Within a clear conceptual framework, this book explores ways that teachers, reading specialists, administrators, and teacher educators can provide more effective literacy instruction to K-9 students from diverse ethnic, cultural, and linguistic backgrounds. Cutting-edge theory and research is interwoven with detailed case studies that bring to life the complexities of teaching in today's multicultural and multilingual classroom. Topics covered include: *How and why culture matters in literacy instruction *Drawing on students' multiple literacies in the classroom *Motivating and engaging English-language learners *Steps that teachers can take to heighten their cultural awareness and skills *Tapping into family and community resources for literacy learning

Nine American academics, educational consultants, and bilingual/bicultural program development specialists contribute 12 chapters in a research- and theory-based text about learning and teaching in linguistically and culturally diverse classrooms. The second edition features updated research on multilingual and second-language literacy, and the int.

During the past decades, literacy has gradually become a major concern all over the world. Though there is a great diversity in both the distribution and degree of literacy in different countries, there has been an increasing awareness of the number of illiterates and the consequences of being illiterate. However, literacy is no longer seen as a universal trait. When one focuses on culturally-sensitive accounts of reading and writing practices, the concept of literacy as a single trait does not seem very feasible. A multiplicity of literacy practices can be distinguished which are related to specific cultural contexts and associated with relations of power and ideology. As such, literacy can be seen as a lifelong context-bound set of practices in which an individual's needs vary with time and place. This volume explores the use of literacy outside the mainstream in different contexts throughout the world. It is divided into four sections. Section 1 presents an anthropological perspective--analyzing the society and the individual in a society. Section 2 presents a psychological perspective--focusing on the individuals themselves and analyzing the cognitive and affective development of young children as they acquire literacy in their first and second languages. Section 3 presents an educational perspective--highlighting the variations in educational approaches in different societies as well as the outcomes of these approaches. Section 4 summarizes the studies presented in this volume. Both theoretical issues and educational implications related to the development of literacy in two languages are discussed. An attempt is also made to open up new directions in the study of literacy development in multilingual contexts by bringing these various disciplinary perspectives together.

This unique and timely book follows the experiences of four Arabic teenagers, their families and their community, focusing on the role of literacy in their daily lives and the differences between home and school. The author looks at the conflict between expectations and practices at school and in the home, arguing that problems are inevitable where class and cultural differences exist. Emerging themes include: how literacy practices in the community are undergoing rapid change due to global developments in technology how the patterns of written and spoken language in English and Arabic in the home are linked with social practices in logical and coherent ways how many of the family practices that differ from school culture and language become marginalised. Built around these insightful case studies yet grounded in theory, this book is of immediate relevance to teachers working in multicultural contexts and students and lecturers in language/literacy or on TESOL courses.

This book examines the linkage between literacy and linguistic diversity, embedding them in their social and cultural contexts. It illustrates that a more complete understanding of literacy among diverse populations and in multicultural societies requires attention to issues of literacy per se as well as to improving an educational process that has relevance beyond members of majority cultures and linguistic groups. The focus of the book is on the social and cultural contexts in which literacy develops and is enacted, with an emphasis on the North American situation. Educators and researchers are discovering that cognitive approaches, while very valuable, are insufficient by themselves to answer important questions about literacy in heterogeneous societies. By considering the implications of family, school, culture, society, and nation for literary processes, the book answers the following questions. In a multi-ethnic context, what does it mean to be literate? What are the processes involved in becoming and being literate in a second language? In what ways is literacy in a second language similar and in what ways is it different from mother-tongue literacy? What factors must be understood to better describe and facilitate literacy acquisition among members of ethnic and linguistic minorities? What are some current approaches that are being used to accomplish this? These are vital questions for researchers and educators in a world that has a large number of immigrants, a variety of multi-ethnic and multi-lingual societies, and an increasing degree of multinational activity. Beyond addressing applied concerns, attending to these questions can provide new insights into basic aspects of literacy.

This book offers a array of essays with challenging ideas and provoking new analyses of power asymmetries, multiple epistemologies and vital con-cerns for the education of a different America, the America of new immi-grants, people of color with other cultures, languages and values. The new American that many want to ignore and is becoming the only America. This book also forces us to reflect on the educational challenges we must face, especially in teacher education and the preparation of intellectual leaders. None of the major agenda items associated with a new era of social justice can be either comprehended or accomplished without a profound understanding of multicultural literacy, and of its relationship to ethnic, racial, cultural and linguistic diversity. While in previous decades we used frequently a rhetoric of multiculturalism (at a safe distance), today we are living multiculturalism and practicing ethnic, cultural and racial diversity in our daily lives as we seek a marriage partner, a business associate, a friend, a church. Most of all, we must live multiculturalism as we go school and see children’s faces. There is no way to escape the reality of ethnic, racial and linguistic diversity as it comes entangled with many other cul-tural and class differences between and within each group we encounter. Suddenly, an abrupt awakening for many mainstream educators, what was peculiar of some areas in the Southwest, has become common scenario in most metropolis and large cities. The present volume brings us face to face with issues and challenges we can no longer sweep under the rug. This outstanding volume lays down a solid general conceptual foundation that permits us to link our theoretical past with the post-modern era. It also provides a clear context for the dis-cussion of contrasting notions of monocultural literacy and the relation-ship of literacy and power. The volume goes on to deal with the relationship of literacy and culture (actually to specific cultures, especially African American). At this point the discourse turns to strategies for incor-porating minority perspectives into the literacy curriculum and including the home cultures of disenfranchised peoples. The last section of the book offers help on the practical issues of teacher education for student popula-tions often ignored, and linkages between schools and homes in order to empower the disenfranchised and isolated.