Breaking the Barrier

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    Being a college student can be a difficult experience, especially if you are a student that comes from a low Socioeconomic (SES) family. SES is explained and measured in combination with education, income and occupation and is utilized in research and studies of behavioral sciences. Low SES is characterized as lower education, poverty, poor health, and shining a negative perspective on literacy in households. Coming from such a household does not necessarily mean that you will not be able to succeed academically, but through self-willingness, exercising with what resources are available, literacy skills can be improved.

     SES highlights factors of an individual environment, which can be considered biased. Everyone has a different and unique literacy development process, some more difficult and painful than others, but where you come from does not necessarily play a huge factor within your education career. Jamie Metsala and Linda Baker from the University of Maryland , conducted a study, called Early Literacy at Home: Children’s Experiences and Parents’ Perspective, recording parent involvement and literacy in families of low and middle-class income and of mixed ethnic groups. The study concluded that there is no differences in home literacy environment of European Americans and African Americans other than middle-class families provides more adult lecture material available to their children, such as, magazines, newspapers, etc (pg71).  We want to let it be known that your Socioeconomic Status (SES) does not define you as a student or a person, but a motivation to better get informed and aware of your resources and opportunities as a college student.

     Do you struggle with reading or writing papers in college?  Take time to explore your options on getting help from your college tutors or making arrangements to tour the Dacc library to get better acquainted with the contents of the library and resources. Even though parent involvement is the key to creating an enthusiastic reader and learner in a young child, getting involved in study groups and reading clubs can help you in your literacy improvement as well as gain support from your peers. If you are a parent, get involved in your child’s literacy.  Parent interaction, such as parent talks and emotional tones, can help develop you and your child’s literacy skills.  Fun reading activities promote an enthusiastic reader, enhances attentiveness in school, and helps prevent bad attitudes toward reading and learning in a child. You should also take into consideration if you are really doing the best you can to improve your literacy skills? You should be open enough to try to learn, think about things in different ways, and take criticism as a positive aspect instead of being guarded about it. Other tips to improve your literacy skills are... 

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• Keeping an open mind about   literacy                                                                        
• Seeking help from peers, professors and librarians on writing styles can be found at Dacc’s Peer Tutoring Lab, which is located in the Student Success Center, Cannon Hall Room 113.  
• Using internet resources like the I Search tab at http://dacc.edu/library/, as well as, books from the Dacc library in the clock tower. 
• If you have children, literacy activities can greatly improve their skills...

      Socioeconomic status doesn’t really play a big part in your literacy development; there are plenty of resources out there that you can take advantage of to better your skills. Don’t get discouraged.  Instead, get involved and we promise the “writing thing” will get easier.

Group members: Atrous Lollar, Shyan Murphy, and Melanie Louis.
Atrous is in her second semester in college.
Shyan is in her first year in college.
Melanie is in her last year in college.
We decided to do this topic because we wanted to build awareness to help troubled students with writing papers in college.