Resilient Children: Stories of Poverty, Drug Exposure, and Literacy Development (Literacy Studies Series)
- Book Review,
by Diane M. Barone
Book Description
The author defines and examines assumptions about children who were prenatally exposed to crack/cocaine and who have other risk factors that may negatively affect their literacy development. By displacing the existing myths about "crack babies," teachers and parents are able to support learning and see these children as successful learners.
From the Back Cover
It is common to hear the media predict a dire future for children who are prenatally exposed to crack/cocaine, specifically the bleak possibilities for school success. Are these children, who often are exposed to other risk factors such as poverty, doomed to the academic failure that inmost cases is expected of them? In "Resilient Children: Stories of Poverty, Drug Exposure, and Literacy Development," author Diane Barone defines and examines assumptions about children who were prenatally exposed to crack/cocaine and who have other risk factors that may negatively affect their literacy development. The study on which this book was based began with a simple question: How do children who were prenatally exposed to crack/cocaine develop in literacy? After conducting the study with 26 children, including the case studies that are presented in this book, Barone learned the importance of overcoming risk factors and celebrating the children's growth as readers and writers. The children in the study disproved the labels attached to them; they were inquisitive about learning and in most cases were at grade level or above in literacy development. The children's stories presented here offer a special perspective on children prenatally exposed to crack/cocaine. They will help teachers displace myths that exist about these children, showing them how to support the children's learning and to see them as successful learners. Readers will find the stories powerful and full of hope.
About the Author
Diane Barone is a professor of literacy studies at the University of Nevada, Reno, Nevada, USA.
Excerpted from Resilient Children : Stories of Poverty, Drug Exposure, and Literacy Development (Literacy Studies Series) by Diane M. Barone. Copyright © 1999. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
Foreword "But this too is true," Tim O'Brien writes in "The Things They Carried, "stories can save us" (1990, p. 225). And the very truth of this statement shines through in the literacy stories of Sean, Billy, Melina, Curtis, Ray, and Laquisha that unfold on the pages of "Resilient Children: Stories of Poverty, Drug Exposure, and Literacy Development." Their stories can save us because they are stories of hope and promise about each child's potential for literacy development and acquisition. They teach us that despite the bleakest of beginnings from prenatal drug exposure to crack/cocaine, children can be active seekers and learners of literacy. Rather than giving up on such children, the six stories herein tell how we might keep what seemed spent and reclaim what seemed lost so early in life. We can have faith in the stories we are told in this book. Diane Barone carefully outlines her 4-year longitudinal research work with 26 children that produced 6 case studies from which the stories emerge. In sometimes shocking detail, she describes her selection process, the children's early days, their foster care placements, and schooling. She situates these specifics in the broader framework of cocaine addiction, intervention programs, and related research on the effects of prenatal drug exposure on young children's development and learning. She also documents her role as an "insider," informing us as to the diplomacy and sensitivity involved in gaining access to children's foster homes and classrooms. You will grow to admire, as I did, her patience and skill in building trust with these children's families -- the fruits of which are evident in the richness of her data. Her 4 years of careful observation yield a promising insight for literacy educators: the resiliency of prenatally drug-exposed children to recover their "developmentally instigative characteristics" and to use them to their advantage (Bronfenbrenner, 1995, p. 634). In other words, these children, like all children, are active agents in, and on, their environments. They are literacy learners. And thus it follows that we, as literacy teachers, should strive to promote and integrate writing and reading into their home and school environments in the best ways we know. What is resilience in the face of health risks, poverty, foster care, and miseducation? It can be seen in the literacy histories of Sean, Billy, Melina, Curtis, Ray, and Laquisha. It can be found, for example, in the sturdy self-perception of a Sean, who never doubted himself as a writer and a reader, or the adaptiveness of a Ray, who made the best of poor classroom instruction. In each case study, rich with detail, we can observe how each child's resilient characteristics were knitted into rather stable foster care environments with responsible, loving adults, who encouraged achievement in school. Together these tendencies appear to support processes in the near environment that push literacy development forward. That is the significance of these case studies and the central importance of this research work. This work brings us closer to understanding how literacy can develop, even if its beginnings are terribly poor. What Diane Barone shares through these six children's stories also speaks to the professional responsibilities and everyday work of teachers. For resilience to thrive in academic work, teachers much make a particular effort to challenge negative attitudes associated with prenatal exposure to crack/cocaine, and help ensure that these children are honored in school. They need to be proactive in serving them, seeking out resources as needed, and confident in these children's abilities to master the complexities of writing and reading. The difficulty is not in saying or embracing these ideas, but in acting on them every day in the press of literacy instruction. In the case studies you are about to read you will meet several teachers who do act on these ideas -- responsibly and sensitively ever day. Their daily acts may escape notice, but the cumulative effects of their deeds can be seen in the literacy achievements of Billy, who basked in the praise of his kindergarten teacher Mrs. Campbell, or Laquisha, who grew strong through the gentleness of her teacher Becky Schneider. This book tells stories -- real stories-- about six young children, prenatal victims of crack/cocaine addiction, who rebound from this initial shock and achieve literacy. Their stories are instructive for educators, not only because they are filled with hope, but also because they indicate how the delicate interplay of person (no matter how small) and environment can make a difference in literacy development. These are stories that can help us, and, if deeply understood, may even save us. (Kathleen A. Roskos / John Carroll University/ University Heights, Ohio, USA.)
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