Research affirms that a literacy rich environment promotes the development of literacy skills. You can create an accessible literacy rich environment by: Providing a wide variety of print, reading, writing, and electronic materials. Adapting literacy materials to meet children’s individual needs (e.g., pencil grips, page turning devices, Velcro, etc.) Balancing informational and narrative texts. Modeling… Read more »
Tag: Culturally Responsive Pedagogy
Words, words, words!
Yes, we know, vocabulary development is important! But just how important is it? Research tells us that “vocabulary is very important to reading comprehension; readers need to know the meanings of individual words to understand the text as a whole” and “oral language is a predictor of a range of expressive skills beyond comprehension, including… Read more »
Partnering with Families
The importance of recognizing and supporting family members as their child’s first teachers is not new information. However, doing so on top of many other responsibilities can be daunting. Even so, it is critical to engage families in home literacy practices so that children have additional authentic opportunities to learn and practice their skills. Here are… Read more »
Translanguaging for Young Literacy Learners
We live in an increasingly complex, multilingual society where young children from a variety of ethnic, racial, and linguistic backgrounds work together to learn literacy in our classrooms. As we’ve written about before, there are many different Englishes (Fu et al., 2019). Our emergent bilingual students, in particular, will bring diverse English practices that include… Read more »
Home Language Reading and Literacy Growth
Research has found that providing children access to books in school and at libraries can have a positive impact on reading scores (Rowe & Fain, 2013). One culturally responsive way to do this is by diversifying your classroom library (diversify your library). Another way is to encourage families to read books and talk about the… Read more »
Diversifying Your Library
As you choose books for your classroom library, be sure that all children are represented in your selections. Include books with characters, authors, and illustrators representative of different ethnicities, races, cultures, abilities, and family structures. Buying books is not the only way to expand your library’s inventory. Consider visiting your local library and borrowing books… Read more »