The Latino Literacy Gap: Why Traditional Education Fails

The Latino Literacy Gap: Why Traditional Education Fails

Judy Perlmutter and Norma Silva are principals at Para Los Niños’ charter middle and primary schools respectively. Para Los Niños educates children in Los Angeles’ Skid Row district.
A recent series in the New York Times entitled, “Remade in America”, (Where Education and Assimilation Collide - Series - NYTimes.com) has aimed the spotlight on recently immigrated children and their struggles to succeed, both academically and socially, in America’s public institutions of learning. The authors to these articles have pointed out the unintended problems associated with creating second language learning programs, including isolation, segregation, and prejudice, to name a few.

While second language learners make up the vast majority of the student populations at our charter and middle schools, our student populations are primarily Hispanic. Because of this cultural homogeny, our children have a tremendous comfort level and perhaps a greater degree of ownership over their environment than those described in the series.

That being said, our children share many of the same obstacles as those children interviewed or otherwise described by the Times; many are part of immigrant families or belong to a low socio economic demographic. In point of fact, nearly 100% of our students qualify for a reduced or free lunch. Like many of the teachers interviewed in the series, we too believe that English fluency is the gateway to achieving success over poverty, and our goal is to see our children reclassified as fluent in English by the time they matriculate from 5th grade to the middle school.
To this end, we feel that the greatest barrier to Latino achievement, or, for that matter, achievement by most non-English speaking children, is often the language of academics itself. In saying this we are referring to the jargon of academia, both as it relates to the technical content of words but also directions and context setting, for example, “Please compare and contrast..” or, “Please analyze…” and so on.

Very often the most difficult aspect of learning is the mastery of this type of vocabulary. And, because contextual understanding is critical to accurate assessment and problem-solving, a traditional, rote form of learning often fails. Here’s why: in many traditional academic programs, language is acquired through a process of decoding words themselves, rather than placing an emphasis on concept and context. Futher, this instruction is often provided at the lowest levels of decoding. So as the vocabulary of tests and text books becomes more complex, students who have achieved fluency at this low level are unable to think and understand at higher levels and are, therefore, unable to appropriately access academic vocabulary, assess and problem-solve.

To address this problem we have changed our educational approach to create a comprehensive literacy program that complements a comprehensive academic program. In other words, our instruction in literacy learning is not separate and distinct from our instruction in any other subject. While we offer subjects in traditional time periods, our instruction in the mechanics of literacy does not occur separate from the educational concepts being taught in other subjects.
So, whereas many schools take a unit approach to instruction in a given subject, we have year-long studies and we view each year as a journey in which we are building on the following year and preparing for the coming year. As a result, subjects like art and science are not taught as units in isolation of one another. Rather, our entire curriculum is integrated, helping children to make deeper connections. For example, in the third grade the California standard requires instruction in camouflage as part of a Desert Life curriculum. We teach to the standard, however, our children may be working on the higher learning concept of “interdependence,” from which we teach about animal habitat, of which camouflage is an important part. Art instruction will follow suit. Or, if we are teaching about states of matter in science we may discuss the characteristics of solids, one of which is texture. We will then use texture in art class to illustrate the lesson and attempt to forge a deeper connection.

In all subjects our emphasis is on experiential problem-solving, of which writing and discourse is an important part. This again bears contrast to more didactic, traditional approaches to classroom learning in which the teacher instructs and the students listen and respond. In our schools, the teacher instructs, but he/she also moderates and facilitates. As an example, we have what we call “turn and talk” triads where children are placed in groups of three to discuss the lesson at hand. The teacher’s role in this exercise is to conduct formative assessment by listening to the students and assessing their grasp of the concepts so that he/she can determine how to respond, or to change the method in which something is being taught. The teacher may also use this time as an opportunity to call out children who can serve as literacy examples to others.

Our test scores and the academic achievement of our students have demonstrated to us that this method is a powerful tool for learning, for all children, but especially second language learners.
We would like to hear from others with similar experiences, or from those who are either struggling with, or having success in more traditional classroom settings. Are your children hindered by their academic environments?

Do you feel academic language is a barrier to success? We encourage you to share your experiences for the benefit of teachers everywhere.

The Challenges of Achieving Early Literacy

In 2007, The National Council of La Raza (NCLR), a national Lee y serás partner, published a study whose results pointed to early childhood education as a means for closing the Latino achievement gap (http://www.nclr.org/). The authors of that report used the term “trajectory of failure” to describe the compulsory pathway of Latino children whose circumstances all but ensure failure before their lives have truly begun.

Several readers of this blog have wondered “aloud” about the reasons for a gap in Latino achievement, and why this may be so closely associated with Latinos as opposed, in their own experiences, to other minorities. NCLR’s study, and work done by others on this subject, provides much compelling data regarding the reasons behind this phenomenon, including facts such as this: sixty seven percent of Hispanic families with children under the age of three have income that is 200% below the poverty line as compared to 39% of white families with similarly-aged children. This singular fact results in a series failures that inhibit the development of early literacy, including less access to substantive early childhood education, less maternal education, comparatively fewer books in the home, more health uninsurance and less access to adequate healthcare, just to name a few. The sum of these factors results in less reading, less access to reading resources, less literacy modeling and fewer opportunities to develop basic literacy skills. Children sailing quickly down the trajectory of failure do so with these winds blowing strongly at their backs. Information such as this may cause us to want to give up, to wonder if amid such tremendous barriers meaningful progress can actually be made. At Para Los Niños we work daily to ensure that it can. This statement may sound merely aspirational, but our test scores provide a measure of truth that it’s possible (link to PLN website with information). Through our work in schools established in the most poverty stricken areas of Los Angeles, we have identified two key factors in literacy success: parents and teachers. While this is not a revelation and it’s clearly oversimplified, these are the most critical components of achieving literacy.

Although the process of moving parents who are not engaged to engagement is complex and difficult, especially where issues of poverty, mental illness, drug abuse and physical abuse are present, the early building blocks of reading are not difficult to achieve, nor costly to implement. We have found, and experts agree, that literacy learning begins with parents who are responsive to their children and their interests. Parents who speak directly to their children, who carry on conversations (even if in a foreign language), who are responsive, and who are willing to foster their child’s interest to read and to write are helping their children gain literacy, even if reading itself doesn’t initially take place in the home.

These same principles apply to teachers. Our teaching strategies encourage child-led development and learning activities because, among other reasons, we believe this demonstrates our interest in what the child finds interesting. Or, as educator P.D. Pearsons put it, “Our job is to turn each student’s knowledge and diversity of knowledge into a curricular strength, rather than an instructional inconvenience.” To this end, we recognize many activities beyond reading itself that promote reading skills. For example, we believe in the power of engaging, responsive conversations with students as a precursor to language formation, and we place a very high value on giving children time to explore literacy by encouraging off-curriculum activities such as writing letters to friends, drawing pictures and telling stories, none of which revolve around a traditional notion of reading instruction.

Several years ago we recognized that a rote approach to learning was not an effective teaching method for many of the children we serve. Children who live in poverty are victims of circumstance, often feeling isolated and powerless. Wanting to strengthen this love of learning and to close the gap between those who have and those who have not, we adopted the Reggio Emilia pedagogy in all our schools. With roots as a municipal child-care program in Italy, Reggio Emilia is an emergent curriculum which views the child as a competent learner and engages the child through a child-directed curriculum. Interestingly, the Reggio Emilia approach does not provide the kind of traditionally focused instruction in reading and writing that most of us are used to and yet we see our children embrace these skills with passion. We considered this model experimental when we originally adopted it, and while we believed it would be successful and invested in significant training to make it so, it was a huge change for us and was, therefore, a risk.

I believe passionately that it’s this kind of risk-taking, experimentation and exploration that will ultimately empower Latinos to excel … if we are willing to take a chance and commit to change. I am interested in hearing from others who have successfully experimented with new methods of teaching …particularly those in disadvantaged areas. What do you do to close the gap for Latinos, even the playing field and catch our children before they descend into failure? What are the tools and techniques you employ to stimulate both a love of learning and the acquisition of literacy skills? How do you incorporate pretend play as a model for language acquisition? What have you done to motivate parents who are themselves illiterate to engage in literacy activities? I urge you to engage in this dialogue, share your stories, and help us save our children.


Gisselle Acevedo
President and CEO
Para Los Niños