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Translanguaging and Latinx Bilingual Readers
Author(s) -
García Ofelia
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
the reading teacher
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.642
H-Index - 50
eISSN - 1936-2714
pISSN - 0034-0561
DOI - 10.1002/trtr.1883
Subject(s) - translanguaging , literacy , perspective (graphical) , linguistics , neuroscience of multilingualism , bilingual education , psychology , multilingualism , sociology , pedagogy , computer science , philosophy , artificial intelligence
The traditional monolingual and monoglossic perspective of literacy and biliteracy is compared with the perspective offered by translanguaging. The author explores how the monolingual and monoglossic view of literacy has been responsible for the failure of many Latinx bilingual students. A translanguaging perspective turns its attention toward the language actions of a bilingual reader and away from the language of a written text. Focusing on the actions of three Latinx bilingual readers—a pre‐reader, an elementary school student, and a middle school student—the author explores how bilingual readers leverage their translanguaging, turning what are said to be static monolingual texts into multilingual/multimodal ones. Through the actions of three Latinx readers in different types of educational contexts, the author shows how literacy educators can take steps to acknowledge bilingual readers’ translanguaging and enter with them into a translanguaging space to do literacy.