Double Journal Entry #10

Chapter 3: Language and Identity At Home

1. What are the features of the forms of language that are spoken in a home environment that align with academic varieties of language?

repetition, parallelism, oral story-telling, and the use of figurative language

2. What are the features of Leona's specialized form of language?

Leona's specialized form of language is rather poetic. She specializes on parallelism and repetition. She is interested in making a pattern out of language that generates meaning by comparing and contrasting.

3. Why is Leona's specialized form of language not accepted in school?

The academic language requirements stress linear step-by-step events or facts that are organized around one topic that contain no emotional connection.

4. Explain the contradiction between the research conducted by Snow et al. (1998) and the recommendations made by Snow et al. (1998).

The recommendations state that early phonemic awareness and overt instruction on decoding  improve their initial skill levels and improve academic language learning. This research says that students in regions of high poverty will fall behind regardless of the initial reading skill level.

5. What other factors besides early skills training will make or break good readers?

cultural stereotypes that are in place due to evident differences in written and oral language.

6. Why do some children fail to identify with, or find alienating, the "ways with words" taught in school?

Those academic varieties of language are not taught to coincide with informal ways with words. Instead children do not fell like they belong at a school that doesn't value/recognize their home-based language practices.