Teaching in high-poverty classrooms traditionally has emphasized learning deficits, tightly controlled direct instruction, repetitive practice, and mastery of discrete "basic" skills. In recent years, educators and scholars have questioned the effectiveness of these approaches and have suggested promising alternatives, as described by Knapp, Shields, and Turnbull (1995):
"By concentrating on assets rather than deficits, these scholars argue, teachers are predisposed to see more potential in the children they are teaching and are able to treat the children's experiences and backgrounds as resources for learning rather than constraints on it. By developing more varied instructional routines, which by stages increase student control over learning activities, teachers can decrease learners' dependence on their teachers and broaden the range of learning experiences children encounter. The argument goes on to assert that, by deemphasizing (though not eliminating) repetitive practice of discrete skills, teachers may limit the monotony and lack of meaning that attends much instruction in high-poverty classrooms and elsewhere. Finally, by concentrating early on the 'advanced' skills of reasoning, problem solving, comprehension, and composition, teachers can engage children from the beginning in academic learning that has meaning and application in their lives both inside and outside of school." (p. 184)
