Supportive Learning Environments for Students Living in Poverty

 

Supportive Learning Environments for Students Living in Poverty

As mentioned in previous installments of this blog- students living at or below the poverty line are faced with many challenges when it comes to becoming proficient readers and writers. With so many things going on in their lives, literacy is understandably not always their top priority. This is why we feel like it is our jobs as educators to not only bring attention to the issues this population faces but also to do our part to help mitigate the effects that poverty has on their literacy learning. 

One way that we as teachers can help mitigate the effects of poverty for our students is to provide a learning environment that will help engage students and motivate them to become better readers. Research has shown that “for students with strong motivation, the influence of SES on reading ability is weakened” (Chent el al- 2018, pg, 8). In fact, having motivation to learn is considered to be a resilience factor; a factor that helps children overcome negative factors like low SES (Chen, et.al, 2018). The goal of this third installment on our blog is to share three characteristics of learning environments and/or classroom practices that have been researched and shown to be beneficial for students with low socioeconomic statuses: autonomy support, availability of text/text choice, and expectations. 

Autonomy Support 

When a student feels like they have no control in their environment, this often lowers their motivation to learn. On the other hand, when students feel like they share in the control of the classroom, it has “...been shown to increase intrinsic motivation, participation and enthusiasm for learning” (Kennedy, 2018, pg. 7). Letting students choose their own books, providing flexible seating, coming up with rules/expectations as a class, and giving choices whenever possible are easy ways to share control with the students in your classroom (Kennedy, 2018). According Dr. Barbara McCombs, “providing students with choice stimulates natural curiosity and motivation to learn” (2010). Providing students with choice in the classroom is also related to students taking more responsibility for their education (McCombs, 2010). 

Availability of Texts 

We know now that letting students have choices when it comes to what they read is important- however, what if there aren’t enough books available in the classroom that interest this population of students? It should come as no surprise that students prefer books “...with social and ethical issues featuring characters similar in age to themselves who faced critical dilemmas...” (Kennedy, 2018). Taking this into consideration, it is important for students living in poverty to have ready access to books that pique their interest (especially since they are not as likely to have access to them at home as their peers). Make sure that the books in your classroom cover a wide range of topics and include characters from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and socioeconomic statuses (Kennedy, 2018). 

Expectations

It is important to have classroom expectations with any student; however, it is even more important when talking about students from families with low socioeconomic backgrounds. Some teachers may be tempted to expect less out of students who are struggling with poverty, and to some extent, there’s some logic behind this thinking. As you’ve read in the first two blogs in this series, this population of students faces so many challenges; so why not give them a break? Having low expectations can be detrimental to these students however. If they perceive that their teacher doesn’t think they can be successful, and they already have so many negative things in their lives, why would they have any hope that they can be successful? (Jensen, 2010). 

References 

Chen, Q., Kong, Y., Gao, W., & Mo, L. (2018). Effects of socioeconomic Status, Parent–Child relationship, and LEARNING motivation on reading ability. Frontiers in Psychology, 9. 

https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.01297 

George Lucas Educational Foundation. (2019). Motivating Students With Book Choice. 

Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/video/motivating-students-book-choice. 

Jensen, E. (2010). Teaching with poverty in mind: what being poor does to kids' brains and what schools can do about it. ASCD. 

Kennedy, E. (2018). Engaging children as readers and writers in high‐poverty contexts. Journal 

of Research in Reading, 41(4), 716–731. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9817.12261 

McCombs, B. (2010). Developing responsible and autonomous learners: A key to 

motivating students. American Psychological Association. 

https://www.apa.org/education/k12/learners#:~:text=Autonomy%20supportive%20classr

ooms%20are%20those,self%2Dinitiative%20in%20learning%20activities.

We owe all students high expectations: Shemeka Millner-Williams. YouTube. (2019, November    

21). https://youtu.be/Iw1O1_ySKAs. 

Stolk, J. (2015, November 5). Creating Autonomy-Supportive Learning Environments: Jon Stolk: 

TEDxSMU. YouTube. https://youtu.be/SxlFzrfdqa4.