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Cultural Learning Styles

Cultural Learning Styles. Dr. Khalifah Ramadan 716-812-1404 kramadan@aol.com ht tp://kramadan.webstarts.com/index.html 716-812-1404 cell 716-854-5446 home/office.

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Cultural Learning Styles

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  1. Cultural Learning Styles Dr. Khalifah Ramadan 716-812-1404 kramadan@aol.com http://kramadan.webstarts.com/index.html716-812-1404 cell716-854-5446 home/office

  2. Over-representation of students of color; especially African American males in Spec. Ed. Classrooms and under-representation in higher education Examination of cultural and linguistic differences of African American students that may influence referral practices to Spec. Ed. programs and services. Culturally Responsive Teaching Agenda

  3. 12% of ALL public school students in America are labeled special education students. Special Education is now a $60 billion industry! There are 6 million children enrolled in SPED. 4 million are males It costs $7,000 on average to educate a child in a regular classroom and $12,000 in SPED.

  4. 80% of SPED referrals are generated by teachers 20% of America’s teachers make 80% of the referrals into SPED Less than 10% of SPED students return to and stay in mainstream classrooms 80% of ALL students referred to SPED are reading below grade level.

  5. 30% of SPED teachers are unqualified, and the majority of them teach in African American schools. Of African American Students recommended for SPED 92% are tested and 73% are placed. African American students make up 17.5 % of the school population but make up more then 40% of the special education population. African American students comprise 17.5 % of public school students but constitute only 3% of GT, African American males, less than 1 percent

  6. Only 41 % of African American males in general education graduate from High school There is a four-to-one ratio of African American males to African American females in SPED. Only 27% of African American male special education students graduate from high school.

  7. More than 90% of African American students suffer from A. B. T: Ain't Been Taught

  8. 27% 63 % 58% 60% 26% Right now, all over the United States, we are leaving too many children behind in reading And, a large share of those children come from poor and minority homes Percent of Students Performing Below Basic Level - 37% 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 EA AA HA/LA Poor Non-poor

  9. New York State

  10. AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE IF YOU DON’T KNOW THEM, CAN YOU REALLY TEACH THEM?

  11. AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE Culturally Relevant Teaching How should we think about “culture” and “achievement?” How do we create the “village” that is organized as a culture of learning, a climate of caring and domain of development for African American children? The implication for this is that the recovery of African American historical experience must be a part of pedagogy that envisions education of the highest quality for African American children and youth.

  12. CULTURALLY RELEVANT TEACHING • -uses culture and experiences of different ethnic groups as a launch pad to help teach more effectively who are not part of the mainstream of schools. • -scaffolding – building on what students already know. (Gay, 2000)

  13. WHY SHOULD WE DO THIS? • We are ALLculturally socialized • Culture shapes our behaviors • Culture is a filter • Students’ culture should guide: • How we organize our ideas • Learning prompts • How we present ourselves • How we engage with the academic tasks • The rhythm of our work • How we create learning spaces, curriculum materials “If you don’t know them, you can’t teach them well.”

  14. AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE The crisis of knowledge in Literacy Instruction of African American children . . . . -what a dialect is, why it is important in literacy instruction, or how it relates to the varieties of English spoken by their students; -a working understanding of the components of language: syntax, morphology, lexicon, and pragmatics; -awareness of the different varieties of English, particularly African American English; -knowing the difference between becoming literate and learning to read, and learning to speak and learning to write; Foster (2001)

  15. African American Students with dialect differences in Special Education

  16. Texas (TAKS): 3rd African American: 76% European American: 98% California (STAR): 3rd African American: 52% European American: 79% Florida (FCAT): 3rd African American: 55% European American: 84% New York (NAEP): 4th African American: 50% European American: 80% Similar Trend Throughout the States

  17. Special Education Placement Nationally MR: 33.38% E/BD: 26.68% SLI: 15.62% New York MR: 34.37% E/BD: 26.4% SLI: 16.5%

  18. AFRICAN AMERICANS AND READING • According to some standardized measures, African Americans statistically represent an academically low performance group • (Chall, 2000; Knapp, 1996; McDermott, 1997; McWhorter, 2000) • African American students and/or AAE speakers’ lack of motivation to read and lack of academic engagement in school (Rickford, 2001). • The lack of adequate or responsive instruction that accounts for or makes use of African American language styles and culture • (Delpit, 1997; Gay, 2000; Labov, 1995).

  19. AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE Problem • There remains a large gap in school achievement between African American and European American students in basic reading and language proficiency. • (AEIS, 2003; Carnoy, Loeb & Smith, 2001; U.S. Department of Education, 2003)

  20. AFRICAN AMERICANS’ ACHIEVEMENT • “Typical” interventions • have not shown predictable and persistent increases in the academic achievement of African American learners. • (Gay, 2000; 2002; Kamhi, Pollock & Harris, 1996) • African American learners in special education • receipt of effective instruction that increases academic outcomes, remains questionable. • (Patton, 1998)

  21. AFRICAN AMERICAN CULTURE African American Students • Differ in storytelling style • Differ in writing style preference • Differ in oral language skills • Differ in questioning styles Michael, 1981; Ball, 1992; Labov, 1972; Hale, 1986

  22. AFRICAN AMERICANS’ MOTIVATION The question remains, What can be done to improve the reading performance among African Americans students? • (Rickford, 2001)

  23. African American Children w/ Dialect Differences • Learning to read may be harder for children whose speech does not closely resemble the language encountered in most written materials and many classrooms. • One dialect of spoken English that is markedly different from “Classroom English” is African American English.

  24. What is AAE? • Dialect is used to refer to any variety of a language that is shared by a group of speakers. • Pidgin simplified language • Creole arises when pidgin language becomes the native language of a new generation of speakers. • African American English (AAE) originated in Creole that in turn originated in a pidgin based on West African languages, English, French

  25. African American Englishis defined as a communication or language variety used by African Americans, with lexical, phonological and syntactic and semantic patterns intertwined with structures in general English (Green, 2002). Some of the pronunciations and grammatical features of AAE are also found among other vernacular varieties of English.

  26. Who Speaks AAE? • Approximately, 80% of African Americans • AA children are a part of the 80% and comprise a significant percentage of public school students, particularly in urban areas (Graham, 1997). • A small percentage of European and Latino Americans speak AAE • AAE speakers outnumbered SE speakers by 10 to 1 in the African American community during the post-Emancipation period (Smith, 1979). • Myth: poor and/or uneducated AA speak it. • African Americans from all educational and socio-economic levels use AAE. • Myth: ALL African American speak AAE

  27. 3rd person singular He run the zero auxiliary be form He running. He nice. habitual be I be playing football with my cousin remote past BIN I BIN playing football. verbal marker finna We finna go back for Christmas. preterite had I had made a touchdown. zero auxiliary be form They Ø talking too much. Common patterns in AAE • Features are Non-existent in European American vernaculars.

  28. By age 3: By age 4: By age 6: By age 7: By age 8: Even later: /p/, /m/, /h/, /n/, /w/ /b/, /k/, /g/, /d/, /f/, /y/ /t/, /ng/, /r/, /l/, /s/ /ch/, /sh/, /j/, /th/ as in “think” /s/, /z/, /v/, /th/ as in “that” /zh/ as in “measure” Note: From “When Are Speech Sounds Learned? By B. Sander, 1972, Journal of Speech and Hearing Disorders, 37, pp. 55-63. Typical Ages for Mastery of Consonant Sounds

  29. AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH Voicing Value: th,t,d,f and v

  30. AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH AND PHONEMIC AWARENESS • Phonemic Awareness is based upon mainstream language, young African American children may be put at a disadvantage because of linguistic differences in consonant production • E.g. final consonant cluster reduction, such as saying /pas/ when reading “pasting” & vowel production • Cultural differences in the materials used to promote phonemic awareness

  31. AFRICAN AMERICAN ENGLISH Phonemes in AAE Phonological items • Final clusters: st, sk, sp, pt, kt, ct, nd, ld Classroom EnglishAA English /l/ /i/ /s/ /d/ /e/ /s/ /w/ /a/ /s/ /a/ /c/ /c/ /e/ /p/ /c/ /o/ /n/ /t/ /a/ /c/ /s/ /p/ /e/ /n/ /b/ /u/ /i/ /l/ list desk wasp accept contact spend build

  32. Culturally Responsive Reading Instruction • Culturally Defined oral language skills possessed by African American children can serve as critical bridges to developing early literacy skills. • Cultural differences in the materials used to promote phonemic awareness • Valuing students language in the classroom • When students’ home language is devalued within the classroom, students’ abilities to learn to read and write are negatively affected • Delpit, 1987; Lee, 1995

  33. Culturally-Responsive Reading Definition: Using reading materials with cultural and linguistics characteristics, passages that reflect experiences and perspectives of ethnically diverse students as conduits for teaching Scientifically-Based Reading Instruction (SBRI). Green, S.L. (in press) Motivating African American Learners in Reading. SUNY Press: NY

  34. Steps To Culturally-Responsive Reading Understand the cultural as well as linguistic characteristics of African American students • cultural values, traditions, patterns of communication, learning styles, and contributions (e.g. learn the feature of AAE).

  35. Steps To Culturally-ResponsiveReading 2. Acquire detailed factual information about the cultural and language particularities of African American students. 3. Learn how to convert information into culturally-responsive reading curriculum and instructional strategies (deep cultural analysis of books).

  36. Steps To Culturally-Responsive Reading 4. Conduct a critical analysis of how African American students are presented in texts and readers. 5. Create a classroom climate that is conducive to learning for students who are ethnically diverse.

  37. Steps To Culturally-Responsive Reading • Build a community: many students of color grow up in cultural environments where the welfare of the group takes precedence over the individual and where individuals are taught to pool their resources to solve problems • (communities of readers and learners, cooperative reading groups vs. competitive reading groups e.g. not grouping students in same ability groups and letting them work collaboratively on reading assignments).

  38. Steps To Culturally-Responsive Reading 7. Multiculturalize reading instruction: match scientifically based reading instruction techniques to the learning styles of students who are ethnically diverse (e.g. NRC by National Reading Panel Report 1997).

  39. VISIONS FOR THE FUTURE Reflections “It indeed takes an entire village to educate a child, but we must first reconstruct the village”

  40. Culturally Responsive Teaching and Special Education Community involvement Teachers as cultural learners IEP Cooperative learning Over-representation Communication Student Centered Factual Information Relevant materials

  41. Strengthening the relationship between literacy and the Black male and their higher Ed aspirations

  42. Academic Cultural Multiple Literacies Social Emotional

  43. Perceptions of African American Male’s Academic Identities and College Aspirations • Troy, a freshmen, “When I met Mr. Vinson (freshmen guidance counselor), he told me that he was putting me in English 7 and Math 7 (lower-level courses), and I thought to myself, “Man!” High school must be hard, because I am in these low classes, I must not be smart enough to be in Math 9 and English 9 (the more advanced classes). I just figured that he knew what the best classes for me to take were.” (T. Howard, 2003)

  44. His friend Darnell’s take on it . . . , “See, I don’t think it has nothing to do with you not being smart, or high school being hard. It has to do with what they (counselors) think about you, and you fell right for it. I’m in Math 9, and you and me used to get the same grades at school. I’m realizing that counselors and teachers have a lot of power around here. It’s a lot of kids here thinking that they are smarter than they really are or that they are dumber than they really are, just because the counselor put them in a certain class. That’s a shame. I’m not saying they do it on purpose or something like that but it makes you wonder.” (T. Howard, 2003)

  45. Kenji, a junior explained . . . “It’s hard to figure out some times. Because my mom will tell me how smart I am, but then in school, some of the teachers make you feel like a first grader for not knowing some of that stuff (school content). I want to go to college and everything, but when teachers make it seem like you don’t know nothing, you start to wonder about how smart you really are. I start thinking, maybe college ain’t for me. (T. Howard, 2003)

  46. Lastly, Ahmad offered the following assessment . . . “A lot of teachers, principals, and counselors are just straight out wrong. They have all these stereotypes about us because of our culture, race, where we live, how we talk, the music we listen to, and the way we dress. The bottom line is we have to convince ourselves that we are smart, and that we can go to college, we can own a business, or be whatever we want to be. Once we do that, then we can let all their negativity bounce right off of us. (T. Howard, 2003)

  47. Ahmad continues . . . . . . It’s like a big tug of war for our minds. We’re pulling on one side, telling ourselves that we are smart, bright and talented. They are pulling on the other side, saying that we are dumb, lazy, and will never amount to anything. And it’s a lot of kids in urban schools who have lost the tug of war for their minds, and they believe the hype (negative things that educators say) but I will not lose the struggle for my mind, so I just keep on pulling. (T. Howard, 2003)

  48. Implement Cooperative learning opportunities in the classroom Give oral exams Provide equitable response opportunities Assign more meaningful homework Allow children to set their stage

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