儿童文学与贫困（ children’s literatureand poverty）.docVIP

Children’s Literature and Poverty: Closing the gap Mia Johnson Appalachian State University Advanced Study of Children’s Literature RE 5140 Dr. Connie Green November 30, 2005 A little girl walked into a classroom three weeks after the first day of school. As she looked around she saw children with the best, brightest clothes, shiny shoes, and sparkling pencils. Her family had just moved into the campground and she knew that she did not look like those children in her new class. They were all reading, something that she did not enjoy because she was not good at it. Then her new teacher reached for her hand and spoke in a welcoming voice. The little girl told her mother goodbye with an uncertain tear and small sideways smile. The reality of this situation occurs daily, according to Ruby Payne, Ph.D. (2005). When looking at children of poverty and their relationship with academic progress, studies show there is a gap between low-socioeconomic achievement and middle-socioeconomic achievement. Susan Nittourer (1996) stated in her study of the development of phonemic awareness, “low socioeconomic parents are less likely to respond to their children’s utterances than are middle socioeconomic parents. The effect of socioeconomic status on child-directed language is consistent across ethnic group and is independent of the dialect being learned” (p. 1062). Research indicates that there is a strong relationship between the amount of vocabulary an individual has and social class. In generational poverty, it is not unusual for an individual to know only casual register (language between friends). An individual who has only causal register does not have many abstract words. The abstract words are in formal register (business and educational language). (Payne, 2002, p. 19) Children without early oral language experience tend to be delayed in developing phonemic awareness and other early reading skills (Nittourer, 1996). The