Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

Edwards, Jan; Gross, Megan; Chen, Jianshen; MacDonald, Maryellen C.; Kaplan, David E.; Brown, Megan; Seidenberg, Mark S.

doi:10.1044/2014_jslhr-l-13-0228

Cited by 31 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 29 publications

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“…Speakers vary in the extent to which they use AAE features and the extent to which they are familiar with the mainstream dialect, and this variability should modulate any dialect-related effects. For example, Edwards et al ( 2014 ) found that dialect density predicted children's comprehension of words spoken in MAE, and Charity et al ( 2004 ) found that children's accuracy imitating MAE forms was a reliable predictor of their scores on standardized measures of early reading abilities.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read

et al. 2015

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Can some black-white differences in reading achievement be traced to differences in language background? Many African American children speak a dialect that differs from the mainstream dialect emphasized in school. We examined how use of alternative dialects affects decoding, an important component of early reading and marker of reading development. Behavioral data show that use of the alternative pronunciations of words in different dialects affects reading aloud in developing readers, with larger effects for children who use more African American English (AAE). Mechanisms underlying this effect were explored with a computational model, investigating factors affecting reading acquisition. The results indicate that the achievement gap may be due in part to differences in task complexity: children whose home and school dialects differ are at greater risk for reading difficulties because tasks such as learning to decode are more complex for them.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read

et al. 2015

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“…Preservice teachers are likely to enter school with negative attitudes toward AAVE (Newkirk-Turner, Williams, Harris, & McDaniels, 2013), classroom teachers are likely to treat AAVE features in a text as errors to be corrected (Dyson & Smitherman, 2009), and when students are formally assessed, their failure to suppress AAVE features may be penalized (D. Johnson & VanBrackle, 2012). Conversely, students who speak AAVE may bear additional cognitive burdens as they read Standard American English texts, or codeswitch to suppress AAVE features in their writing (Edwards et al, 2014). The situation is compounded by the fact that use of AAVE is strongly linked to African American identity.…”

Section: Group Differences That May Affect Language and Transcriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Challenges of Writing in School: Conceptualizing Writing Development Within a Sociocognitive Framework

Deane

2018

Educational Psychologist

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This article argues for a conceptualization of school writing that emphasizes how cognitive and sociocultural factors interact. In academic, professional, and affinity-based communities, an emphasis on standards of quality drives the adoption of such practices as revision and peer and expert review. In school, everyday writing practices center around demonstrations of knowledge (taking notes, writing summaries, providing personal responses to readings, completing worksheets, etc.) where the teacher is often the sole or primary audience. This context tends to privilege knowledge-telling strategies and prioritize fluency and efficiency of expression. When these sociocultural factors interact with cognition, group differences tend to emerge, as knowledge telling provides few opportunities for disadvantaged groups to overcome barriers linked to differences in prior knowledge, fluency, attention management, or motivation. It also affects the efficacy of instructional practices, because cognitive ability and social identity affect how students internalize the metacognitive concepts and strategies characteristic of expert writers.

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“…The final assessment for the TALK program was an experimental measure of lexical comprehension of MAE (Edwards et al, 2014). In brief, the lexical comprehension task examined children's ability to understand words that were ambiguous in AAE, but unambiguous in MAE.…”

Section: Assessmentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Last, there is considerable evidence that it is more difficult for adult listeners to process an unfamiliar dialect, particularly in noise (Clopper, 2012;Clopper & Bradlow, 2008). Both Harris and Schroeder (2013) and Edwards et al (2014) proposed that such findings suggest that dialect mismatch will put non-MAE (NMAE) speakers at a disadvantage: In the noisy classroom environment, they need to expend additional cognitive resources simply to understand their teacher.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…In a series of studies that followed children from kindergarten to first grade and from first to second grade, Terry and colleagues Terry, Connor, Petscher, & Conlin, 2012) found that nonmainstream dialect use (as indexed by scores on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Language Variation [DELV]; Seymour, Roeper, deVilliers, & deVilliers, 2005), was predictive of poor reading performance; the higher the DELV score in kindergarten or first grade, the lower the reading score in first or second grade. Edwards et al (2014) measured dialect density (number of dialect features relative to the total number of words in a 50-utterance language sample; cf. Oetting & McDonald, 2002) in young AAEspeaking children and found that dialect density was negatively correlated with comprehension of MAE in a lexical task that focused on words that were ambiguous in AAE but not MAE.…”

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confidence: 99%

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A Prekindergarten Curriculum Supplement for Enhancing Mainstream American English Knowledge in Nonmainstream American English Speakers

Edwards

Rosin

2016

LSHSS

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Purpose The purpose of this study was to evaluate the efficacy of a curriculum supplement designed to enhance awareness of Mainstream American English (MAE) in African American English- (AAE-) speaking prekindergarten children. Method Children in 2 Head Start classrooms participated in the study. The experimental classroom received the Talking and Learning for Kindergarten program (Edwards, Rosin, Gross, & Chen, 2013), which used contrastive analysis to highlight morphological, phonological, and pragmatic differences between MAE and AAE. The control classroom received the Kindness Curriculum (Flook, Goldberg, Pinger, & Davidson, 2014), which was designed to promote mindfulness and emotional self-regulation. The amount of instruction was the same across the 2 programs. Both classrooms participated in pre- and posttest assessments. Results Children in the experimental classroom, but not the control classroom, showed significant improvement in 3 norm-referenced measures of phonological awareness and in an experimental measure that evaluated comprehension of words that are ambiguous in AAE, but unambiguous in MAE, because of morphological and phonological differences between the 2 dialects. Conclusion Although more research needs to be done on the efficacy of the Talking and Learning for Kindergarten program, these results suggest that it is possible to enhance AAE-speaking children's awareness of MAE prior to kindergarten entry.

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Dialect Awareness and Lexical Comprehension of Mainstream American English in African American English–Speaking Children

Cited by 31 publications

References 29 publications

Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read

Impact of dialect use on a basic component of learning to read

The Challenges of Writing in School: Conceptualizing Writing Development Within a Sociocognitive Framework

A Prekindergarten Curriculum Supplement for Enhancing Mainstream American English Knowledge in Nonmainstream American English Speakers

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