Trackton and Roadville are both oral and literate communities.  Their differences, however, are distinct.  In Trackton, stories are exaggerated, facts are hard to distinguish, and they need to hold the audience’s attention.  In Roadville, stories are made up of facts, are meant to teach a point, usually about behavior, and are told by certain members of the community.  As for reading, in Trackton, reading material is limited, it is a group function, and for the children, it is reading to learn what is needed to know before their formal education begins.  On the other hand, in Roadville, reading material is in abundance, parents read to their children, and children practice reading.

I find it very easy to make connections to the Roadville community.  I look around my house and see books shelves stuffed with books for my sons.  I see the magazine rack by the couch overflowing with reading materials I have yet to read.  On the dining room table are the ABC booklets my sons were just working in.  I have even told stories to my sons about events that happened to me as I was growing up and the lesson(s) I learned.  It is very easy for me to relate and understand the people in Roadville.

In my last blog, I wrote about how the reading made me think about Ruby Payne’s book Understanding the Framework of Poverty.   Again as I was reading, I found myself saying “That’s what Ruby was talking about in her book.”  Also, it started to make sense to me why students are able to read some things (ex. food labels, restaurants, etc.) but not others.   I realize now that it is because they are dependent on visual imagery and anything out of this domain is foreign to them (words in books).  It is interesting to read about these two communities.