Culturally Relevant Home Reading: Supporting English Learners Through Take-home Readings

Jessica Sangale, Neosho Middle School, Neosho

Intro

Family engagement is very important to supporting English learners’ (ELs) literacy (Beuch, 2022). Altamimi and Ogdol (2023) found that when students read with families, it improved their comprehension. When schools include students’ cultures and family traditions in activities, families feel more welcome and are more likely to take part (Breiseth et al., 2015). Even if parents are not fluent in English, when they have the right materials and support, they participate more in their children’s literacy development (Breiseth et al., 2015; Miller, 2023).

My schools has a large population of ELs. Some of my families do not have access to multicultural and multilingual materials to help support learning at home. In order to support multiliteracy development, I sought out materials to provide families with multicultural texts and games that build on students’ languages, cultural experiences, and funds of knowledge.

Students chose one or two books and a game to take home in a bag as well as the response sheets and reading logs for the books. This allowed students to see their cultures reflected in the reading while also promoting sharing and storytelling at home. The games that were included are not culture-specific, but they were used to support language growth through storytelling, using vocabulary, and collaborative play. This also made it accessible to families regardless of their English proficiency.

Step-by-Step Plan

Step 1: Gather multicultural books at different reading levels, an assortment of games, and bags for students to take them home in and create reading response sheets, parent surveys and permission forms, reading logs, and classroom observation checklist

Step 2: Label all the books with their reading level

Step 3: Send home permission forms and parent surveys

Step 4: Once you collect permission forms, send home books, games, reading logs, and response sheets

Step 5: Collect reading logs and response sheets weekly and have students choose new books or games as needed

Step 6: Track classroom observations to note any changes in engagement and literacy growth

Reading Response Sheets and Reading Logs:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19FF7g0zoG4oeNdmf_fLl2IM5qTnZznSjEkNUmeKJfJo/edit?usp=sharing

Timeline

August/September

Create reading response sheets, parent surveys and permission forms, reading logs, and classroom observation checklist. Collect books and games and label books according to reading level. Send home surveys and permission forms. Send home books, games, reading logs, and response sheets in bags.

October through December

Collect response sheets and reading logs weekly. Keep track of classroom observations for engagement and literacy growth. Allow exchanges of games and books as needed.

Games

·         Rory’s Story Cubes Rory's Story Cubes

·         Guess Who Guess Who

·         Double 6 Dominoes Double 6 Dominoes

·         Uno Teams Card Game Uno Teams Card Game

·         Storytelling Dominoes Storytelling Dominoes

·         The World Card Game The World Card Game

·         Storytelling Cards Storytelling Cards

·         Sentence Search 4.21 Sentence Search

·         Guess in 10 Guess in 10

·         Word Play for Kids Word Play for Kids

·         Word Teasers Word Teasers

Books

·         All are Welcome All Are Welcome

·         The Family Book The Family Book

·         My Food, Your Food, Our Food My Food Your Food Our Food

·         Our Beautiful Colors Our Beautiful Colors

·         We Belong We Belong

·         Magnolia Wu Unfolds it ALL Magnolia Wu Unfolds it ALl

·         Spanish is My Superpower Spanish is My Superpower

·         Latin Americans in History Latin Americans in History

·         From the Mouth of the Monster Eel From the Mouth of the Monster Eel

·         Songs of Papa’s Island Songs of Papa's Island

·         Attitude 13: A Daughter Of Guam's Collection Of Short Stories Daughter of Guam

·         Dreamers Dreamers

·         Tortilla Sun Tortilla Sun

·         Be Bold Be Brave Be Bold Be Brave

·         The Insiders The Insider

·         They Call Me Guero They Call Me Guero

·         Best Amigas Best Amigas

·         Brown Girl Dreaming Brown Girl Dreaming

·         One Crazy Summer One Crazy Summer

·         Hello, Universe Hello, Universe

·         Front Desk Front Desk

·         Power Forward Power Forward

·         Lola Lola

·         On the Block On the Block

·         Black Inventors Black Inventors

·         The Name Jar The Name Jar

·         The First Rule of Punk The First Rule of Punk

·         For the Right to Learn For the Right to Learn

·         Piecing Me Together Piecing Me Together

·         Invisible Invisible

·         We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices We Rise, We Resist, We Raise Our Voices

·         Where are You From? Where are You From?

·         A Day in the Sun A Day in the Sun

·         Do You Speak Fish? Do You Speak Fish

·         I Can Be All Three I Can Be All Three

·         Abuela Abuela

Sustainability

After the permission forms, surveys, response sheets, reading logs, and classroom observation trackers have been created, they can be used for as long as you need without extra cost, with the exception of making copies. Once the books and games are collected, they will last for years. This can be continued each year with new students. I currently have Hispanic and Micronesian students that are ELs, but I also chose books that represent many other cultures. This will help support other ELs that we may have in the future. It also provides all of my students with access to learn about other cultures.  

Reflections 

I had originally planned to put a timeline on how long students could take home books. However, after starting, I realized it wasn’t going to work smoothly that way with each student reading at a different level and having varied levels of books. The engagement so far has been wonderful. The students are eager to choose books and make exchanges when they need to. They have also been enjoying talking about how they are using the games at home. Because of this, I will plan to make changes to how we use the reading response sheets. I might add a small group to incorporate once a week for students to check in with me on their progress and share what they like or dislike about what they are reading.

So far, the students have been highly motivated to take home books. They were very excited to see all of the books being delivered. The games have been great for family engagement. There has been a lot of discussion when the students come to school about how they play the games or who they are playing them with at home. The response sheets have been helpful for me to see if they are comprehending the books they are choosing, especially since I am letting them choose whatever books they would like to take home. I need more time to fairly say whether there is growth in language development, but there has been a positive and noticeable change in reading engagement.

What I learned from this process was how powerful it is to connect students’ cultures and experiences to their learning. When I first received the supplies, students were ecstatic looking through the book titles knowing they were specifically picked for them. The feedback that I have received from my students and families so far has been very positive. I have also seen growth in classroom participation and engagement. This experience was a great reminder that I am not just responsible for teaching content. I am also responsible for creating opportunities for all students to build on their individual backgrounds. I learned that being intentional with providing supports to our students’ families open opportunities that every child deserves in their education.  

References

Altamimi, M. O., & Ogdol, R. (2023). The effects of shared reading approach on improving students’ comprehension. International Journal of Research in Education and Science, 9(2), 308–328. https://doi.org/10.46328/ijres.3047

Beuch, M. (2022). Family engagement and English language students (Master’s thesis, Concordia University, St. Paul). Concordia University, St. Paul Digital Commons. https://digitalcommons.csp.edu/teacher-education_masters/67

Breiseth, L., Robertson, K., & Lafond, S. (2015). Connecting with ELL families: Strategies for success. Colorín Colorado. https://www.colorincolorado.org/article/connecting-ell-families-strategies-success

Miller, R. (2023, January 10). Finding and utilizing culturally relevant texts. Edutopia. https://www.edutopia.org/article/finding-culturally-relevant-texts/