Decolonising Literacy Practices for an Inclusive and Sustainable Model of Literacy Education

Despite efforts on the part of institutions, professionals and social agents, the Roma population in Europe still lacks equal access to education. Difficulties in literacy development are at the root of this: Roma learners present lower literacy rates than non-Roma learners and learners in non-segregated schools, preventing them from transitioning to secondary education. This article presents the results of ethnographic research with a group of Roma primary learners in Southern Spain. The aim was to analyse the contexts, interactional spaces, contents and practices of learners’ engagement with literacy in and outside the classroom. Data analysis was carried out using an adaptation of the continua model of biliteracy, useful for analysing literacy practices in contexts with different literacy cultures. Results show that communicative practices that challenged skills-based literacy models helped activate learners’ literacy reservoirs, enhancing their literacy engagement and allowing them to renegotiate their position as Roma learners in a non-Roma institution and as text creators in the classroom. Conclusions point to the need to decolonise classroom practice by identifying learners’ literacy reservoirs and ways to activate these, contributing to a more inclusive and sustainable model of literacy education consistent with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal for quality education.

The Name Jar Project: Supporting Preservice Teachers in Working with English Language Learners

Classrooms are becoming more linguistically and culturally diverse and many educators are feeling unprepared to meet the varied needs of English language learners (ELLs). Through a larger design-based research doctoral study, I collaborated with 11 preservice teachers and 28 ELLs in Grades 2 and 3 to design and implement a literacy intervention that focused on cultivating literacy engagement to foster English language development. This paper documents the positive impact the implementation of the literacy intervention, also known as the Name Jar Project, had on supporting the preservice teachers’ emerging practice. Analysis of focus group data, preservice teachers’ written reflections, and field notes revealed that (a) the preservice teachers, through their informal learning experiences, were able to empathize with the ELLs’ strengths and challenges of learning English; (b) the service learning model provided a safe learning environment for preservice teachers to gain practical experience working with ELLs; and (c) through the research design, preservice teachers connected practice and theory to inform their future teaching experiences.

Advancing Children’s Learning Through Innovations in the Measurement of Literacy Engagement

Children’s engagement is an important construct often reported in Early Intervention and Early Childhood Special Education. However, its utility depends on its definition, measurement, theory of change, and empirical evidence. Our purpose is to discuss innovations in Children’s Literacy Engagement (CLE) and report empirical evidence demonstrating how these advancements can be used to promote children’s learning and school readiness. We discuss five specific innovations: (1) defining CLE as the behavioral target of intentional instruction, (2) directly assessing CLE using the CIRCLE ecobehavioral observation system, (3) including CLE in a larger framework of instructional decision-making, (4) evaluating new CLE-focused instructional interventions, and (5) supporting children who are not responding to instructional intervention. We describe how these innovations help address the questions of under what conditions and for whom preschool instructional interventions are effective. Implications are discussed.

Fra lytting til skriving i naturfag: Utforsking av en litterasitetsaktivitet i flerspråklige klasser på mellomtrinnet

En stor del av undervisningstiden i norske naturfagklasserom går med til at elever lytter til læreren. Mange flerspråklige elever opplever det som utfordrende. I denne artikkelen utforskes en aktivitet som legger til rette for at mellomtrinnselever lytter, diskuterer, skriver og samarbeider om å rekonstruere en naturfaglig tekst. Aktiviteten er utformet etter inspirasjon fra en diktogloss-aktivitet og har som mål å bidra til å bygge en integrert fag-, språk- og tekstkompetanse. Støttestrukturene som er inkludert i aktiviteten, bidrar til at elever med ulik beherskelse av skolespråket kan delta i arbeidsformer der de aktivt bruker det naturfaglige språket. To typer skrevne elevtekster analyseres som bidrag til å besvare forskningsspørsmålet: Hvordan kan litterasitetsaktiviteten diktogloss bidra til å styrke flerspråklige elevers mulighet til aktiv deltakelse i naturfag? Analysen viser at de flerspråklige elevene som har deltatt i studien, oppfatter innholdet i den første delen av en tekst om kretsløp som blir lest opp for dem. Innholdet i siste del av teksten klarer de imidlertid ikke å rekonstruere. Likevel viser analysen at de på ulik vis har deltatt aktivt i sekvensen. Resultatene diskuteres i lys av modellen The Literacy Engagement Framework og teorier om bruk av språklige støttestrukturer for å styrke arbeidet med læring i fag.

Developing and Validating a Tool to Assess Young Children’s Early Literacy Engagement

There is growing recognition that literacy learning takes place in the years prior to formal schooling and that young children develop literacy-like behaviours through exposure to interactions in shared contexts in which literacy is a component. Despite this, there are few assessments that measure the very early literacy skills that children develop before 36 months of age. This article reports on the design and validation of a new instrument – the Early Literacy Engagement Assessment (ELEA). This tool was developed to provide insights into the impact of Conversational Reading, a key pedagogical strategy implemented at Families as First Teachers playgroups, on young children’s early receptive and expressive vocabulary and literacy skills. The instrument was trialled with 104 children living in locations across Melbourne, Victoria, and 39 Aboriginal children living in remote communities in the Northern Territory. The trial process was undertaken in two phases: (1) a technical assessment to test item consistency, characteristics and placement and (2) concurrent validity testing against items from the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals Preschool-2 tool. The findings from the trial and validation process indicate that overall the ELEA discriminates well between children of high and low ability, and it is a useful tool in the authentic assessment of expressive and receptive vocabulary skills in young children.

Reaching for the Top

This paper draws attention to the important role school libraries, teacher-librarians, and principals can and need to play in the lives of marginalized adolescent boys in order to advance the goals of social justice and equity, and to make school libraries more relevant to citizens and communities. As an illustration of how teacher-librarians can intervene in the lives of such students, the author presents preliminary insights from a recent literacy research project that involved a school principal, a professor/school library specialist, and a professor in school leadership. Using a modified, contextually tailored version of literature circles, the researchers explored ways of enhancing the critical literacy engagement of marginalized adolescent boys in an urban school in western Canada.