Black Communications and Learning to Read

Part I, ‘What is Black Communications?’

presents an overview of the BC system, providing a basic introduction to the major components of the language—phonology, grammar, lexicon, and pragmatics, and illustrating how these components work in synchrony to create a coherent whole.

Part II, “Language Socialization in the African American Discourse Community,”

examines existing research on African American children’s language socialization.

Part III, “Using African American Children’s Literature,”

draws connections between strategy instruction and the linguistic and rhetorical abilities discussed in Part II. Each chapter ends with suggestions for using African American literature to help children develop their speaking and writing abilities.

Part IV, “Children Using Language,”

moves from a focus on teaching comprehension strategies to helping BC speakers learn to decode text.

This volume is directed to researchers, faculty, and graduate students in the fields of language and literacy education and linguistics, and is well-suited as a text for graduate-level courses in these areas.