Standard 4 - Diversity

Candidates create and engage their students in

literacy practices that develop awareness,
understanding, respect, and a valuing of
differences in our society.
Evidence that demonstrates competence may
include, but is not limited to, the following:
Reading Specialist/Literacy Coach
Candidates
4.1 Recognize, understand, and value the forms of
diversity that exist in society and their importance
in learning to read and write.

Considering Vygotskys sociocultural theory and

the focus on the influence of interactions between
people and environment in student learning helps
with understanding that students learn at school,
during peer interaction, and at home. Early
language develops as a result of the home
environment and exposure to oral language,
reading, books, writing for daily activities, and
family culture all correlate to childrens early
acquisition of literacy. Differences in how literacy
is practiced in the home environments will lead to
differences in childrens skill levels.
Teachers should be encouraged to understand that
different assessments may show different skills
and knowledge even if they are supposed to be
testing the same thing. This does not mean that a
student is not learning or is a slow learner; it
simply means that they are developing different
skills at different paces. Furthermore, it helps to
consider that students may be able to understand
more than they can saythis may be directly
related to vocabulary development.
Understanding diversity should include an
understanding of ESL/ELL students. There are
several stages of language acquisition that should
be considered when teaching a student who is
ESL/ELL. The stages are very similar in learning
language as a child. For example, they are usually
quiet, or silent, observers as they are trying to
grasp the concepts of the new language. These
students typically begin speaking after they have
left the classroom in the following year.

4.2 Use a literacy curriculum and engage in

instructional practices that positively impact
students knowledge, beliefs, and engagement
with the features of diversity

4.3 Develop and implement strategies to advocate

for equity.

Performing research on strategies and modeling

those strategies for teachers, during professional
development and within the classroom, will
strengthen the use of those strategies.
Many strategies have proven useful in helping
struggling readers, such as teachers modeling
strategies required for reading, viewing, listening,
and writing. Furthermore, using peer review and
small groups to allow students to teach each other,
consistently using follow-up assessments to
measure student comprehension and guide
instruction, placing emphasis on building reading,
writing, speaking, thinking, and listening skills
through collaboration and flexible grouping, and
many many more strategies have proven useful
for struggling readers.
In order to positively impact students knowledge,
beliefs, and engagement with features of diversity
it is important to know that language and culture
are inextricably linked to one another. The best
approaches to valuing contributions of diverse
communities are multi-disciplinary.
With that being said, positive exploration of
backgrounds and constructive conversations need
to be encouraged among teachers so that they can
explore ways to value diverse cultures and
transfer that positive thinking, as well as
appreciation, to their students.
It is the responsibility of teachers to create a
bridge between home and school so that students
background knowledge informs the teachers
instruction. There are ways to link home and
school culture. A few examples are inviting family
members in to share aspects of their culture
(teaching students how to cook a dish from their
culture), bringing in alternative reading material
to supplement texts that might be geared toward
more middle-class white Americans, or supporting
family days or cross cultural fairs.
On the other side of the spectrum. There should be
consideration of the collaborative and selfcontained classes. In order to advocate for equity,
the collaborative classes could invite the selfcontained classes to join in for presentations or
cooperative learning activities. This models
acceptance for resistant teachers and/or students.
Furthermore, providing enrichment activities for
all students (not just the talented and gifted or the
students with financially capable families)
encourages acceptance and equity among the
student and faculty population.