Language, Literacy, and Place: Investigating Environment and Outcomes in Rural Appalachia

This thesis presents a program of study designed to explore variation in literacy at the community level through investigation of emergent literacy contexts and skills in Appalachian Eastern Kentucky, a site where reading outcomes in the region pose a contradiction to the usual patterns of low reading achievement in poor communities. Aggregate reading scores in this region match the national average on state-administered, nationally-normed, standardized tests, even though the great majority of children taking the test qualify for free or reduced price lunch. Findings indicate that young children in rural Appalachia have different early language experiences than has been recorded in other low-income groups. In the community I studied, children played a central role in large family networks and spent considerable time talking with adult kin. As a group, a sample of kindergarten students exhibited age appropriate receptive vocabulary skills and better letter-naming skills than same-aged peers in a nationally representative norming sample. These academic outcomes may be connected to cultural patterns of language experience, along with a schooling context that used language in a culturally congruent manner with homes. However, children did not perform as well on a task that required them to construct storybook-like narratives, and received little experience with books in their homes and in kindergarten. Accordingly, these students appear to represent a new profile of low-income student: a group with a strong starting point in literacy at the end of kindergarten without the benefit of shared book reading. Implications for instruction, particularly in rural settings, are considered.