Enacting Reading Comprehension

Using Diverse Literature to Engage Children's Critical, Sociopolitical Knowledge

Bibliographic Data

ID7166245
AuthorsWintre F Johnson (0000-0002-1033-5539, University of Virginia Charlottesville Virginia USA, corresponding author), Saba Khan Vlach (0000-0002-8298-0887, University of Iowa Iowa City Iowa USA), María G Leija (0000-0003-0882-5333, University of Texas, San Antonio San Antonio Texas USA)
Year2025
Volume60
Issue1
Publication date2025-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueReading Research Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-0553 • E-ISSN: 1936-2722
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1002/rrq.584
OpenAlexW4404327788
LanguageEN
Citations received3
References cited86

The current climate of K‐12 education in the United States has seen a narrowing of literacy instructional practices, exponential amounts of book bans, and contrived hysteria about liberal indoctrination and Critical Race Theory (CRT). Yet, as the world becomes increasingly connected across difference, and as research increasingly demonstrates that we must engage young children from all backgrounds in discussions about sociopolitical issues, it is urgent that classroom teachers foreground children's experiential knowledge in comprehension instruction. In this article, we address the following question: In three early elementary literacy contexts, how did educators use culturally sustaining practices with diverse children's literature to enact reading comprehension and engage young children in critical, sociopolitical meaning making? Three teacher educators of Color share findings from qualitative studies in the United States Northeast and Southwest that examine this integration with the use of diverse children's literature. The first finding illustrates how teachers utilized book introductions to situate a diverse group of early elementary‐aged students in various sociopolitical issues and engage them in critical readings about texts. The second finding illustrates how a series of after‐school literature circle discussions enabled first‐grade African American children to make meaning dialogically and communally about enslavement. The third finding illustrates how the teacher created space for second‐grade Latinx students to translanguage as they drew on multiple reading comprehension strategies and made sense of immigration. The implications from these studies invite a rethinking of the dominant paradigm of reading comprehension instruction

Comprehension · Critical reading · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Reading (process) · Reading comprehension · Sociology · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Literacy, Media, and Education · Philosophy · Psychology · Reading and Literacy Development

Tools

Open DOIOpen Access