« spectacles | Main | Ward Just, City of Fear »
July 2, 2009
our dog can read (update)
As previously discussed on this blog, our dog Barkley can read. Here he is with my wife Laura, a certified reading specialist. Barkley's fluency and comprehension have improved since my last post about him, although his vocabulary seems to have hit a plateau at 10 months (similar, perhaps, to the fourth-grade slump found in national reading statistics). One possible explanation is the lack of cultural relevance in his home literacy resources. The first frame of the video shows that he has been looking at a stack of books. But many of the volumes in his home environment emphasize the dominant culture of middle-class humans. Barkley is a dog from very low-SES background. (He was a homeless stray in Alabama less than one year ago.) Perhaps his motivation will improve if he can find more culturally appropriate role-models in both the fictional and informational texts available in his home milieu.
July 2, 2009 9:18 AM | category: education policy | Comments