Child. The Reading Teacher. Newark: Oct. Vol.59, Iss. 2; pg. 194, 5 pg
VanTassel-Baska, J., Stambaugh, T., & French, H. (2004). Jacob's ladder reading comprehension program. Williamsburg, VA: Center for Gifted Education.
VanTassel-Baska, Joyce, Stambaugh, Tamra (2005) Project Athena. Gifted Child Today. Waco: Spring. Vol. 29, Iss. 2; pg. 58, 6 pgs.
Additional Materials include:
Copies from- Ruby K. Payne, Ph.D. (1998). Learning Structures Workbook
Power Point Presentation Appendix A: Howard, Adam (2005). First person story of what it was like growing up in poverty.
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