Exploring Critical Literacy for Elementary Students with Disabilities

ABSTRACT

The field of special education lacks an understanding of how students with learning and other disabilities engage with the ideological and contestable nature of the texts they read. Using qualitative methods, I explored a critical literacy model designed with techniques known to benefit students with disabilities. Over the course of three months, I individually worked with three elementary students of color with disabilities, using mnemonics and other explicit strategies to read texts relevant to their lived experiences. Findings reveal students’ nuanced responses that signify the necessity of truth, vulnerability, and self-worth when understanding advantage. Their insights challenged the notion that a single correct understanding of power relations exists, as each student highlighted power’s interpersonal nature, resisting my structural interpretations. Despite the model’s intent toward multiple perspectives of text, the discussion remained teacher directed. This study opens possibilities for future research exploring critical literacy and disability.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Center for Faculty Development at CU Denver [n/a].

Notes on contributors

Amy L. Ferrell

Amy L. Ferrell is an associate professor of special education at the University of Colorado Denver. Her scholarship situates disability research in social, cultural, historical, racial, linguistic, and political contexts. She advocates for critical literacy in the field of special education and imagines education as a site of community: balanced reciprocity toward justice as oneness, the antithesis to oppression.