Language, Literacy, Liberation: Oral Storytelling and Pluralistic Picture Books as Decolonial Tools

• In Event: Centering Children's Literature as a Transformative Tool for Imagining Futures in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

The science of reading is often framed as a cognitive, skills-based approach to literacy. Decolonial perspectives, however, call for a more holistic view that values children’s cultural and linguistic knowledge, especially for marginalized, multilingual learners (Souto-Manning, Martell, & Álvarez, 2024). This paper critically examines the “big five” components—phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension (National Reading Panel, 2000)—using oral storytelling and pluralistic picture books. Drawing from decolonial literacy practices (Dei et al., 2019), we propose a more inclusive and balanced literacy framework that centers the lived experiences of immigrant children, multilingual children, and children of Color. We advocate for a reimagined science of reading that emphasizes multilingual, multimodal, and culturally responsive strategies to create equitable, restorative early literacy environments.

Authors

• Aura Yarenis Perez-Gonzalez, California State University - Long Beach

• Ayesha Rabadi-Raol, Sonoma State University