Dialects and Reading

As luck would have it, we discussed AAVE and its influence on reading inventories the week after we read the articles for EDC 396. Dr. Ortiz shared this information from Goodman and Buck (1997) -

"There is not one single form of Standard English. Therefore, the possibility of producing dialect-involved miscues depends on the writer as well as the reader."

"Written English represents the author's dialect. Readers shift from the dialect of the author to their own dialect."

"Dialect-involved miscues, therefore, represent a shift on the part of the reader to a surface representation which fits his/her own dialect rather than the writer's."

So, the big question is: When conducting a reading inventory, is a dialect-involved error considered a miscue? (For example, "bof" instead of "both.")

Dr. Ortiz (and I) say no. If the miscue is part of the dialect and part of the systematic structure of the child's language, it is not an error. In fact, Goodman and Buck state that dialect-involved miscues do not interfere with the reading process or the construction of meaning. That should prompt a healthy debate among teachers. I wonder how many children have been placed on an inappropriate reading level because of dialect.

We also talked about dialect readers and their use in the classroom. Dialect readers are sets of text written in both AAVE and SAE. The idea behind the readers is that children learn to read in their own dialect and then shift to Standard English with subsequent textbooks.

According to Wikipedia, "Simpkins, Holt & Simpkins (1977) developed a comprehensive set of dialect readers, called bridge readers, which included the same content in three different dialects: AAVE, a bridge version that was closer to SAE without being prohibitively formal, and a Standard English version. Despite studies that showed promise for such dialect reader programs, reaction to them was largely hostile."