| According to recent research, children's interest in reading for pleasure has steadily diminished over the past two decades. This is particularly true for students with diverse linguistic backgrounds, who often feel alienated from the culture of the classroom because of their language differences, including their use of vernacular dialect. Linguistically diverse students also may feel disconnected from texts they read because they do not represent their cultures, their language, or their lifestyles.;Research supports the idea that students want to see a "picture of themselves" in literature they read. However, educators often do not make effective use of multicultural texts that provide characters, plots, and vernacular dialects with which students can identify. This literary genre is commonly overlooked and/or used inefficiently, due to educators' lack of awareness or reticence to introducing vernacular language models in the classroom.;Given there is a established link between positive reading attitudes and improved reading interest, a connection could be made between using literature that students enjoy and connect with and the future prospects of improved reading interest when reading this literature. This generic qualitative study investigated students' responses toward vernacular dialect in texts to determine if they would have positive, negative, or neutral opinions of the dialect in the literature. Data derived from students' written and oral responses, and observations of classroom activities were analyzed following the constant comparative method (Glaser and Strauss, 1967), to detect response themes in each category. Further analysis was conducted to determine if students' schema associated with vernacular dialects had effects on their responses.;Results of the data analysis indicated that students' schema could play a role in students' overall response toward vernacular dialect in literary selections. However, other factors related to dialect in texts, including the use of "eye dialect" played a stronger role. When students encountered dialect in written discourse, they tended to be more negative due to confusion associated with reading unconventional spellings and grammatical patterns. However, when students were able to listen to the dialect through read-aloud experiences and in class discussions about the dialect seen in the texts, their responses toward vernacular dialect improved. |
