Ruth M. Wilson
Reading is closely related to language experience. Recent research points to the fact that the language experience of many bilingual children, some from lower socio-economic groups, and/or isolated geographical areas, have much less success in language skills. If the language of teachers differs to any degree from the native speech of the learners, difficulty will result. (Urban Language Series, 1969).
A student who does not use English as the dominant language in social settings usually has difficulty understanding the reading material in school. When reading the rhythm is different which is one indication that the student is thinking in his native language. Students with language problems have more steps to go through when reading than unilingual students. Bilingual students when reading, see the word, internalize and think the word (usually in the native tongue), then speak its English counterpart. In comparison to the unilingual student, the bilingual student takes one or more steps before words are internalized and then spoken.
Twentyfive percent of the population, in the greater American society, belong to the lower socio-economic class. This brings about serious handicaps for one in four in the public school system. These handicaps involve: 1) lack of motivation to succeed in school, 2) failure to set goals at a high level of aspiration, 3) lack of desire to stay in school longer with children from higher social classes, and 4) failure to select college preparatory courses. The subtle discrimination in schools has a punishing effect and decreases the students selfrespect, which causes them to do poorly and drop out.
Miles Zintz confirms this by stating: “Many tests indicate that I.Q. scores diminished as these children from meager language backgrounds progress through the school system. While innate capacity for learning did not decrease, their verbal abilities to respond in comparison with other children in their group, did decrease.” (Corrective Reading, 1972).
In 1920, with the advent of intelligence tests, there were many studies claiming that bilingual children lacked intelligence when compared with unilingual middleclass children. Tests have shown that as these students progressed through the grades, they fell further behind their counterparts. Tests comparing performances of urban and rural children gave the advantage to the knowledge, experience, and sophistication of the typical urban English-speaking child. Unfortunately, those from urban areas who lacked adequate skills were most likely to fall into the lower socioeconomic classes, lacking the experiences that would make school learning meaningful. Lastly, cultural difference must be recognized as having a major effect on the life values of children and what is expected of them in school. The expectations the school makes on the students can be unrealistic. One of the mayor issues facing an educator today is the consistently low scores of innercity Black, Hispanic, and poor rural While children. These children are often called “linguistically different” or “linguistically diverse” . . . which means in some cases low achievers.
Research has shown that negative attitudes toward these linguistically different children can be detrimental. No doubt these negative attitudes affect classroom teaching. Bilingual students show one of the highest dropout rates of any other minority group or fall progressively behind other students as they move through the educational system. This represents a failure within the educational structure which many educators are trying to overcome.
Teachers should be cognizant of the fact that when a young child starts the educational process, the bicultural existence may be especially difficult. Some critics of the educational system of bilingual students maintain that educators have created a barrier between the child’s culture and the child’s school. It is no wonder that many children who must learn English as a second language develop negative attitudes and fail to achieve academically.
Arthur W. Combs author of Myths in Education points out that students need to be prepared for the world they must enter, they must learn how to adapt to changing conditions, and how to maintain openmindedness. A curriculum designed to help young people change must concentrate on the student and what is happening to him or her.
“The ultimate purpose of education,” says Alvin Toffler, “is not to create elegantly complex, well ordered accurate images of the future, but help learners cope with reallife situations, opportunities, and perils. It is to strengthen the individual’s practical ability to anticipate and adapt to change, whether through invention, informed acquiesce, or through intelligent resistance”.
Schools emphasizing adaptable, intelligent behavior require personcentered curricula designed to help students behave in ever more intelligent ways. (Combs, 1979).
My personal experience in reading bears out what research has uncovered. When teaching vocabulary skills, I realized that words frequently meant nothing to the youngsters. True, they needed to have an enriched vocabulary but the material used was not very good. It bothered me that students were meeting very little success. I am aware that meeting success in reading and language can make for a pleasant school experience for any child . . . hence my decision to introduce idioms, their meanings and usefulness through this unit.