AFR 185/SOC 214: Prof. Bruno's Classes: Dialect

This study explored the spelling skills of African American second graders who produced African American English (AAE) features in speech. The children (N = 92), who varied in spoken AAE use and word reading skills, were asked to spell words that contained phonological and morphological dialect-sensitive (DS) features that can vary between AAE and print- and dialect-neutral (DN) orthographic patterns that do not. Analyses indicated that all children had more difficulty spelling DS than DN features, especially the regular past-tense inflection. Struggling readers had more difficulty spelling both features, after controlling for differences in AAE use. Children in both groups made few AAE-related errors. A significant, though weak, negative correlation was also found between AAE use and spelling of DS features. The findings indicate that linguistic variation should be considered in the differential diagnosis of spelling disorders among African American children.
All beginning spellers are faced with the challenge of mapping their speech patterns to print. However, this challenge may be even greater for children whose speech patterns differ significantly from standard orthographic conventions. This study explored how a particular group of linguistically diverse beginning spellers negotiate these mismatches: Children who speak African American English (AAE). It may seem odd to include a study of spelling skills among children who speak AAE in a special issue of the Learning Disability Quarterly. We would argue that there are three very important reasons why researchers and professional educators interested in spelling achievement among individuals with learning disabilities should also be mindful of this population.
First, achievement gaps between African American and White children are well known, and these gaps cannot be explained solely by socioeconomic status (SES) or family or school differences (Jencks & Philips, 1998). Thus, the search continues for variables that might contribute to the apparent difficulty that many young African American children experience while learning to read and write. One possible factor may be language differences or, more specifically, dialect differences. Given accumulating evidence that oral language skills are critical for reading and writing achievement (e.g., Scarborough, 2001), it is important to explore how variation in spoken language may influence how children develop these skills.

Purpose: This study had 4 primary purposes: (a) to describe the oral narrative performance of typically developing African American prekindergarten children with commonly used macro- and microstructure measures; (b) to examine the concurrent and (c) predictive relations between narrative performance, spoken dialect use, vocabulary, and story comprehension; and (d) to explore change in narrative performance during the school year. Method: Children provided story retells of Frog Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969) at the beginning (n = 76) and end (n = 146) of the school year. Retells were analyzed using the narrative assessment protocol (Pence, Justice, & Gosse, 2007), the narrative scoring scheme (Heilmann, Miller, & Nockerts, 2010; Heilmann, Miller, Nockerts, & Dunaway, 2010), high point analysis (McCabe, Bliss, Barra, & Bennett, 2008), and other common indices of narrative ability (e.g., number of different words). Children also completed spoken dialect use, oral vocabulary, and story comprehension measures. Results: Comparisons with data reported in the literature suggest that, on average, the children in this study performed within age-appropriate expectations on each narrative measure. In general, narrative performance was correlated with and predicted by complex syntax and vocabulary skills and was not associated with spoken dialect use. Finally, the children's narrative assessment protocol and high point analysis scores changed significantly during the school year. Conclusion: The results are useful in interpreting the performance of African American children during the prekindergarten school year.

The article presents a study which examines the influence and contribution of dialect shifting to the reading outcomes of African-American English (AAE)-speaking students in Michigan. The study evaluates the written language skills, oral and written narratives, and tests and measures provided to 165 grade students. Findings show that the ability of students to shift towards Standard American English (SAE) increases reading achievement which indicates that shifting impacted reading outcomes.

Purpose: To report preliminary comparisons of developing structural and dialectal characteristics associated with fictional and personal narratives in school-age African American children. Method: Forty-three children, Grades 2-5, generated a fictional narrative and a personal narrative in response to a wordless-book elicitation task and a story-prompt task, respectively. Narratives produced in these 2 contexts were characterized for macrostructure, microstructure, and dialect density. Differences across narrative type and grade level were examined. Results: Statistically significant differences between the 2 types of narratives were found for both macrostructure and microstructure but not for dialect density. There were no grade-related differences in macrostructure, microstructure, or dialect density. Conclusion: The results demonstrate the complementary role of fictional and personal narratives for describing young children's narrative skills. Use of both types of narrative tasks and descriptions of both macrostructure and microstructure may be particularly useful for characterizing the narrative abilities of young school-age African American children, for whom culture-fair methods are scarce. Further study of additional dialect groups is warranted.