Di•VERSE Literacy: Culturally Responsive Rap and Hip-Hop Phonemic Awareness Instruction (Unit One: Identifying Beginning Sounds)

• In Event: Liberating Literacies and Culturally Sustaining Pedagogies

Abstract

Young culturally and linguistically diverse children enter classrooms with diverse cultural, lived, and language experiences compared to their White teachers. This cultural, often racial, disparity hinders many children’s literacy development when their experiences are not valued in schools. Using culturally relevant education approaches to support children in experiencing relatable foundational literacy instruction, I designed Di•VERSE Literacy: A Rap and Hip Hop Phonemic Awareness Curriculum to incorporate children’s experiences as assets to advance their phonemic awareness development. The goal of this design-based research study is to provide children with a curriculum that advances children’s academic success, affirms their culturally influenced identities and provides children with reflective and attractive visual representation of communities of Color.

Author

• Amber Lawson, Bowling Green State University