A Substantial body of research on “struggling” or “at-risk” readers has mostly focused on identifying children and developing and testing interventions aimed at remediating children’s perceived deficiencies. Research has generally assumed that a reading (dis)ability is an intrinsic and hereditary condition that children embody. This dissertation seeks to employ a wide lens by exploring the materials within and beyond school walls that manifest reading (dis)ability. First, it uses disabilities studies in Education (DSE) as a theoretical frame, which presupposes (dis)ability is socially constructed. Second, it uses Dewey’s (1938) Theory of Experience to argue that although reading (dis)ability is a social construct it is a real phenomenon that impacts young children’s embodied notions of (in)adequacy. Finally, it traverses disciplines by merging DSE and Soja’s (2010) critical spatial perspective to show how unequal power relations across school space, for some children, produce and maintain the reading (dis)ability construct.To explore these issues, I spent sixteen weeks in a first-grade classroom where I used ethnographic research methods, primarily during English language arts instruction, where I observed the children, the teacher, the school reading interventionist, and various instructors hired by the school to teach ability group reading lessons. Throughout this dissertation, I draw on my experiences in these spaces, as well as on written documents like state and federal policy, scripted curricula, literacy assessments, lesson plans, and student assessment data. The results suggest that viewed through various theoretical frames, (dis)ability is constructed differently in and across space. First, artifacts in the form of state and local policy, literacy assessments, grade-level practices, and classroom-level interactions constructed and stabilized a 7-year-old, African American girl’s literate identity as reading (dis)abled. Second, an African-American, first-grade child labeled as “at risk” of reading failure produced verbal and non-verbal cues indicating discomfort with the assessment while distorting the teacher’s perceptions of her learning potential. Last, the spatiality of ability-group reading instruction produced and maintained the reading (dis)ability construct by differentiating children’s access to materials, space, and instruction. The central argument of the dissertation is that a narrow focus on reading (dis)ability as an embodied defect ignores the contextual factors that manifest the inequities that construct, maintain, and constrict children’s learning potential.A Substantial body of research on “struggling” or “at-risk” readers has mostly focused on identifying children and developing and testing interventions aimed at remediating children’s perceived deficiencies. Research has generally assumed that a reading (dis)ability is an intrinsic and hereditary condition that children embody. This dissertation seeks to employ a wide lens by exploring the materials within and beyond school walls that manifest reading (dis)ability. First, it uses disabilities studies in Education (DSE) as a theoretical frame, which presupposes (dis)ability is socially constructed. Second, it uses Dewey’s (1938) Theory of Experience to argue that although reading (dis)ability is a social construct it is a real phenomenon that impacts young children’s embodied notions of (in)adequacy. Finally, it traverses disciplines by merging DSE and Soja’s (2010) critical spatial perspective to show how unequal power relations across school space, for some children, produce and maintain the reading (dis)ability construct.To explore these issues, I spent sixteen weeks in a first-grade classroom where I used ethnographic research methods, primarily during English language arts instruction, where I observed the children, the teacher, the school reading interventionist, and various instructors hired by the school to teach ability group reading lessons. Throughout this dissertation, I draw on my experiences in these spaces, as well as on written documents like state and federal policy, scripted curricula, literacy assessments, lesson plans, and student assessment data. The results suggest that viewed through various theoretical frames, (dis)ability is constructed differently in and across space. First, artifacts in the form of state and local policy, literacy assessments, grade-level practices, and classroom-level interactions constructed and stabilized a 7-year-old, African American girl’s literate identity as reading (dis)abled. Second, an African-American, first-grade child labeled as “at risk” of reading failure produced verbal and non-verbal cues indicating discomfort with the assessment while distorting the teacher’s perceptions of her learning potential. Last, the spatiality of ability-group reading instruction produced and maintained the reading (dis)ability construct by differentiating children’s access to materials, space, and instruction. The central argument of the dissertation is that a narrow focus on reading (dis)ability as an embodied defect ignores the contextual factors that manifest the inequities that construct, maintain, and constrict children’s learning potential.A Substantial body of research on “struggling” or “at-risk” readers has mostly focused on identifying children and developing and testing interventions aimed at remediating children’s perceived deficiencies. Research has generally assumed that a reading (dis)ability is an intrinsic and hereditary condition that children embody. This dissertation seeks to employ a wide lens by exploring the materials within and beyond school walls that manifest reading (dis)ability. First, it uses disabilities studies in Education (DSE) as a theoretical frame, which presupposes (dis)ability is socially constructed. Second, it uses Dewey’s (1938) Theory of Experience to argue that although reading (dis)ability is a social construct it is a real phenomenon that impacts young children’s embodied notions of (in)adequacy. Finally, it traverses disciplines by merging DSE and Soja’s (2010) critical spatial perspective to show how unequal power relations across school space, for some children, produce and maintain the reading (dis)ability construct.To explore these issues, I spent sixteen weeks in a first-grade classroom where I used ethnographic research methods, primarily during English language arts instruction, where I observed the children, the teacher, the school reading interventionist, and various instructors hired by the school to teach ability group reading lessons. Throughout this dissertation, I draw on my experiences in these spaces, as well as on written documents like state and federal policy, scripted curricula, literacy assessments, lesson plans, and student assessment data. The results suggest that viewed through various theoretical frames, (dis)ability is constructed differently in and across space. First, artifacts in the form of state and local policy, literacy assessments, grade-level practices, and classroom-level interactions constructed and stabilized a 7-year-old, African American girl’s literate identity as reading (dis)abled. Second, an African-American, first-grade child labeled as “at risk” of reading failure produced verbal and non-verbal cues indicating discomfort with the assessment while distorting the teacher’s perceptions of her learning potential. Last, the spatiality of ability-group reading instruction produced and maintained the reading (dis)ability construct by differentiating children’s access to materials, space, and instruction. The central argument of the dissertation is that a narrow focus on reading (dis)ability as an embodied defect ignores the contextual factors that manifest the inequities that construct, maintain, and constrict children’s learning potential.
Read
