‘Many Differing Ladders, Many Ways to Climb...’: Literacy Events in the Bilingual Classroom, Homes, and Community of Three Puerto Rican Kindergartners

Abstract

In this article, we analyze aspects of the complex literacy lives of three Spanish dominant, mainland Puerto Rican kindergartners who were beginning readers at the time of the study. We investigate literacy as a social and cultural practice in the children's bilingual classroom, homes, and churches, describing the people who supported their developing literacy, their beliefs about literacy, and the characteristics of literacy events that the children coconstructed with them. Our analysis is based on data collected with ethnographic methods, including participant observation, interviews, and audio recording. At home and in church, the children's developing literacy was supported by a network of people, many of whom believed that reading was about combining sounds into words and that meaning was inherent in text. Literacy events were often social, collaborative interactions as the families created a syncretic literacy by drawing on the multiple resources in their lives, including their religion, their culture, and their knowledge of two languages as well as their experiences in school. Overall, we found both similarities and differences between literacy in school and literacy in the children's homes and community rather than the matches or mismatches described in the literature.

Bilingual and biliteracy practices

“…These young people participate in out-of-school literacy practices in various contexts. For example, research on the literacy practices of working-class Latino families in the United States has shown that children often engage in collaborative literacy activities in public spaces, such as the kitchen or the living room, which involve parents, siblings, cousins, and extended family members (e.g., Gonzalez et al, 2005;Volk & De Acosta, 2001). There are also cases where ethnic communities take a more active role in arranging out-of-school literacy practices for their children in order to pass on their cultural, religious, and linguistic heritages to their children.…”

Playful talk: the interspace between home and school discourse

“…The focus of syncretism, therefore, is on transformation and not on fossilised forms (Gregory et al, 2004;Prinsloo, 2004). Although studies focusing particularly on syncretism have been collected under the heading of 'syncretic literacy studies' (Gregory et al, 2004), many are concerned with pre-literate talk and behaviour, since the children are of pre-school age (Volk, 1997(Volk, , 1999Volk & de Acosta, 2001;Drury, 2004). These studies show how young children, often with older siblings, syncretise home and school languages, narrative styles and literacy practices through play activities.…”

Interconnecting worlds: teacher partnerships for bilingual learning

“…In particular, research related to home and community learning and mixed-age learning from around the world is cited (including Vygotsky 1978;Gregory 2001;Volk and De Acosta 2001;Rogoff 2003;Kenner 2005); studies of out-of-school learning are also referenced in this book, including Lee and Hawkins (2008) and Dash (2010). The study shows how, unlike in age-segregated mainstream school settings, children in complementary settings can learn and interact very effectively because they are in mixed-age groups, including not only students of various ages, but also parents and grandparents.…”