Situated Phonics: Understanding Beginning to Read With Culturally and Linguistically Diverse First Graders

• In Event: Poster Session 5
  In Poster Session: New Perspectives on English Language Learning

Abstract

This yearlong, qualitative case study analyzed the kinds of talk that culturally and linguistically diverse students used as they learned to decode and recognize words. In order to better understand the perspectives of today's diverse beginning readers and wide ranging language needs, this study analyzed young students' talk about words. In conducting this research, students were provided with materials so that they could convey nuances of their thinking. This study points to the ways in which beginning to read can be framed as a socially mediated event that provides insight into more complex levels of student thinking. Further, it points to ways in which principles of decoding--or phonics--can be understood as socioculturally situated in students' lives.

Author

• Carolyn Strom, NYU Dept of teaching and learning