Ways of Talking: Patterns of Parent-Child Discourse and the Implications for Classroom Learning
SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DISORDERS OF EXCEPTIONAL INDIVIDUALS 2010
I have been working with children for quite some time and I have always wondered why some children were coming to school being able to communicate better than others. With that being an interest of mine, I chose the article Ways of Talking: Patterns of Parent-Child Discourse and the Implications for Classroom Learning (Roseanne L. Flores, Educational Horizons 77 no1 25-9 Fall ’98). The purpose of this article was to examine parent-child talk within two groups of parents from the New York City area. The questions posed for this study were 1) Does home environment i.e, culture or socioeconomic status, lead to different types of discourse practices, and 2) Does one type of discourse practice parallel classroom discourse better, and if so, what are the implications for education (Flores, 1998)? The research was conducted at two sites in New York City. A Bronx city public school servicing kindergarten children from a low socioeconomic status composed primarily of Latino and African-American children, and an elementary school servicing gifted children ranging from nursery school to eighth grade from a diverse economic and ethnic background. There were a total of fourteen children and their parents who participated in the study. Seven children and their parents were from the public school and seven from the gifted school. Each parent and child set were given a tape recorder and were asked to record two mealtime conversations with their child; one conversation from the weekend and one during the week. The purpose of the recordings was to examine how parents and their children talk to each other in everyday contexts. The parents were able to select the meal they wanted to record, the location of the tape recorder, and
References: Flores, R. L. (1998). Ways of Talking: Patterns of Parent- Child Discourse and the Implications for Classroom Learning. Educational Horizons 77 no1 25-9 ----------------------- 5