Dialect readers revisited

Abstract

Recent linguistics research on African American Vernacular English (AAVE) shows little of the concern with educational issues that was evident 20 or 30 years ago, but the educational problems to which we thought we could contribute then remain very real. For instance, the scores of low income African American youth on standardized tests of reading are extremely low, and this raises the question of whether dialect readers—first proposed by linguists in the 1960's—might be worth reconsidering today as one strategy for improving the reading performance of AAVE speakers. We first review the existing literature on dialect readers, noting the theoretical arguments which were articulated in their favor, the experimental evidence of their effectiveness in increasing reading comprehension, and the negative attitudes which led to their disfavoring and disuse. We then present the results of three new mini-studies of dialect readers in Northern California elementary and junior high schools, reporting that the AAVE versions were preferred by many of the students (particularly boys) and that it enhanced reading comprehension in one of the two coses in which this was tested. We conclude that dialect readers represent a viable alternative for teaching AAVE speakers to read, and that linguists should, with renewed vigor, resume research on this and other methods of teaching reading. However, we identify several lessons—for instance, the importance of community involvement—which should be learned from prior research on this subject.