Early Childhood Educators’ Experiences Cultivating Academics Belonging and Criticality in Early Childhood Literacy Classrooms

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Abstract

This paper examines how early childhood educators’ in pre-kindergarten through second-grade experience implementing culturally relevant texts, including culturally diverse children’s literature and student-generated decodable readers, to cultivate Academics, Belonging, and Criticality, a conceptual framework. When educators implement these ABCs, they can support young children’s overall literacy development in meaningful and enjoyable ways, and children can recognize the value of their identities, cultures, and lived experiences as well as their peers. Data examined in this paper were collected in three phases, including a quantitative and qualitative study and two qualitative studies, where educators participated in interviews reflecting on their experiences of implementing culturally relevant texts for four or five weeks of instruction, generating new insights into culturally relevant early literacy instruction.

Authors

• Amber Lawson, Bowling Green State University

• Ashelin R. Currie, Oakland Schools

• Rylee Smith, Bowling Green State University