Main Title: Decentering the Anglocentric Views on Literacy from a Multilingual and Multicultural Lens: A New Zealand Nuanced Perspective

Abstract In Anglophone nations, there appears to be a radical push to mandate the Science of Reading (SoR) or structured literacy into classrooms. While structured literacy appears to be cordial to a number of academics, popular media used this trend to generate discourses against other needs-based adaptations, suggesting that the science of literacy is already “settled” and can never be malleable. However, circumspective scholars of literacy and explicit instruction do not necessarily subscribe to this discourse, and they suggest a more nuanced understanding about the teaching of reading and writing in English especially when one realises that contemporary Anglophone classrooms are now rarely monolingual and monocultural. Using poststructuralist critical inquiry, this paper interrogates the dominant discourses around structured literacy policy and instruction that are often based on monolingual Anglophone bias. It problematises the inherent structures and assumptions of a “settled” science of reading instruction and unpacks the often marginalised worldviews and lived experiences of culturally and linguistically diverse learners which are strengths to leverage rather than deficits to overcome. Reflexively situated within the author’s experience and practice as a multilingual literacy educator, the article decenters the Anglocentric views of literacy and offers a critical multilingual viewpoint towards structured literacy environments. The article argues for the perennial need for monolingual English-speaking early literacy teachers to understand the linguistic and cultural identities and resources of young culturally and linguistically diverse learners of the English language so that reasonable competence in reading (and writing) is expected from these learners rather than a ‘native-like’ accuracy.