Relationships between Reading Identities and Dialogue: Perspectives from Fifth-grade Multilingual Learners

Abstract

Drawing upon a theoretical framework that acknowledges the bidirectional relationship between local discursive acts and institutional structures, this paper analyzes classroom observations with student interviews to understand how fifth-grade multilingual learners are making sense of dialogic literacy instruction to support their reading development. Findings reveal a relationship between how a learner’s identity with reading informs how they understand the utility of classroom dialogue to support reading development, and subsequently the degree to which they exert agency to engage in classroom literacy practices.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1 I use the term talk or dialogue as classroom discourse to support text comprehension.

2 I use the term multilingual learners to recognize all students learning an additional language of English in U.S. schools are negotiating multilingual worlds regardless of the language of instruction.

3 English as a New Language (ENL) is a classification to identify students who speak a home language other than English and have not reached a level of proficiency on standardized assessments.

4 Fountas & Pinnell Literacy™ Program was used to assess reading. T, U, V identifies a fifth grade reading level.

5 Numbers indicate the discursive turns in the transcription.

6 Level Z is the highest reading level of the Fountas & Pinnell LiteracyTM Program.