jim cummins the university of toronto

Multiliteracies: A Closer Look at Practices and Pedagogies

or

How Do We Teach Literacy Effectively?

Jim CumminsThe University of Toronto

Language and Literacy Researchers of Canada 9th Annual Pre-CSSE ConferenceSaturday, May 26, 2012Wilfrid Laurier University/University of Waterloo, Waterloo,

Understanding Literacy Development in Multilingual School Contexts: What the

Research Is Saying

Literacy Achievement↑

Print Access/Literacy Engagement↑

Scaffold Meaning (input and

output)

Affirm identity

Extend language↔ ↔↔

Connect to students’ lives (activate prior knowledge)

Context and Issues (1)

A Culture of Crisis-Mongering

“So it is a quite shocking fact that many Canadians lack the necessary literacy skills to succeed in today’s economy: a situation that is eroding their standard of living. Surveys show that almost four in 10 youths aged 15 have insufficient reading skills; while more than two in 10 university graduates, almost five in 10 Canadian adults and six in 10 immigrants have inadequate literacy.” (p. 2).

“Immigrants aged 16 to 65 performed significantly below the national average. Sixty per cent of recent and established immigrants had poor or weak prose literacy, compared to 37 per cent of Canadian-born respondents. … Immigrants with a mother tongue which is neither English nor French had lower literacy scores. So, the individuals may be quite literate in their native language, but they face challenges in Canada’s two official languages. Nevertheless, this does not diminish the finding of inadequate literacy, since it is likely that English and French proficiency matters most for economic and financial success in Canada” (p. 9). (TD Canada Trust [2009]. Literacy matters: A call for action)


Ideological Rifts among Researchers: The CLLRnet controversy (2009)

National Strategy for Early Literacy initiative – background papers posted by the Canadian Language & Literacy Research Network/Réseau Canadien de Recherche sur le Langage et L’alphabétisation

CLLRnet papers relied on the results of the International Adult Literacy and Life Skills Survey (IALLS) to claim that there was a literacy crisis. Furthermore, a significant contributor to this crisis was the failure of Canadian schools to teach basic literacy skills (phonemic awareness, decoding/phonics, vocabulary, and reading comprehension strategies).

These claims were comprehensively refuted by Victoria Purcell-Gates and Rob Tierney of UBC in their response to the CLLRnet call for action. Strong repudiations of the methodological biases of CLLRnet researchers and their conclusions were submitted by LLRC together with other Canadian reserchers including Kelleen Toohey and an SFU group, Heather Lotherington, and others.


The Purcell-Gates and Tierney Response

“To conclude from the IALLS that almost half of Canadians cannot read or write well enough to participate effectively in their daily lives is incredibly wrong.”

Assessments were given only in English or French. Immigrants represented sixty per cent of people who performed below Level Three on the IALLS.

“Does this mean that almost half of Canadian adults are bumbling around, unable to locate grocery items or get on the right bus? Clearly not. In fact, when those adults who scored within the first two levels of the assessment were asked if they thought their literacy skills present them with any difficulties, they said no – they were sufficient to meet everyday needs.”

“In Level One, only four per cent of the English-speaking participants had trouble with reading and only two per cent of the French-speaking participants. In Level Two, only about 3 per cent of English and French-speaking adults had reading problems. “


The Purcell-Gates and Tierney Response

There is no evidence that lack of systematic skills instruction is the cause of the (non-existent) literacy crisis nor that increased systematic skills instruction is the solution to this non-existen crisis.

Purcell-Gates/Tierney highlight several core findings about the development of reading skills:

Teachers must be aware of what the children come to school knowing, and not knowing, and then must be allowed to tailor beginning reading instruction that will make a difference for all children;

Children learn basic skills such as letter/sound relationships better and faster when they are presented in the context of real reading and writing activities. Teaching models that strip down reading and writing to technical skills outside of meaningful practice may show what looks like good results on skills tests, but these gains are quickly lost after grade two;

Children learn to read and write better when teachers respond to them based upon knowledge of them as individuals and as members of cultural communities.

Origins of the CLLRnet Controversy:Interpretation of Research on Reading Achievement

U.S. Literacy Policies 2002 – 2012:

Major focus under the Bush administration to implement “scientifically proven” instructional strategies;

The NRP (2000) data were widely interpreted as supporting “systematic phonics” instruction as a core instructional strategy to ensure that “no child was left behind”.

This interpretation was incorporated into the Reading First program designed to boost the achievement of low-income students. The administration and implementation of Reading First was strongly influenced by researchers associated with the University of Oregon and the “direct instruction” approach championed since the 1960s by Siegfried Engelmann.

What the NRP Actually Found

Policy-makers and many researchers ignored the fact that for normally achieving and low achieving readers, systematic phonics instruction showed no relationship to reading comprehension beyond Grade 1. Ehri, Nunes, Stahl, and Willows (2001) acknowledge this pattern as follows:

“Among the older students in 2nd through 6th grades . . . phonics instruction was not effective for teaching spelling (d = 0.09) or teaching reading comprehension (d = 0.12)” (p. 418).

“[R]eaders in 2nd through 6th grades classified as low achieving (LA) revealed no overall effects of phonics instruction…” (p. 418).

What Does $6 Billion Buy?

The Failure of Reading First to Demonstrate Impact on Reading Comprehension

Reading First Impact Study: Final Report (November 2008)

“Reading First did not produce a statistically significant impact on student reading comprehension test scores in grades one, two or three.” (2008, p. xv)

“Reading First produced a positive and statistically significant

impact on decoding among first grade students tested in one school year (spring 2007).” (2008, p. xvi)

“Reading First had no statistically significant impacts on student engagement with print.” (p. xxii)

What the Research Actually Says:The Neglected Impact of Print Access/Literacy Engagement

on Reading Comprehension

OECD’s PISA Studies

Data on the reading attainment of 15-year olds in 27 countries showed that “the level of a student’s reading engagement is a better predictor of literacy performance than his or her socioeconomic background, indicating that cultivating a student’s interest in reading can help overcome home disadvantages” (OECD, 2004, p. 8).

The authors point out that “engagement in reading can be a consequence, as well as a cause, of higher reading skill, but the evidence suggests that these two factors are mutually reinforcing” (p. 8).

OECD (2010) – about one-third of the negative impact of SES is mediated through reading engagement (or lack thereof). In other words, schools can significantly reduce the effects of SES by strongly promoting literacy engagement

Brozo, Shiel, & Topping, K. (2007/2008). Engagement in reading: Lessons learned from three PISA countries. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 51(4), 304-315.

PISA youth from the lowest socioeconomic status (SES) who were highly engaged readers performed as well on the assessment as highly engaged youth from the middle SES group and youth with medium levels of engagement in the high SES group (Kirsch et al., 2002).

Using regression analysis, it was found that engagement in reading was the student factor with the third largest impact on performance (after grade and immigration status). It accounted for twice as much of the difference in performance as SES.

What this suggests is that highly motivated youth may compensate for low family income and parents' limited educational attainment--two prominent risk factors in the lives of adolescents. Keeping students engaged in reading and learning might make it possible for them to overcome what might otherwise be insuperable barriers to academic success.” (pp. 307-308)

“Reports of studies that … use rigorous research designs … show that increasing children’s access to print material generally does improve children’s outcomes. … Increasing children’s access to print material appears to produce morepositive attitudes toward reading, increases the amount of reading that children do, increases children’s emergent literacy skills, and improves children’s reading achievement”

(Jim Lindsay, 2010, based on a meta-analysis of 108 studies).

Policy Implications

Toronto Star headline, 27/05/2011

“Public outcry forces Windsor Catholic board to reconsider library staff layoffs”

The board had decided “to essentially shut down school libraries and lay off almost all library staff”.

The public backlash and Ministry concern about this decision appears to have been based on intuitions that libraries are important but no mention was made in the published reports of the substantial research evidence showing strong relationships between print access/literacy engagement and reading achievement.

Willful Blindness to Linguistic Diversity Issues

Cummins (1981) published a re-analysis of large-scale TDSB data which showed that immigrant students who were learning English as an L2 required between 5 and 7 years length of residence to catch up academically. These trajectories have been supported in many subsequent Canadian, Israeli, and U.S. studies.

The data clearly imply that “mainstream” classroom teachers must be prepared to teach ELL students and scaffold instruction appropriately to make content comprehensible because typically ELL students get English-language support for only 1 or 2 years, and even during that period they are spending considerable time in the mainstream class.

Willful Blindness to Linguistic Diversity Issues (2)

The data also imply the school principals should have some knowledge of scaffolding strategies if they are to evaluate teachers’ instruction and provide instructional leadership within their schools.

Unfortunately, few if any Principals’ Course incorporate any focus on ESL issues and most new teachers graduate from Faculties of Education with minimal understanding of typical ELL academic trajectories or basic scaffolding strategies.

Similarly, ECE reports pay only lip-service to linguistic diversity (e.g., McCain/Mustard; Pascal etc.).

Instructional Consequences of Ignoring the Research Findings

Letter of the Week, Toronto Star, 1994, April 2, p. B3

In recent years, increasing numbers of ESL students have come into my [science] classes. This year, one of my classes contains almost as many non-English speaking students as there are English speaking ones. Most of the ESL students have very limited English skills, and as a result are not involved in class discussions and cannot complete assignments or pass tests.


I respect these students as I recognize that often they have a superior prior education in their own language. They are well-mannered, hard-working and respectful of others. I enjoy having a multiracial society in my classroom, because I like these students for themselves and their high motivational level. However, I am troubled by my incompetence in adequately helping many individual students of that society. Because of language difficulties, they often cannot understand me, nor can they read the text or board notes. Each of these students needs my personal attention, and I do not have that extra time to give.


As well, I have to evaluate their ability to understand science. They cannot show me their comprehension. I have to give them a failing mark! I question the educational decisions made to assimilate ESL students into academic subject classes before they have minimal skills in English

(extracted from "A teacher's daily struggle in multi-racial classroom", Letter of the Week, Toronto Star, 1994, April 2, p. B3).

What’s Wrong with this Scenario? Isolation – why are ESL and content teachers not sharing

strategies?

Leadership – why is this issue not being discussed at school level?

Little awareness of relevant research – at least 5 years is typically required for ELL students to catch up academically – can’t be “fixed” in 1-2 years of ESL;

Why is there no discussion within the school of what kinds of instructional (scaffolding) strategies can help make content comprehensible for ELL students?

Why is there no inquiry about what kinds of alternative assessment strategies might be employed so that students are not being failed because of language issues?

Unwillingness of policy-makers to address the impact of societal power relations and teacher-student

identity negotiation on student achievement Included in the category of marginalized group students are those

from low-income backgrounds, many groups of immigrant and refugee students, and minority groups such as the Roma and indigenous communities that have experienced discrimination and social exclusion, often over generations (e.g., First Nations residential school experience).

Extensive evidence from both the sociological/anthropological and psychological research literature demonstrates the impact of societal power relations on minority group achievement.Gloria Ladson-Billings: “The problem that African-American students face is the constant devaluation of their culture both in school and in the larger society” (1995, p. 485).

How does this devaluation operate and what can we do about it?

The Collaborative Creation of Power in One Classroom

Lisa Leoni: Year 1 – Grade 7/8 mainstream class; Year 2 – Grades 4-6 ESL;

Large Muslim student population from Pakistan;

Lisa explored implementation of bilingual instructional strategies as a way of (a) enabling literacy engagement from a very early stage of students’ learning of English, and (b) affirming students’ academic identities.

In a “normal” classroom, it would be several years before newcomer students could engage in extended creative writing (in English).

Kanta’s Perspective And how it helped me was when I

came here in grade 4 the teachers didn’t know what I was capable of.

I was given a pack of crayons and a coloring book and told to get on coloring with it. And after I felt so bad about that--I’m capable of doing much more than just that. I have my own inner skills to show the world than just coloring and I felt that those skills of mine are important also. So when we started writing the book [The New Country], I could actually show the world that I am something instead of just coloring.

And that's how it helped me and it made me so proud of myself that I am actually capable of doing something, and here today [at the Ontario TESL conference] I am actually doing something. I’m not just a coloring person—I can show you that I am something.

Collective Pedagogical Inquiry

What Image of the Child Are We Sketching in Our Instruction?

Capable of becoming bilingual and biliterate?

Capable of higher-order thinking and intellectual accomplishments?

Capable of creative and imaginative thinking?

Capable of creating literature and art?

Capable of generating new knowledge?

Capable of thinking about and finding solutions to social issues?

Identity Texts: a tool for literacy engagement and identity investment

Identity texts refer to artifacts that students produce. Students take ownership of these artifacts as a result of having invested their identities in them.

Once produced, these texts (written, spoken, visual, musical, or combinations in multimodal form) hold a mirror up to the student in which his or her identity is reflected back in a positive light.

Students invest their identities in these texts which then become ambassadors of students’ identities. When students share identity texts with multiple audiences (peers, teachers, parents, grandparents, sister classes, the media, etc.) they are likely to receive positive feedback and affirmation of self in interaction with these audiences.

Creating an Identity-Affirming School Environment

(d) Linking Literacy Engagement with Identity Affirmation


(d) Linking Literacy Engagement with Identity Affirmation

Reading makes me powerful because…

When I grow up I can find a better job than people who can’t read. Somebody can also trick you to do something that will get you in trouble.Reading gives you new words to learn. It gives my brain new ideas. It helps your vocabulary so when you need to write something you can use longer and harder words. In school you can get a better mark using more words.

By Tasneem


(a) Validating Home Language and Culture


(b) Capable of thinking about and finding solutions to social issues?

(c) Capable of higher-order thinking?

Planning Instructional Change within Schools: Articulating Choices and Taking Collective Action

Instructional Options Current Realities

Where Are We?

Vision for the Future

Where Do We Want To Be?

Getting it DoneHow Do We Get

There?

Content How do we adapt curriculum materials to link with students’ prior knowledge and cultural background (e.g., purchase dual language books) and also to promote critical thinking about texts and issues (e.g., whose perspectives are represented in a text)?

Cognition How can we modify instruction to evoke higher levels of literacy engagement and critical thinking?

Tools How can we use tools such as computers, digital cameras, camcorders, web pages, etc?

Assessment How can we complement mandated standardized assessments in order to present to students, parents, and administrators a more valid account of student progress? (e.g. a role for portfolio assessment?)

Language/CultureWhat messages are we giving students and parents about home language and culture? How can we enable students to use their L1 as a powerful tool for learning? Can we increase students’ identity investment by means of bilingual instructional strategies (teaching for transfer)?

Parental InvolvementHow can we engage parents as co-educators in such a way that their linguistic and cultural expertise is harnessed as fuel for their children’s academic progress?

Web and Book Resources Multiliteracies project (www.multiliteracies.ca)

Dual Language Showcase (http://schools.peelschools.org/1363/pages/dual.aspx)

Webcast on Teaching and Learning in Multilingual Ontario (http://www.curriculum.org/secretariat/archive.html)

Cummins, J. (2011). Putting the evidence back into evidence-based policies for underachieving students. Strasbourg: Council of Europehttp://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/

IdentityTexts: The Collaborative Creation of Power in Multilingual Schools (Edited by Jim Cummins and Margaret Early; Trentham Books, 2011)http://trentham.styluspub.com/Books/BookDetail.aspx?productID=241727

http://www.multiliteracies.ca/

http://schools.peelschools.org/1363/pages/dual.aspx

http://www.curriculum.org/secretariat/archive.html

http://www.coe.int/t/dg4/linguistic/

jim cummins the university of toronto

Documents

literacy crisis

literacy matters

literacy development

literacy researchers

necessary literacy skills

finding of inadequate

international adult

weak prose literacy