In this study, the authors examine how emergent bilingual second graders collaboratively constructed textual understandings, a phenomenon they call intercomprehending, by building on each other's contributions and positioning their ideas in relation to peer ideas. The study traces the interrelationships of the utterances of emergent bilingual students discussing text in English for the first time in the context of a small-group discussion focused on English-language picture books. The textual ideas students shared were highly contingent on peer ideas and at the same time drew substantially on the text itself, particularly the illustrations. The authors argue that intercomprehending may serve as a fruitful way for emergent bilingual students to build on what they know as they read and learn in school and that classroom teachers may do well to build on that resource.

A resounding emphasis on learning loss has pervaded popular discourse and academic research as children return to in-person instruction after COVID-related schooling interruptions, most notably including remote schooling. This paper examines how this emphasis links to persistent deficit-oriented views of children as lacking literacy and language. It proposes an expanded, anti-deficit conception of teacher noticing based upon four domains that deserve more visibility especially at this time in the literacy classroom: children’s emotions, children’s funds of knowledge, children’s relationships, and children’s purposes. It provides examples of how teachers might adopt deliberate noticing practices that attend to these domains.

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