Sociopolitical Comprehension Instruction: Using Multicultural Children's Literature to Engage Experiential Knowledge as Intellectual Meaning-Making

• In Event: Culturally Sustaining Early Literacy Pedagogies and Our Futures

Abstract

The current climate of K-12 education in the U.S. 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.

Authors

• Wintre Foxworth Johnson, University of Virginia

• Saba Khan Vlach, University of Iowa

• María G. Leija, University of Texas - San Antonio