Effective Instruction for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students: A Reconceptualization

Abstract

Special education classrooms often become convenient places for teachers to send struggling students they don't want in their classrooms.-US News and World Report, quoted from Shapiro, Loeb, & Bowermaster, 1992, p. 49 John Ogbu, noted ethnographic researcher and theorist on minority issues, recently stated: Minority children receive inferior education. .. through what occurs inside the schools, inside the individual classrooms. Among the mechanisms discovered to affect minority education adversely, none is more important than teachers' low expectations. ... (T)oo many minority children are treated as having educational "handicaps." A disproportionate number are channeled into "special education," a pseudonym for inferior education. (Ogbu, 1990, p. 156, emphasis added) The findings of prominent special education researchers have led to similar conclusions (Gottlieb, Alter, & Gottlieb, 1994). Public concern about the quality and appropriateness of special education services for minority students in general, and language-minority students in particular, is high.

Current Topics in Review: Effective Reading instruction for Strulling Spanish Speaking Readers

“…However, this first-language instruction needs to be the most effective (i.e., explicit and systematic) and focused on the essential skills of reading. Without effective teaching and a rich, supportive language environment, evidence shows that young struggling readers will continue to fail (e.g., Gersten, Brengelman, & Jimenez, 1994;Lyon, 1999).…”