“What Is the Meaning of Of?”

Abstract

This chapter describes a small reading intervention program, in the form of participatory action research, which was conceived for African-born, elementary level immigrant children upon a third grader's indication that she did not know the meaning of the word of. The twofold purpose of the intervention was to: (1) uncover the challenges of being from a non-reading culture and being taught by a teacher from a reading culture, and (2) propose ways these challenges could be minimized. The chapter describes in detail the noticing strategies—punctuation discovery, sentence recall, copying, word dictation, etc.—that were used to develop basic reading and writing skills of p-6 French-speaking, African immigrant children. The chapter concludes with a call on educational policy makers to sponsor reading immersion programs for newcomer students, with a recommendation that these courses be taught by qualified immigrant educators, to ensure that these students' school integration process assures success.