RES 5535: Race, Class, and Gender in Literacy Research (summer 2009)

I am just going to have to play Devil’s Advocate here. Hick’s research took her into Jake’s home where literature was abounding. Jake and his family seemed to have the right idea about literacy except making Jake do some of the reading! Perhaps I missed something but it appeared to me that everyone else was doing the reading for Jake. He was a good listener and could regurgitate information when asked. And like many parents, they say he can read at home but somehow he cannot read at school. Hicks states, “reading at home was more typically immersed in the ebb and flow of work, play, and family relations. Jake listened to stories when spending nights with his grandmother in kindergarten and first grade.” (p118) Unfortunately, listening to text is not the same thing as being able to read the text. You must be able to attend to the phonetics, word structure, and sentence structure among a multitude of other skills in order to make sense of text. I never saw this going on in his social history of home. Man cannot live by NASCAR knowledge alone!

Now I realize that the statements I made are not popular and not keeping within an alignment of individualized instruction. However, let me continue and say, that if more homes were as immersed in literature and the discussion of literature as Jake’s was, many children would be way ahead of the game in school. I believe in individual, societal histories and acceptance of culture in literacy learning. My problem here is that Jake was not encouraged by his family toward instruction outside of their realm of comfort. His dad enjoyed reading about various topics, as did his mom and grandmother. They did not do a good job of showing Jake that they had to learn how to read in order to make those choices. As educators, we know that well-rounded students are able to be successful in any area of their choosing. By limiting Jake to their own choices at the age of six does not make sense. Bond with him in an interest arena of his preference to begin with, but do not let him camp out there. Lead him to other areas. This is where family and school failed to connect in my opinion. Bridging the gap was going to require give and take from both parties of Jake’s education. Also, a factor which was not addressed in this text was that Jake needed more time to develop as a reader. He should not have been pushed into the next grade without mastering the skills he needed. By the end of second grade he was making sense of reading. He could have been kept there while he developed and matured into a strong reader.

We are ALL responsible for the Jakes and Lauries and their education. Change must occur in many of us as to the importance of listening and learning about children and students from the perspective of race, gender, and class. Teaching is not limited to parents and teachers but to society as a whole and the society’s practices and beliefs. I appreciate the way Hicks summed up a point: “Rather, change also has to entail a moral shift, a willingness to open oneself up to the possibility of seeing those who differ from us. This is very hard work, but work that lies at the heart of teaching.” (p. 152)
Janet Gross