The Effect of Cultural Congruence and Higher Order Questioning on the Reading Enjoyment and Comprehension of Ethnic Minority Students

Abstract

My thesis is that culturally relevant texts-both traditional ethnic folk tales and contemporary ethnic narratives-combined with higher order comprehension questions of interpretation and evaluation, rather than lower order questions of basic recall and recognition, provide excellent material for teaching reading to ethnically diverse students. Culturally relevant texts increase student enjoyment, interest and motivation, resulting in improved performance in reading comprehension. The data I draw on derive from a 2-year research project conducted in a middle-school classroom in an urban enclave in northern California with low-income "at-risk" students, most of them African American, but also including Latinos and Pacific Islanders. The article demonstrates that despite conventional thinking, weak readers are not necessarily weak thinkers; to the contrary, when afforded the opportunity (through culturally congruent literature) and adequate scaffolding (through strategic questioning), they are quite capable of demonstrating critical and original thought.