Literate Cultural Capital and Matthew Effects in Reading Achievement

Abstract

In addition to a rigidly constructivist orientation towards literacy education (see Chapter 6 of this volume), two other factors appear to have contributed to the failure of New Zealand’s national literacy strategy: the failure to respond adequately to differences in literate cultural capital at school entry and restrictive policies during the first year of literacy teaching. In this chapter, we argue that both factors trigger Matthew effects in reading achievement, which would explain New Zealand’s comparatively high levels of variability in test scores. The restrictive policies during the first year of literacy teaching that contribute to Matthew effects stem from three sources: RR’s “wait-to-fail” approach to reading intervention, misunderstandings regarding Constrained Skills Theory (CST) (Paris, 2005; Paris & Luo, 2010), and misguided views about culturally responsive instruction. The chapter is divided into two sections. The first section focuses on how the failure to respond adequately to differences in literate cultural capital at school entry contributes to Matthew effects in reading. The second section focuses on how restrictive policies during the first year of literacy teaching contribute to Matthew effects.