African American Preschoolers' Language, Emergent Literacy Skills, and Use of African American English: A Complex Relation

• Published in: Journal of speech, language, and hearing research Vol. 49; no. 4; pp. 771 - 792
• Main Authors: Connor, Carol McDonald, Craig, Holly K
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States ASHA 01.08.2006; American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA); American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
• Subjects: African American Children; African American Students; African Americans; Black Dialects; Black English language; Child Language; Child, Preschool; Children; Children & youth; Demographic aspects; Dialects; Early Intervention (Education); Education; Educational Status; Emergent Literacy; Family Literacy; Female; Grade 4; Health aspects; Humans; Imitation; Language; Language disorders in children; Language Tests; Linguistics; Literacy; Male; Metalinguistic awareness; Metalinguistics; Multivariate Analysis; North American English; Phonetics; Phonological awareness; Phonology; Preschool Children; Reading; Reading Achievement; Reading Skills; Sentences; Socioeconomic Factors; Students; Studies; Verbal Learning; Vocabulary Skills; United States
• ISSN: 1092-4388; 1558-9102
• DOI: 10.1044/1092-4388(2006/055)

Holly K. Craig University of Michigan, Ann Arbor Contact author: Carol McDonald Connor, 227 N. Bronough, Suite 7250/FCRR, Tallahassee, FL 32312. E-mail: cconnor{at}fcrr.org PURPOSE: This study examined the relation between African American preschoolers' use of African American English (AAE) and their language and emergent literacy skills in an effort to better understand the perplexing and persistent difficulties many African American children experience learning to read proficiently. METHOD: African American preschoolers' ( n = 63) vocabulary skills were assessed in the fall and their language and emergent literacy skills were assessed in the spring. The relation between students' AAE use and their vocabulary and emergent literacy skills was examined using hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), controlling for fall vocabulary and other child, family, and school variables. Children's use of AAE was examined across two contexts—sentence imitation and oral narrative using a wordless storybook prompt. RESULTS: There was a significant -shaped relation between the frequency with which preschoolers used AAE features and their language and emergent literacy skills. Students who used AAE features with greater or lesser frequency demonstrated stronger sentence imitation, letter–word recognition, and phonological awareness skills than did preschoolers who used AAE features with moderate frequency, controlling for fall vocabulary skills. Fewer preschoolers used AAE features during the sentence imitation task with explicit expectations for Standard American English (SAE) or School English than they did during an oral narrative elicitation task with implicit expectations for SAE. CONCLUSIONS: The nonlinear relation between AAE use and language and emergent literacy skills, coupled with systematic differences in AAE use across contexts, indicates that some preschoolers may be dialect switching between AAE and SAE, suggesting emerging pragmatic/metalinguistic awareness. KEY WORDS: children, literacy, metalinguistic awareness, phonological awareness, dialects, African American English CiteULike     Connotea     Del.icio.us     Digg     Facebook     Reddit     Technorati     Twitter     What's this?