The Love and Science of Reading: A Promising Instructional Approach for Adolescent Multilingual Learners

Purpose: Adolescent multilingual learners are at high risk for reading difficulties as evidenced by persistent achievement gaps. This article calls for a paradigm shift and aims to elucidate what constitutes promising second-language literacy instruction for multilingual adolescents, comprising effective literacy practices grounded in research, combined with an emphasis on individual learners and their sociocultural development. Cast in ecological systems and functionalist perspectives, this article provides a model for language and literacy instruction that is grounded in basic tenets of reading science within a sociocultural context. We outline strategies that focus on language as a basis for reading development followed by examples of authentic learning experiences designed to motivate students and nurture their love of reading. Conclusions: A solution to existing achievement gaps may be a promising approach that emphasizes both the science and love of reading, which entails targeted instruction rooted in the research evidence integrated into engaging and meaningful learning experiences, central to which is the acknowledgement of multilingual learners as individuals. The authors call for an intentional focus on accelerating the development of language through frequent use of and a genuine love for both the science of reading and the science of teaching reading.

Sustaining the Use of Evidence-Based Tier 1 Literacy Practices That Benefit Students With Disabilities

The adoption and sustainability of evidence-based Tier 1 literacy practices in secondary content-area classes is important to improve the reading success among students with learning disabilities. We conducted an exploratory multiple-case study investigating teachers’ adoption and sustained use of evidence-based Tier 1 literacy practices that benefit students with learning disabilities. The study was conducted within the context of an adolescent literacy model demonstration project funded by the Office of Special Education Programs (i.e., Promoting Adolescents’ Comprehension of Text [PACT] Plus). Interviews were conducted with two administrators and seven teachers who sustained implementation of the PACT practices beyond 1 year of researcher support. Analyses revealed practice and school-level factors that influenced teachers’ sustained use of the practices. We used findings from this study to propose a model of sustainability of Tier 1 evidence-based literacy practices used to improve outcomes for students with learning disabilities. Limitations and implications for future research are provided.

Double Dearth Effect

This chapter presents a narrative inquiry on the life experiences of three Filipino families who belong to each representation of socioeconomic status. Furthermore, it unpacks the temporal, social, and geophysical or spatial elements of their narratives in relation to the disruptive effects of the coronavirus pandemic on their resources, access, and literacy practices. Subsequent to securing their consent, each family was subjected to an online recorded semi-structured interview where they shared their life experiences. The recorded responses were later transcribed and analyzed using Montero and Washington's lens in exploring narratives. The researchers ultimately provide collaborative narratives of the three families' experiences and theorize on the specific experiences of poor or low-income families against the experiences of the middle class and the rich or high-income families. The researchers end the chapter by offering a working definition of their concept called the double-dearth effect.

Technology in Education, Win or Fail?

Educator preparation programs and institutional polices should provide background knowledge and experience with digital literacies and emerging technologies in coursework and strategies. The emphasis on the integration of technology instruction is relevant in the literature today. This chapter will explore the intersections and disjunctures between digital literacy practices in an educator preparation program and personal digital literacy use from a recent study that examined the digital literacies of six teacher educators. The chapter will be organized into sections, examining technology tools, digital interactions, and online resources applied classrooms.

Supporting Advanced Multilingual Speakers as Individuals

Translanguaging is a concept that is increasingly used in multilingualism studies with disparate definitions and uses in the literature. In this chapter, students who are advanced multilingual speakers at home, school, and elsewhere are in focus. The chapter examines historical and contemporary definitions of translanguaging and shows that not all definitions view the literacy practices of advanced multilingual speakers as translanguaging. However, those that see these speakers as having a unitary linguistic system allow the literacy practices of advanced multilingual speakers to be viewed as translanguaging. Working from this perspective, the chapter argues for translanguaging writing spaces to be created in schools as a way to foster learning. The chapter also presents ways in which teachers can support the creation of these spaces in multilingual classrooms and considers how translanguaging writing spaces can be maintained when advanced multilingual speakers move to writing for monolingual readers. The challenge of this move is also discussed.

Embracing Video Games for Strategic Thinking, Collaboration, and Communication Skills Practice

According to the Entertainment Software Association (ESA) report, 70% of families have a child who is actively playing video games at home. This pop culture phenomenon has challenged the way teachers think about learning and engagement. This chapter explores how the nature, culture, design, mechanics, and logistics of video games shape the way classroom gamers think. It examines how video games provide a space for strategic practice, the 21st-century skills acquired, and the tools gamers use as experts. Presenting background and context to help better understand why and how video game environments develop strategic thinking, the purpose of this chapter is to encourage educators to embrace video games to harness pop culture experiences as a means to motivate students to develop 21st-century literacy practices and skills. Through the reflections and framework of a teacher's experience who is an active researcher, it also discusses how a popular mainstream video game in the classroom changed her teaching and opened her eyes to a new type of learner.

Critical Reading, Critical Literacy, and Critical Classrooms

Critical reading and critical literacy are skills that preservice teachers need to cultivate not only in their future students, but also in their own literacy practices. Picturebooks have the unique power to facilitate critical reading and critical literacy with preservice teachers. This chapter analyzes critical reading, critical literacy, and the power of picturebooks and then presents three approaches for using picturebooks to develop critical reading and critical literacy skills with preservice teachers: (1) field-based coursework with multicultural children's literature, (2) analyzing voices and perspectives in read-alouds, and (3) analyzing wordless picturebooks. Through intentional use of picturebooks in educator preparation programs, preservice teachers can gain the expertise necessary to use picturebooks to craft their own critical classrooms.

Reclaiming the Multilingual Narrative of Children in the Borderlands Using a Critical Integration Approach

By joining together different methods and curriculum delivery in an elementary school setting, the author defined a unique critical integration approach to address questions of inclusive multilingual literacy practices. The author encouraged students to build upon their prior knowledge, ways in which to show that knowledge, and specifically, their linguistic cultural wealth, which generated a respect for the linguistic diversity of all students. The author created a collaborative pedagogical space in which the students constructed an innovative curriculum by co-mingling student experiences, their cultural and linguistic resources, and their interpretive frameworks. The teacher-research project involved a Funds of Knowledge orientation, the use of a variety of pedagogical tools influenced by the theory of Multiple Intelligences, gifted strategies, community cultural wealth, emancipatory education, critical and culturally responsive pedagogy, and visual arts aesthetics.

Empowering Multilingual Learners Through Critical Liberating Literacy Practices in English-Dominated Speech Communities

This chapter explores the nuances of critical literacy reviewing the influence of the sociocultural context and the critical element that arises from the individuals who negotiate their identities as they interact with others in a variety of settings. The perspective adopted here focuses on multilingual learners as they engage in literacy practices in English, the dominant language, within schooled environments resulting in hybrid productions within a Third Space, which is a metaphorical setting that promotes expansive learning. Such literacy productions consider the lived-in experiences of the individuals and their personal histories as tools for learning with the potential to liberate themselves from the dominant literacy practices. The chapter includes a discussion of the role and status of English to empower non-dominant groups within English-speaking settings.