Language Variation in the Writing of African American Students: Factors Predicting Reading Achievement.
Lisa Fitton, Lakeisha Johnson, Carla Wood and 2 others
PMID 34723624WHAT IT FOUND
African American students' writing was not penalized for using African American English forms.
Instead, general grammatical errors ungrammatical in any dialect predicted lower reading scores. Assess overall language ability, not dialect use, to identify students needing support.
Key findings
01Density of African American English-specific forms in writing did not significantly predict scores on two of three reading measures and was not a key predictor overall.
02Density of dialect-neutral ungrammatical forms predicted scores on all three reading measures, suggesting general language ability drives achievement more than dialect use.
03Household income significantly predicted two of the three reading outcome measures.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
The study used a reverse-identification approach for coding, which may have misclassified some forms, particularly dialect-neutral ones, due to uncertainty about individual students' specific dialect backgrounds. The sample was limited to African American students in Florida, so findings may not generalize to other regions or dialect variations. Some outcome measures were administered by parents at home rather than in a controlled setting. The model accounted for less than 30% of the variance in reading vocabulary and high-stakes test scores, leaving much of achievement unexplained.
Declared interests
The research was supported by a grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that African American English use in writing harms reading achievement. The study found that dialect-neutral grammatical errors, not dialect-specific forms, were the consistent predictors of lower scores.