Focus on Language and Cultural Diversity:
Recommended Reading

Professional development collection

IRA Literacy Study Groups English Learners Module (includes books, articles, discussion guides, position statements, and other resources for personal or school-based professional development)

Books

Click on a title to find a detailed description, and to browse contents and sample chapters.

Breaking Boundaries With Global Literature: Celebrating Diversity in K–12 Classrooms, edited by Nancy L. Hadaway and Marian J. McKenna

Breaking the Silence: Recognizing the Social and Cultural Resources Students Bring to the Classroom, edited by Catherine Compton-Lilly  NEW!

Creating Welcoming Schools: A Practical Guide to Home-School Partnerships With Diverse Families, by JoBeth Allen

English Learners, edited by Gilbert G. García

Exploring African Life and Literature, edited by Jacqueline N. Glasgow and Linda J. Rice

Kids Come in All Languages, edited by Karen Spangenberg-Urbschat and Robert Pritchard

Learning to Be Literacy Teachers in Urban Schools, by Althier M. Lazar

Literacy Development of Students in Urban Schools, by James Flood and Patricia L. Anders

Literacy Instruction for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students, edited by Michael F. Opitz

Supporting the Literacy Development of English Language Learners, edited by Terrell A. Young and Nancy L. Hadaway

Teaching African American Learners to Read, edited by Bill Hammond, Mary Eleanor Rhodes Hoover, and Irving Pressley McPhail

Windows to Language, Literacy, and Culture: Insights From an English-Language Learner, by Cynthia H. Brock and Taffy E. Raphael

Articles

Highlights from recent issues of the Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy:

“Bridging two worlds: Reading comprehension, figurative language instruction, and the English-language Learner,” by Barbara C. Palmer et al. (Dec. 2006/Jan. 2007; vol. 50, no. 4)

““Those anime students”: Foreign language literacy development through Japanese popular culture,” by Natsuki Fukunaga (Nov. 2006; vol. 50, no. 3)

“Bilingual education students reflect on their language education,” by Kathryn F. Whitmore and Caryl G. Crowell (Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006; vol. 49, no. 4)

“Home and away,” by Bronwyn T. Williams (Dec. 2005/Jan. 2006; vol. 49, no. 4)

“Teaching queer-inclusive English language arts,” by Mollie V. Blackburn and J.F. Buckley (Nov. 2005; vol. 49, no. 3)

“Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition practices of English-language learners in an online fanfiction community,” by Rebecca W. Black (Oct. 2005; vol. 49, no. 2)

“Multicultural literature and discussion as mirror and window?” by Jocelyn Glazier and Jung-A Seo (May 2005; vol. 48, no. 8)

“Development of empathetic responses with multicultural literature,” by Belinda Louie (April 2005; vol. 48, no. 7)

“Barriers to literacy for language-minority children,” by Rachel A. Grant and Shelley D. Wong (Feb. 2003; vol. 46, no. 5)  FREE!

Freely available at Reading Online, IRA’s e-journal:

“Developing multilingual literacy in a complex setting: Suggested principles for building a crossnational research agenda,” by Dominique Portante (Jan. 2004)

“Researchers, beware of your assumptions! The unique case of South African education,” by Zanele Buthelezi (Nov. 2003)

“Orthographic issues and multiple language literacy,” by Chiou-lan Chern (Nov. 2003)

“Getting to know strangers: A sociocultural approach to reading, language, and literacy,” by Eve Gregory (Nov. 2003)

“Disrupting assumptions about vernacular education in Papua New Guinea,” by Eileen Honan (Dec. 2002)

“Learning to use diverse children’s literature in the classroom: A model for preservice teacher education,” by Stacey Leftwich (Sept. 2002)

“Culturally responsive instruction as a dimension of new literacies,” by Kathryn H. Au (July 2001)

“‘You don’t read a science book, you study it’: An exploration of cultural concepts of reading,” by Jim Anderson and Lee Gunderson (Feb. 2001)

From Reading Research Quarterly:

““I'll speak in proper slang”: Language ideologies in a daily editing activity,” by Amanda J. Godley, Brian D. Carpenter, and Cynthia A. Werner (Jan./Feb./March 2007; vol. 42, no. 1)

“Vernacular literacy on the Lake Titicaca high plains, Peru,” by Frank Salomon and Emilio Chambi Apaza (July/Aug./Sept. 2006; vol. 41, no. 3)

“Closing the gap: Addressing the vocabulary needs of English-language learners in bilingual and mainstream classrooms,” by María S. Carlo et al. (April/May/June 2004; vol. 39, no. 2)

From The Reading Teacher, IRA’s journal for those working with learners aged 3 to 12:

“Pen pal letter exchanges: Taking first steps toward developing cultural understandings,” by Mary Alice Barksdale, Carol Watson, and Eun Soo Park (September 2007; vol. 61, no. 1)

“Reading research into the classroom: Tapping students’ cultural funds of knowledge to address the achievement gap,” by Victoria J. Risko and Doris Walker-Dalhouse (September 2007; vol. 61, no. 1)

“Creating sentence walls to help English-language learners develop content literacy,” by Karen A. Carrier and Alfred W. Tatum (Nov. 2006; vol. 60, no. 3)

“Assessing English-language learners in mainstream classrooms,” by Susan Davis Lenski et al. (Sept. 2006; vol. 60, no. 1)

“Leyendo juntos (Reading together),” by Robert W. Ortiz and Rosario Ordoñez-Jasis (Oct. 2005; vol. 59, no. 2)

“Using writing to understand bilingual children’s literacy development,” by Renée Rubin and Verónica Galván Carlan (May 2005; vol. 58, no. 8)

“Personal response and social responsibility,” by Janice Hartwick Dressel (May 2005; vol. 58, no. 8)

“Using literacy assessment results to improve teaching for English-language learners,” by Lori A. Helman (April 2005; vol. 58, no. 7)

“To meet your students where they are, first you have to find them,” by Ken Pransky and Francis Bailey (Dec. 2002/Jan. 2003; vol. 56, no. 4)  FREE!

From Reading Today, IRA’s membership newspaper:

“Creating cultural masterpieces one island at a time” (June/July 2007)  FREE!

“Moving language-minority populations off sidelines requires more research, funding” (February/March 2007)  FREE!