Students bring cultural and linguistic richness to the English Language Arts classroom in the form of English language diversity; that being said, English Language Arts (ELA) education has traditionally privileged Standard American English (*SAE) and its related white culture rather than embrace the aforementioned diversity. With calls for more…

In this article Renata Love Jones and Patrick Proctor introduce the notion of pursuing language to engage in critical dialogue about the nature and focus of language and literacy education in multilingual and multicultural contexts. A persistent threat in language and literacy education is standardization that constrains how language and literacy…

Purpose: For many school-age children, teachers are the first professionals to refer for speech/language services. However, many speech-language pathologists note that students without language disorders who speak non-mainstream American English (NMAE) dialects are referred to speech/language evaluation. This research note presents results of a…

Purpose: The purpose of this tutorial is to guide practitioners to a critical praxis of speech, language, and hearing. This tutorial provides a foundational knowledge of critical theory as an approach to framing, conceptualizing, and interpreting phenomena and demonstrates its application to the speech, language, and hearing profession. Method:…

For educators committed to promoting social equity, the question of how to address dialect hegemony is increasingly important. While linguists have long accepted the concept of dialect equality, educators have struggled with the issue, sparking a history of controversy and debate underscoring larger social issues of diversity and equity. For…

Purpose: Nonword repetition (NWR) has been proposed as a culturally and linguistically fair measure of children's language abilities that is useful for the identification of specific language impairment (SLI). However, Moyle, Heilmann, and Finneran (2014) suggested that the density of a child's nonmainstream forms also influences NWR in ways that…

This sequential explanatory mixed-methods study provides a radical transformative framing of the power language dynamic in K-6 classrooms in the U.S. The quantitative phase of the study determined the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy and the use of linguistically responsive techniques in the classroom. The study's qualitative phase…

Purpose: In African American English and Southern White English, we examined whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) overtly mark tense and agreement structures at lower percentages than typically developing (TD) controls, while also examining the effects of dialect, structure, and scoring approach. Method: One hundred six…

Purpose: Using data from children who spoke various nonmainstream dialects of English and who were classified as either children with specific language impairment (SLI) or typically developing (TD) children, we examined children's marking of infinitival TO by their dialect and clinical status. Method: The data came from 180 kindergartners (91…

Purpose: Using a framework of culturally and linguistically responsive classroom management, this study employed both quantitative and qualitative analyses of ethnographic data to illustrate patterns of corrections/behavioral warnings in teacher-child interactions for an African American child in the classroom. Method: Three child participants and…

In this article, we review three responses to the study and evaluation of grammar in children who speak nonmainstream dialects of English. Then we introduce a fourth, system-based response that views nonmainstream dialects of English, such as African American English (AAE) and Southern White English (SWE) as made up of "dialect-specific"…

This article focuses on two-way immersion (TWI) education and restates two previously expressed cautionary notes about the unexpected costs of such programs for the Latino community and for children who are racialized speakers of nonmainstream varieties of English. Utilizing an analytical framework focused on the process of…

Utilizing the framework of educational linguistics, we investigate ways to foster greater awareness of, and facility with, academic English for educators and students across disciplines by maximizing the popularity of language-related software packages, applications and websites, those already commonly found in and out of the classroom. Our work…

The achievement gaps between poor and more affluent students are persistent and chronic, as many students living in poverty are also members of more isolated communities where dialects such as African American English and Southern Vernacular English are often spoken. Non-mainstream dialect use is associated with weaker literacy achievement. The…

Over the years, less attention is given to students' spelling skills compared to other areas of literacy achievement like word reading and passage comprehension in relationship to nonmainstream dialect usage. Considering that English spelling is based on the phonological and morphological structures of Mainstream American English (MAE), it is…