School –Family Partnerships for Culturally Sustaining Texts

AbstractEducators of young students who want to invigorate relationships with students ’ families and boost student literacy can do so by cocreating culturally sustaining texts. A culturally sustaining text seeks to sustain a reader’s cultures, literacies, and backgrounds. The author shares step‐by‐step instructions on how to make a culturally sustaining text with students and their families using photos from the students’ neighborhoods and a language experience approach. Four major outcomes were found: School personnel increased their understanding of students’ home context, families were more willing to come into school, schools and families built relationships tha t paved the way for future communication, and students gained a culturally sustaining text to support their literacy learning.
Source: Reading Teacher - Category: Child Development Authors: Tags: Teaching Tip Source Type: research