Interactive Read Alouds as Culturally Sustaining Trajectories to Imagine Futures for All Children

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

Abstract

This study examines culturally sustaining interactive read-alouds to support the biliteracy, language, and positive identities of young Latinx children in a dual-language prekindergarten classroom within a Title I school in South Texas. In this qualitative case study, the author explores the collaboration between a Latina prekindergarten teacher and a Latina early childhood researcher to engage in culturally sustaining, interactive read-alouds with Latinx young children, aiming to envision a future where children of color can be safe and proud of their racial identities. The findings suggest that culturally sustaining interactive read-alouds offer trajectories for centering several cultures in the classroom, developing children’s positive racial and linguistic identities through artwork, while supporting the students’ biliteracy and linguistic repertoires.

Author

• Laura Marcela Cardona Berrio, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi