Growing up Literate : Learning from Inner-City Families

A couple years ago, Denny Taylor and Catherine Dorsey Gaines made the first of what were to be many visits to families living in the inner city of a major metropolitan area in the Northeast. Their aim: to study the familial contexts in which young Black children living in urban poverty are growing up literate. Through their focus on children who were successfully learning to read and write despite extraordinary economic hardship, this multiracial team presents new images of the strengths of the family as educator and the ways in which the personal biographies and educative styles of families shape the literate experiences of children.

Through the stories of the Shay Avenue families, Taylor and Dorsey-Gaines reach several conclusions that some readers may find surprising.

Catherine Dorsey-Gaines is vice president for Academic Affairs at Kean College of New Jersey in Union. She holds professional rank in the Early childhood and Family studies department. She also worked as Director of Minority Enrollment and as Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs. Dr. Dorsey-Gaines has been an educator for over thirty years and an administrator for approximately seven years; she has also taught both parents and children living in inner-city and suburban communities. Denny Taylor has received international recognition for her research and writing. Her awards include the Mina P. Shaughnessy Prize from the Modern Language Association, the Elva Knight Award from the International Reading Association, and the Richard A. Meade Award from the National Council of Teachers of English. Her field research is the basis of all her books, including Many Families, Many Literacies: An International Declaration of Principles (Heinemann, 1997) and Toxic Literacies: Exposing the Injustice of Bureaucratic Texts (Heinemann, 1996).