Languages and literacies learning lab: Bringing home to school

The Languages & Literacies Learning Lab (4 L), a collaborative project between Sonoma State University and Mariposa Elementary School, supports the development of and engagement around community biliteracy (Casesa et al., 2024). Understanding the benefits of family engagement on student success (Zeichner et al., 2016), we created space for elementary students and their families to connect literacy with life experiences through a summer program. 4 L emphasized a reciprocal learning relationship that requires “working in solidarity with families and communities” (Zeichner et al., 2016, p. 277) to disrupt traditional literacy notions that are one-way, deficit-oriented, English-dominant, and not inclusive of non-traditional literacies that take place in the home (Early, 2017; Reyes & Torres, 2007). Based on the Family Writing Project (Kelly, 2006) model that teachers, students, and families are writers, we targeted less-engaged children with the overarching goal of fostering their belief in their own capacity as readers and writers (and their caregivers'1 belief in their ability to support literacy), with a very intentional focus upon translanguaging as an individual, family, and community asset. The children selected for this program had been identified by their classroom teachers as “lacking engagement in literacy.” This did not necessarily mean that they were below grade level (though some were), but rather that the child had expressed (either verbally or behaviorally) a reluctance or refusal to participate in classroom-based reading and writing activities. In fact, in our pre-program orientation surveys and interviews, many parents told us that their children “hated” reading or “would not” write. During this orientation, parents were also informed of the data (including photos and videos) that we were hoping to collect as part of our greater research project. Consent to participate in the research project was not required in order to participate in 4 L; nevertheless, all caregivers signed consent forms for their children. Children also provided assent prior to being photographed or videotaped. All of the families in this program were bilingual. Most were bilingual in Spanish/English, with one Arabic/English-speaking family. At that time Mariposa Elementary was an “English-only”2 school where the language of instruction was English and most teachers were monolingual English speakers. This meant that all children were required to read (and write) English texts in and for school (Wagner, 2021) but spoke other languages at home—which likely accounted for some of their “lack of engagement”. Because of historical distinctions between school or academic language, and home language, many parents and caregivers felt disconnected from their children's literacy worlds because they simply did not understand them. In an effort to connect the home and school literacies to create one holistic literacy ecosystem (Seltzer, 2019), we explicitly focused on the idea that bilingualism and biliteracy are assets. We challenged “the monolingual notions currently underlying policy, curriculum, and practice” (Osorio, 2020). We emphasized that the home language is not less important than the language of school and that families played a critical role in the maintenance and development of the home language(s). While literacy development was a critical component of this program (for instance, students were given pre- and post-assessments of comprehension, fluency, and writing), the intention was to provide students and their families with a variety of engaging literacy-based activities that could be used repeatedly throughout and across the child's development as a reader and writer instead of the development of discrete literacy skills for school only. Identified by the school as being “at risk,” the participants (the students and caregivers) had become accustomed to a battery of “literacy interventions” which, for the most part, looked like a packet of extra work (e.g., English phonics drills, decodable books, etc.) that would be sent home on Mondays, completed over the course of the week, and then returned to school the following Monday—only to repeat the experience with a new packet. Parents dutifully sat with their children to ensure their compliance, believing that this was the way to improve their literacy skills. 4 L was an intentional shift from the traditional summer school model, which typically focuses on helping students “catch up” to grade-level standards or develop English language competency (Morita-Mullaney et al. 2023). We saw 4 L as an opportunity to build confidence in children by equipping them with strategies to support biliteracy development beyond the summer experience and to re-center the assets they bring to formal learning. The assignments depended on community cultural wealth (Li, 2022; Yosso, 2005), such as cajitas,3 little boxes decorated with artifacts and symbols representing personal experiences and family stories (Kanagala et al., 2013), and historias based on names and self-portraits. Lastly, a carefully curated classroom library4 reflected students' lives, and made space for caregivers to share stories of resilience and joy with their children (Koss et al., 2017). These books make visible the way our languages move fluidly across informal and formal learning experiences. The structure rested on student-centered learning such as mini-lessons to grow literacy skills over time. Students learned how to select “just right” books. Books that required more energy or disrupted their flow were added to the “books I want to read” list in their reading journals. The journals were also spaces to document inspiration from the books they read and drafts for their writing. In every aspect of the experience, students were encouraged to use all of their languages and even to write in one language if that made the most sense for their work. The 4 L culminated in a community gathering, where adults participated actively in literacy learning led by the children.5 There was a gallery walk of multimodal, multilingual compositions and story circles. In one kindergarten story circle, a child sharing his cajita began in English and finished his story in Spanish. In the next room, the kids were building zines or little indie magazines, confidently leading adults and children through writing their own. Academic lecture: An academic lecture presented the research and theory related to translanguaging and biliteracy development in the families' dominant languages. Participants were specifically taught the value of translanguaging and that bilingualism is a social, cultural, academic, and economic asset. The presenter challenged the assumption that literacy “homework” must be completed in English to be valuable despite English being the language of instruction. Parents instead learned that using their home language with their child's English texts reinforced their child's development of biliteracy and bilingualism. During these lectures, three home language groups were represented (English, Spanish, and Arabic); the presenter was bilingual in English and Spanish, and moved organically between the two languages during the lecture while the slides were in English, Spanish, and Arabic. A translanguaging corriente, or a fluid current that runs between multilingual speakers, was modeled and practiced together (García et al., 2017). These lectures provided the framework and language necessary in order to engage in ongoing collaborative conversations. Strategy: Participants were taught a specific research-based meaning-making strategy (e.g., reciprocal teaching, Oczkus, 2003) that was being taught to their child that week. Parents were given a very brief introduction to the strategy (including purpose and research support) and created a foldable graphic organizer7 that included tips, reminders, and sentence frames in their dominant language to use as a resource with their children. The presenter used the children's picture book Dreamers/Soñadores (Morales, 2018) as the anchor text, modeling the strategy and providing the parents with opportunities to practice the strategy with one another (with one having chosen the role of “parent” and the other choosing the role of “child”). The presenter coached the participants, suggesting follow-up comprehension questions to further support engagement. Importantly, parents from different home language groups were able to practice the strategy together—and see and feel translanguaging in classrooms in real time—since they all were able to access the content in the book through either English, Spanish, or the vibrant images. All were able to work together to negotiate meaning during their strategy practice regardless of their dominant language. Classroom push-in: Parents “pushed in” to their child's classroom to practice the strategy with their child, using a text selected by their child. They found a cozy spot in the classroom, and read the book together. Depending upon the dyad or triad (in the event that there was a parent with multiple children), sometimes the parent read the entire book to the child; sometimes the child read to the parent; sometimes they took turns. Throughout the shared reading experience, the parent referred to their foldable to ask questions, probe for understanding, and support the shared meaning-making of the book. During this time, the teachers and workshop facilitator acted as coaches. They would join in the book conversations, model additional questions that could be discussed, and give the parents feedback. A critical component of this last portion was the validation of the parents' experience of and capacity as literacy partners. Parents often wanted to debrief a particular part of their shared reading experience or conversation–asking “¿si lo hice bien?” The Languages and Literacies Learning Lab explores how learning is reciprocal, and an important part of the lived literacies of children and their caregivers. It provides one way for literacy educators to learn with bilingual families as they use their full linguistic repertoires in meaningful ways. It also provides an authentic space for parents and their children to engage in literacy activities that promote all their languages and provide space for conversation. As one teacher-participant said, “We created a microcosm of what effective literacy education looks and feels like … to value families and bring an assets-based mindset to biliteracy education.” We wanted it to be joyful and fun to build students' confidence so they recognized that they are readers and writers. This was evident when our undiscovered writers added their own writing, or “books,” to the class library or when two girls asked if they could work on their story during the recess break. As teacher educators, we wanted to learn with and from the school community, including children and adults, about what literacies look like in real life—a reminder that “real life” is part of school, too. Figure S1. Figure S2. Figure S3. Figure S4. Figure S7. Figure Captions Please note: The publisher is not responsible for the content or functionality of any supporting information supplied by the authors. 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