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Building Literacy Instruction From Children’s Sociocultural Worlds
Author(s) -
PurcellGates Victoria,
Melzi Gigliana,
Najafi Behnosh,
Orellana Marjorie Faulstich
Publication year - 2011
Publication title -
child development perspectives
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3
H-Index - 71
eISSN - 1750-8606
pISSN - 1750-8592
DOI - 10.1111/j.1750-8606.2010.00144.x
Subject(s) - sociocultural evolution , mainstream , literacy , reading (process) , psychology , pedagogy , developmental psychology , linguistics , sociology , anthropology , philosophy , theology
— This article demonstrates that children’s language and literacy development shares an inextricable relationship with their social and cultural worlds. Cultural factors always shape the ways different communities engage in reading and writing. Young English language learners bring culturally shaped beliefs and experiences regarding reading and writing to school, where they are taught important beginning literacy skills and practices that may not fit with their previous experiences. This article calls for carefully designed research that explores promising curricular modifications that may increase the early literacy abilities of children from cultural and linguistic backgrounds different from mainstream educational environments.