Participation Structures in a Reading Lesson with Hawaiian Children: Analysis of a Culturally Appropriate Instructional Event1

It was hypothesized that the reading achievement of a group of young Hawaiian children was increased because the participation structures in their reading lessons had become more similar to those of talk story, a major speech event in Hawaiian culture. A sample reading lesson was analyzed to test this notion. The lesson was found to contain nine types of participation structures, some found in conventional classroom settings but others much like those in talk story. More than half the sequences in the lesson were conducted in this second type of structure and involved a high degree of joint performance among the children.