I consider my literacy narrative to have two major sections: loving to read and learning to read. Perhaps counterintuitively, I consider my “loving to read” stage to come first, and my “learning to read” stage to come second.

Loving to Read

I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know how to read. I don’t remember learning to read. I remember getting better at reading, but I don’t remember the struggle or frustration from grappling with reading that I know well from teaching kindergarten and first grade. My memory is that I entered kindergarten already having learned to read a bit, and I picked it up and ran with it. I have memories from kindergarten of reading picture books that I pulled off the classroom library shelf or checked out of the school library. I remember the early feeling of enjoyment and complete absorption I got from reading a book.

First grade was the first time I really noticed that there was a spectrum of reading levels within my class. I was fairly obsessed with The Boxcar Children books in first grade, both because I loved the stories and because I felt proud of reading chapter books. A classmate of mine loved the book Yo! Yes? by Chris Raschka, and my little first grade self felt a mixture of pity, confusion, and disdain that he adored the book with a single large word on each page. This was almost certainly the beginning of self-identifying as smart, feeling pride at being smart, and avoiding tasks that threatened my self-identity of “a smart kid.”

All throughout elementary school, middle school, and high school, books were a safe haven for me. I read anything and everything I could get my hands on. I read books more than once if I liked them, but I was not picky about what I picked up. I was a bit of a weird kid – I had friends, but I didn’t quite fit in. When I was reading, I could fit in anywhere. I loved reading, and I did a lot of it. I didn’t think too much about it, and I didn’t have to, because I always read above grade level. I just got to enjoy it, and to use my surface level understanding of what I read to engage with academics. 

Learning to Read

My college experience was a shock to the system and a crash course in reading. I attended a small and rigorous college, and gravitated towards text-heavy courses – English literature, Spanish literature, political science, philosophy. However, I quickly discovered that although I had always read a lot, read fast, and read above grade level, I had never learned how to read well. I had never learned how to go back and re-read to make sure I understood something, to think about what I was reading and make connections, to take notes and ask questions and draw conclusions about what I was reading. I had never learned how to struggle with reading.

I learned all of that in college. In doing so, I also learned how to change my fixed mindset into a growth mindset. I learned that it was okay to not fully understand a text the first, second, or third time that I read it; that this didn’t make me a bad student or a dumb person, but could – if I stuck with it – make me a good learner.

As an educator, I now try to teach my students to read before they get to college. That is to say, I try to teach them to be willing to take their time, go back, ask questions, think about their connections, dig in, and suck the marrows of the text to get the most out of it. I try to teach them that I am not just saying it for their benefit when I say, “Good readers do…” I am on a constant mission to show them and to make them believe that reading easily and quickly isn’t, ultimately, what will make them read well; that if they stick with a text long enough to read carefully, think deeply, and be willing to have ideas that are wrong or incomplete, they, too, can be good learners.

What About Writing?

Yes, I know that writing is also part of literacy. To be perfectly honest, writing has always come second to reading for me. That is not to say that I don’t enjoy it. In elementary school I loved writing stories that a parent volunteer would sew up with wallpaper scraps to make bound books. In middle school I took up journaling and also kept notebooks with elaborate notes and stories I shared with my friends. In high school I learned how to write an essay with a strong thesis statement, and took creative writing and poetry writing electives. In college I became a comparative literature major and rarely took a test; everything was essays and papers. In the years since, I’ve written realistic fiction stories and how-to books for my students, endless emails and progress reports for parents, and the odd piece for the local online newspaper. 

Reading, for me, is a way to explore and learn about worlds, both real and imagined. I love learning. Really, really love it. Writing is a way to synthesize and reflect on what I’ve learned, and for me that is both more difficult and less interesting. It’s possible I still have a bit of a fixed mindset left, after all.

Reflection

For the purpose of this reflection, I read Jelica, Janelle, and Shiva’s literacy narratives. There were some interesting themes across our narratives as well as some clear distinctions. One thing that Jelica and Janelle both described was a fascination with writing all around them around the time they were learning to read. They described reading signs, cartons, and products, fueled by an intrinsic desire to be able to read and to use that reading to access more of the world. I shared that intrinsic desire to be able to read, and early on learned the joy of getting lost in a book. To this day I feel confused any time I hear someone say, “I don’t really like reading fiction.” I truly cannot comprehend not ever experiencing that immersion while reading.

Another commonality was the theme of reading to learn, as well as learning how to (and finding enjoyment in) picking texts apart. Both Jelica and Shiva discussed a moment when they learned how to analyze a text, seeking symbolism, themes, and deep meaning. I talked about something similar during the college years in my own literacy narrative.

In terms of the process of learning to read, one commonality was going through a continuous process of learning to read; we all reflected a sense that there wasn’t ever a point that we “knew how to read,” but rather learned new and different approaches and strategies at different points in our lives. For each of us there was, at least somewhat, a moment when everything kind of fell into place – either prompting a deeper understanding, appreciation, or interest in reading.

There were also many differences in our experiences of learning to read. Jelica and Shiva both first learned to read outside of the US, while Janelle and I learned to read in English as our native language. Jelica describes the great difference between the alphabet and phonic system in Serbian and in English. Another major difference across our stories was that Jelica, Janelle, and I all experienced an innate desire to learn to read and, once we knew how to read, to continue reading. Shiva’s journey, on the other hand, was more of a roller coaster, with his interest moving towards and away from reading at various points in his school life. He also described benefitting from external motivation such as reading competitions.

When I think about how all of this might influence my teaching of reading to multilingual learners, the first thing that stands out to me is the need to embrace the diversity of reading experiences students have. Some students will have an intrinsic motivation to read, but might not really hit their stride until they learn some techniques for truly getting the most out of a text. Others might be best motivated by integrating reading with another interest or offering incentives to meet certain goals. Approaching these different experiences without judgment is important so that we, as educators, can truthfully meet each of our students where they are.

The integrated-skills approach is what it sounds like; it integrates the four domains of language in one language class, typically in conjunction with content instruction or while students complete an interdisciplinary task. 

The primary argument in favor of an integrated-skills approach to teaching language is that it provides a more realistic experience which will foster global language development and allow students to develop effective communication skills. As Oxford (2001) put it, “The integrated-skill approach…exposes English language learners to authentic language and challenges them to interact naturally in the language.” Speaking, reading, writing, and listening are equally important in developing a new language; “to be a competent language user, the learners should develop receptive and productive skills in both spoken and written discourse” (Pardede, 2017). Because of this reality, the integrated-skills approach is the most efficient and effective way for students to develop their language skills through the practice of all four domains.

In contrast, Kehe (2020) argues that the integrated-skills approach does learners a disservice by making it impossible (or a the very least, highly improbable) for them to have their learning needs met across the four domains, because their language development is unlikely to be uniform across the domains. 

To be perfectly honest, I found this argument quite frustrating. Balancing the needs of learners across the spectrum of proficiency levels in a variety of skills is the baseline expectation for elementary classroom teachers. To suggest that an integrated approach is potentially detrimental to students who don’t fit neatly within a particular language acquisition level, to me, speaks more to the ineffectiveness of a teacher’s differentiation than it does to the weakness of the model. Perhaps Kehe was speaking explicitly to adult education, but as a classroom teacher I have certainly never been offered the option of only teaching students at a certain level, without also being expected to adjust my materials and teaching methods to support students at a lower level in particular skills as well as to extend the learning of students who have already achieved proficiency.

Discrete Approach

The discrete approach, in contrast to the integrated-skills approach, focuses on one skill at a time. A lesson or a course may focus exclusively on speaking, or reading, and so on. This approach can be very useful when a teacher observes that their students could benefit from reinforcement or review with a particular skill. Additionally it may be more realistic to design a task that focuses on a specific skill so that the teacher can focus their observation for the purpose of formative or summative assessment. Finally, as I discussed above, classrooms often have learners at different levels of proficiency in different skills. Just as the integrated-skills approach provides a more realistic learning experience, the discrete approach can be helpful at times to facilitate appropriate differentiation to learners with diverse stages of language acquisition.

I have, of course, implied the challenges of discrete learning as I discussed the benefits of integrated-skills learning. Some teachers (perhaps wrongly) understand “discrete” to be synonymous with “in isolation,” and seek to avoid any skill that is not the focus of a lesson or course altogether (Aponte-de-Hanna, 2015). As Oxford (2001) puts it, “This is contrary to the integrated way people use language skills in normal communication, and it clashes with the direction in which language teaching experts have been moving in recent years.” Discrete teaching should be done in moderation and with specific goals in mind.

In reading about effective classroom language instruction principles, there were a few ideas that stood out to me as particularly interesting or new. One idea that interested me was Li’s discussion of the importance of metacognitive strategies. Li (2012) clearly states that, “Teachers should make explicit metacognitive and specific learning strategies for ELLs” (p. 8). The argument here is that having a clear understanding of the metacognitive strategies at play is essential to second or foreign language learning, and that language teachers must make it a priority to make a variety of strategies visible, named, practiced, and examined for effectiveness in different scenarios. 

The other big piece that I found new and particularly helpful was the guidance from both Himmel and Medina (via Huynh’s blog) on specific steps one can take to write language objectives. Although the practice makes complete sense to me, when I previously taught at a dual immersion school we did not use language objectives in our lessons, and I have no prior experience writing them. 

Himmel’s guidance was more high-level, offering a series of questions to guide an educator’s thinking. Himmel (2012) encourages teachers to consider what specific vocabulary a student will need to achieve success with a given topic, what language functions directly relate to a given lesson, what language structures are commonly used in a focus area, what language usage is integral to a given task, and what strategies for language use fit naturally with a particular topic. 

On the other hand, the guidance that Medina offers is more immediately applicable. He offers three to four simple steps (depending on whether you intend to write a simplified or detailed language learning target) to create a language objective that is focused enough to be usable in a single lesson, but broad enough to allow for inclusion of the four language domains (as cited in Huynh, 2020).

I found these parameters extremely helpful both as a way to evaluate language objectives I read as well as to formulate new language objectives with a reasonable sense of certainty that they will be high quality.

What principles were presented in the readings and how did these principles relate to the ones developed by your small group?

Many of the principles detailed in our readings related to treating English language learners like complete people with unique backgrounds and experiences, the capacity to learn and succeed at high levels, and the desire for language learners to gain language skills that they can use in their personal and (if applicable) professional lives. For example, Li (2012) offers the principle, “Implement Challenging Curriculum with High Expectations.” As Alrubail (2016) notes, “ELLs are often overrepresented in special education classes due to a lack of training in helping teachers identify students’ needs and assessment when it comes [to] language skills.” This type of issue can easily be avoided by making content more accessible through differentiated texts and integrating students’ home culture and language into the classroom. 

Medina is another voice strongly advocating for offering a holistic education that takes into account language learner’s full selves. For example, he advocates for connecting content and a child’s lived experiences, such as by “asking students to think about how a content-specific topic shows up in their lives, families, communities, or cultures.”

My small group reflected many of these priorities as we discussed the ideas we found most compelling and relevant from our readings, particularly “Principles of Effective ELL Pedagogy” (Li, 2012). I am paraphrasing somewhat to polish some of our initial thoughts, but we came up the following principles for effective language teaching:

1. Seek to understand and be responsive to your students’ language levels and cultural backgrounds
2. Create authentic tasks for students to practice and apply their content knowledge and skills
3. Make metacognition explicit and visible
4. Introduce vocabulary authentically and in context
5. Tailor texts and other class resources to the language development levels of your students

Pedro’s Learner Profile

María’s Learner Profile (must use Moreland login to access)

Considerations

There are several considerations to keep top of mind when thinking about how educators can best serve the learners described in the sample learner profiles we reviewed and created this week. In my mind, these considerations must all achieve two goals: aid in their language acquisition, while respecting and honoring their cultural background.

One of the first priorities must be to foster a risk-taking attitude by creating a safe space for language learners. Our three learners have varying degrees of comfort trying new things and making mistakes, and without a doubt each of their profiles indicate some level of worry or frustration with making mistakes or not being able to express themselves in the way they would like. In many cases language learners will only work past this if they feel safe to make mistakes or fall short of their own high standards without judgment or criticism.

One of the best ways for an educator to create a safe environment is to cultivate culturally sustaining practices (Chajed, 2020). According to Chajed, this means that teachers need to “embrace diversity, get to know their students, and…help students feel welcomed and seen in school” (2020). One way teachers can do this is by validating many ways of speaking and communicating. A teacher could try to create activities or opportunities for students to use their full linguistic repertoire. For example, our sample learners could create a written or oral presentation to teach their classmates about a word, idiom, or other interesting bit of their native language, as a way to feel pride and accomplishment in their multilingual identity.

Concerns

The main concern that comes to mind when thinking about how to accommodate, support, and celebrate our sample learners is that a teacher could spend a great deal of time crafting activities and experiences to meet their needs. 

However, I believe I also have a solution to this concern. One thing I have learned teaching students with ADHD and executive functions disorders is how much the strategies that benefit these students can benefit a wide variety of students, not only those with a formal diagnosis. I believe the solution here is similar; rather than responding to the needs of particular language learners in the classroom, a teacher will use their time most efficiently while also supporting the greatest number of learners by integrating these strategies into their regular practice. This way the teacher has the strategies at the ready for students who truly need them, and they can also benefit students who are linguistically proficient but feel culturally excluded, or who suffer from social anxiety, etc.

Questions

There are several questions I would like to explore or learn more about in order to support our sample learners. I have outlined them below:

For Pedro and María: how can we create an environment that is low-pressure enough that they feel safe to try new things? Would it help them to be language buddies with younger students, who pose no potential/perceived threat to their social status? Will boosting their confidence in other areas carry over to their language learning?

For Sarah: what is the reason behind the plateau she mentions being so frustrated by? How could her teachers offer her the right kind or right amount of challenge to work through that stage and continue to advance?

For all three: how could their teachers make use of the principles of growth mindset to further their learning? Particularly for Pedro and María, who have some apparent sense of trepidation at getting things wrong when they speak, read, or write, it seems inevitable that a fixed mindset is at play, and holding them back from embracing the challenge of progressing with their language learning. Even for Sarah, who feels frustrated at not being able to express herself as fluently in her L2 as her L1, I wonder if she could consider that plateau a challenge to be tackled rather than a shortcoming to hold her back.

Finally, are their community organizations that could help. Both Pedro and María experience a lack of the type of support at home that we would hope to see in our ideal world due to their parents being busy out of the home. As Breiseth lays out in her piece, “Working with Community Organizations to Support ELL Students,” organizations can “play an important part in helping schools bridge language and cultural gaps” (n.d.).

How understanding learner identities promotes multiculturalism and enhanced learning outcomes for students, and why understanding learner identities is important

In order to respond, I must break this idea into its component parts. How can understanding language learner identities promote multiculturalism? The most important way is by illustrating to educators the multicultural diversity and strength in their classroom community, school, and beyond. As Chajed puts it, “students who are excluded from [the norms of monolingual, white, middle class students] are often viewed through a deficit lens” (2020). By deeply understanding the identities of the language learners in their classroom, a teacher must acknowledge the many strengths they bring, even if English reading, writing, speaking, and/or listening is not yet on their list of strengths.

How can understanding language learner identities promote enhanced learning outcomes for the student? This answer leads directly from my answer to the first part. By deeply understanding the learners in their classroom a teacher can best serve and support those same learners. As NPR reported several years ago, teacher expectations can influence how their students perform academically (Spiegel, 2012). This influence can extend beyond a child’s time in a particular classroom, and indeed, for several years. Therefore, if a teacher views their language learner students through a deficit lens, it is more likely that a student will live up to the expectation of possessing deficits as a learner and possibly as an individual. Conversely, if a teacher can appreciate the full range of gifts a student brings, and cultivate a multicultural environment that respects many learners’ identities, it might just set them up for success for years to come.