Literacy Matters - Vol 21 - Winter 2021

5. Finally, educators should implement effective language and literacy instruction with the text . Students’ language and literacy practices should be the focus of the informational text as teachers build on students’ background knowledge and experience to assist them in moving from known content to new understandings about the topics (Wantanabe Kganesto, 2017). Allowing the students’ existing knowledge of language and literacy as a member of their individual culture and community to guide the process of creating the texts, normalizes their experiences and provides space for others to access and connect with the text as part of a culturally sustaining curriculum. Conclusion Although not exhaustive in nature, the classroom practices depicted above represent authentic strategies for centering the lives of children of Color and children from historically marginalized populations within the curriculum. Rather than perceiving children’s background and experiences as a detriment to their academic success, these instructional practices deem them as necessary components of a culturally sustaining curriculum. Each strategy accesses the culturally sustaining practice of storytelling to draw on differing principles of culturally

sustaining pedagogy (see Table 1). Within this framework, identity stories, family stories, and informational stories are adopted as part of early childhood literacy curriculum to: (a) center multilingual, multicultural practices and knowledge within communities of Color; (b) promote and support agency and input from children, their families, and communities; (c) connect classroom learning to the histories of racial, ethnic, and linguistic communities; and (d) acknowledge and contend with internalized oppression, counter messages, and systems that view marginalized populations as the problem. Storytelling in early childhood classrooms places an emphasis on sustaining rather than eradicating the cultural ways of being within historically marginalized groups and communities of Color (Nash, Polson & Glover, 2020). Identity stories, family stories, and informational stories have the unique ability to capture the individual lives of children and normalize their experiences, languages, and ways of being within their cultural communities. By adopting literacy practices such as storytelling with young children, early childhood educators can reimagine their classrooms as collaborative, collective, and critical spaces that support children’s cultural identities and academic investments (Kinloch, 2017) and as loving environments where diverse, heterogenous practices are “not only valued, but sustained” (Alim & Paris, 2017, p.3).

Literacy Matters Critical Literacy Matters

Early Literacy Strategy

Culturally Sustaining Features (Alim & Paris, 2017)

Evidence of Culturally Sustaining Features within the Early Literacy Strategy Validate students’ interests, background experiences, and expertise by making them the central focus of the story. Foreground students’ home language and literacy practices within the story. Engage family members as active participants in the storytelling process. Value the perspectives of family members and respected leaders within the community as part of the storytelling process. Highlight histories of students’ race, culture, language, neighborhoods, and communities within the stories. Address the ways that racism, immigration, social injustice, and discrimination have impacted students, their families, and communities using age appropriate language and descriptions within the stories.

Identity Stories Center multilingual, multicultural practices and knowledge within communities of color

Family Stories

Promote and support agency and input from children, their families, and communities

Informational Stories

Connect classroom learning to the histories of racial, ethnic, and linguistic communities, as well as the histories of neighborhoods, cities, states and nation states in which they live. Acknowledge and contend with internalized oppression, counter messages, and systems that view marginalized populations as the problem

Table 1 Culturally Sustaining Features of Early Literacy Storytelling Strategy

Literacy Matters | Volume 21 • Winter 2021 | 11 |

CLICK HERE TO RETURN TO TABLE OF CONTENTS