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Kayla Bruner

English 410

Professor Hines

8 July 2010

A World of Ignored Knowledge: The Key to Helping Low-Income Students Develop Literacy

Students from low-income families statistically struggle with literacy development, yet

the lack of educator understanding of their home lives is a massive contributor to the struggle

that often goes ignored. These students face misconceptions about their families, difficulties that

are not paid mind to and a whole world of ignored knowledge they possess that is not even

considered in assisting their education. Using this already possessed knowledge, teachers have a

hidden means of supplementing their knowledge and overcoming their disadvantages in the

classroom.

There are a number of dangerous misconceptions about children and families who are

living in poverty. These misconceptions are held by society at large as well as individuals,

including the educators these students rely on. There is a widespread belief that low-

socioeconomic-status (LSES) families do not try and transcend their situations, enjoy and accept

relying on welfare and live within a “culture of poverty.” The term “culture of poverty” was

coined by 1950s anthropologist Oscar Lewis and blames the outlook and attitudes of the poor for

their socioeconomic status (Rogalsky 198). This belief has slipped into mainstream culture even

as the middle class has begun to shrink and poverty has risen exponentially. This victim-blaming

perspective is dangerous in that it creates an immediate bias against the poor, which in educating

low-income students isolates them from their peers and grossly misunderstands their lives and
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circumstances. When educators stereotype families in this way their generalizations black out a

whole group and prevent any type of understanding the educational problem from occurring.

Educators who accept sweeping generalizations about the reasons for poverty allow themselves

to be shut out from the power based social, racist and classist implications of poverty and beliefs

on poverty, nor will they open their eyes to see the challenges their students are facing and need

help overcoming.

Modern texts often used by educators perpetrate horrible stereotypes just as much as

classic theories do. One example is Ruby Payne’s A Framework for Understanding Poverty

(2005), that is often cited for its attempts to deal with the problem of LSES students. These

works attempt to understand the causes and problems of living in poverty, but fail in that they

perpetuate stereotypes and portray poverty as a culture that is chosen by those living within it.

This leads to educators making the mistake of typecasting all individuals living in poverty as

lazy, unmotivated, “welfare queens,” addicts, and abusers. In her work, Payne even states that

there are “middle-class rules” that the poor must learn to follow and only then will the

socioeconomic and educational gap be bridged (Rogalsky 198). It is a simple, easy solution from

someone who has quite obviously never lived in poverty. Works like hers make poverty appear

to be a simplistic situation to escape and those who live in it unwilling, stubborn and stupid.

Lack of comprehension of the causes of poverty do not only come from an academic

shortfall but a simple case of having never “been there.” Teachers often cite that their low-

income students come from families that do not interact with the classroom in any manner. They

report that parents do not attend parent-teacher conferences, PTA meetings or important

extracurricular events and seem to be uninvolved and uncaring in much of their student’s life and

academic progress, including homework. These teachers simply do not seem to consider the
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demand of the jobs held by most low-income parents. They do not consider that many parents

would lose their jobs if they took the time deemed necessary for these events. These individuals

often work hours that do not follow the conventional nine-to-five schedule that other parents

enjoy. Teachers who believe that families living in poverty are “content” with their status or

enjoy relying on welfare illustrate that they have clearly never been in either of these situations.

Even if two parents work 40+ hours per week at minimum wage jobs, there is no way they can

successfully support the needs of a family. In California, as of 2010, that totals out to $2560 a

month for two employees working at the minimum wage of eight dollars/hour, forty hours a

week. That total would be cut in half in a house only one income, considering a majority of low-

income students live with single mothers (Tileston & Darling 15). Welfare benefits are extremely

low and decrease to nearly nothing as a person gains employment. These are situations that

nobody wants to live within and this barely scratches the surface of the misconceptions held by

some teachers.

The “culture of poverty” theory does not even begin to explain the social aspects of who

ends up in poverty and why. In a capitalist society money equals power and to have wealth is to

have influence. By keeping the impoverished trapped in poverty society keeps them away from

the source of power. Consider minorities statistically shown to be of a lower-income group.

Racial segregation, racist behaviors and isolation are shown to lead to increased segregated and

concentrated poverty (Rogalsky 199). Lack of respect for different ethnic groups leads to those

ethnic groups being kept out of the mainstream and away from higher paying jobs and education

that would lead to jobs. Social systems that are meant to aid the poor are also in place to keep the

poorest individuals down in the same state. For example, I am a twenty-one year old living at

home. I lost my Medical insurance on my birthday, which understandably caused concern

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because of prescriptions I take. I was told by a representative, in no uncertain terms, that if I

were to get pregnant my insurance would be reinstated. It leaves me to wonder how many

unemployed women, living at home and from low-income families, were wrangled into

pregnancy to keep vital medical insurance and health care, perpetuating the real cycle of poverty

for themselves and their future children

Once educators get past the misconceptions they hold, how can they help their students?

Teachers can help their students in two steps: First, they need to understand the additional

struggles that their low-income students go through in the process of gaining literacy and

accommodate them in ways that do not always fall into the conventional realm of the teacher.

Creative pedagogies will benefit these students in ways the traditional models cannot. Second,

they need to appreciate a different type of literacy, the literacy that occurs outside of the

classroom.

Students living in low-income households do have struggles that are undeniable and

require additional effort on the part of their teachers. For example, as was mentioned earlier,

many parents from low-income households work long and unconventional hours. This leaves

their students without the parent-teacher interaction their peers have, as well as lack of solid

homework help and at home aide. It is a teacher’s job to recognize this problematic pattern and

to give the student the extra help that they may or may not be lacking. Teachers can offer these

students extra help with homework and make time to seek out the parents. Perhaps they could

even take the additional step of visiting the student’s home in incidences where parents do not

have proper transportation to get to school consistently. Teachers must also realize the kind of

living situations their students may be in, situations without things middle-class Americans tend

to see as basic needs. Things like a safe household and enough food to eat are often taken for
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granted in middle-class homes (Rogalsky 204). Teachers need to make sure that they are not only

educating their students but helping students and their families understand Subsidized Lunch

programs to help students afford a school lunch and facilitate interventions for unsafe homes. By

helping students face their outside challenges, teachers help students become more comfortable

and ready to learn. Teachers also need to find out (without continuing to stereotype) how to give

students education they may be lacking because of their socioeconomic status. Chances are

higher that students from LSES homes are struggling in school. These students have a higher

chance of lacking the experiences that make it easier for other students to connect their lives to

their literacy development (Roseberry-McKibbin 17). Children need to be approached with high

expectations despite the odds, so that they are able to transcend the additional obstacles in their

paths. Teachers also need to recognize when a student is under too much stress or is possibly

facing a case of abuse or neglect. Low income students often face more stress from their parents

that is unfairly burdened on them as children who do not deserve to be a part of such struggling

(Roseberry Mckibbin 25). I definitely recall as a child having a lot of stress over things that no

six year old ever should. Children pick up on their parent’s financial stressors a lot more easily

than people would think. Teachers need to see when students are suffering and bring them to

proper counseling venues. Teachers also need to be wary of their student’s home lives and keep

an eye out for key signs of things like neglect and abuse which are more common under the

stressors that poverty brings.

Teachers also need desperately to value their student’s homes as places of learning. Until

teachers understand the inner workings of a student’s home-life, how can they adjust their

curriculum to suit the needs of their students? Teachers need to understand where a student is

coming from. One strategy mentioned by Jennifer Rogalsky in her article “Mythbusters:
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Dispelling the Culture of Poverty Myth in the Urban Classroom,” was simply to have students

map out their neighborhoods and households so that the teacher gains an understanding of what

has value with the students. Students from low-income families often have higher value on their

families and close circles of friends and this can be used in education. Literacy education having

value for students is crucial in making a connection. Sometimes, these students are isolated from

texts that relate to their life experiences. Not everything that a teacher instructs their student on

can have a connection to all students, but educators must strive towards this to make students

from LSES households feel their culture has worth. In Celese Roseberry-Mckibbin’s book, she

states that students from low-income families can have a less formal dialect, a mode of

discourse, which of course causes conflict when they arrive at school (31). What she does not

cover is the validity of this dialect and how the student’s mode of speaking as well as family

values can be incorporated to teach literacy. Teachers must be comfortable enough to pull away

from Standard English and embrace multiple modes of literacy. If a student makes that

connection to their “real world” more low-income students would not feel isolated from the

school world.

Teachers need to understand out-of-school literacy and its power in teaching in-school

literacy. According to Yetta Goodman’s article The Development of Initial Literacy,” children

develop the basis of their literacy before they come to the classroom. They witness literacy

events all around them and this develops into their school-based literacy. Why then, do teachers

completely ignore the literacy events that do not occur within the walls of a classroom? Teachers

especially ignore the literacy that is all around low-income students, while lamenting the fact that

they do not have enough literacy. Studies with adult students show that adults learned better

from connecting to basic literacy they were familiar with and it more easily expanded from there
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into more academic literacy (Lynch 516). This can be applied to children who may lack upper

academic literacy. Teachers can make literacy more meaningful if they apply it to the daily lives

and understanding of the students they teach. Something as simple as basic list writing is a

literacy event. Jacqueline Lynch said that when asked about literacy at home, low-income

parents, “did not reflect on many of these everyday events as reading or writing activities,

perhaps because out-of-school print literacy was not valued or integrated into their earlier

education” (518). A key in bridging the gap between students in high and low economic

standings is to make the at home education of all students relate to what is being taught in the

classroom. By building on the literacy that students are more likely to have witnessed at home,

teachers are able to connect between these forms of literacy and develop more advanced

academic literacy. Students who come from low-income, less academically educated homes see

literacy as a completely different thing (Goodman 321). If an educator takes what is familiar they

can base their lesson around it. Educators can use the experiences that they find in children’s

daily lives and make literacy acquisition meaningful. Teachers can take the unique experiences

of low-income, often language minority children and bring them in from the outskirts of their

own educations. The families of low-income students are not just burdens, but “funds of

knowledge” that cannot be deemed as worthless to the learning of reading, writing and overall

literacy (Moll & Gonzales 160). This knowledge needs to be played upon so that children can

connect. Teachers need to be able to embrace a more non-traditional mode of teaching, one that

allows students from all backgrounds to share what literacy is to them and their families.

As a student who has been the low-income student many experts talk about, without

really knowing, I really hope to have an understanding of what to do as a teacher, to bridge the

gaps that are there. They exist for many varied social and political reasons, but they must be
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dealt with without misconception and with a new type of educational understanding. Every

student deserves the opportunity to learn and be literate, regardless of their situation and using

what students already know is the best way to begin.

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Works Cited

Goodman, Yetta. “The Development of Initial Literacy” Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook. Ed.

Ellen Cushman, Eugene R Kingten, Barry M. Kroll, and Mike Rose. Boston/New York:

Bedford/St. Martins. 2001. Print.

Lynch, Jacqueline. “Print Literacy Engagement of Parents from Low-Income Backgrounds:

Implications for Adult and Family Literacy Programs” Journal of Adolescent & Adult

Literacy. March 2009. 509-521. Web.

Moll, Luis C. Gonzales, Norma. “Lessons from Research with Language Minority Children”

Literacy: A Critical Sourcebook. Ed. Ellen Cushman, Eugene R Kingten, Barry M. Kroll,

and Mike Rose. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martins. 2001. Print.

Rogalsky, Jennifer. “Mythbusters: Dispelling the Culture of Poverty Myth in the Urban

Classroom” Journal of Geography. 108. 198-209. Web. ERIC.

Roseberry-McKibben. Increasing Language Skills of Students from Low Income Backgrounds.

San Diego: Plural Publishing. 2008. Web.

Tileston, Donna Walker & Sandra K. Darling. Why Culture Counts: Teaching Children of

Poverty. Illinois: Solution Tree Press, 2008. Print.