Professor & Chair, Teaching, Curriculum, & Society department
@bclynchschool
. I study literacy & instruction in multilingual school contexts. Views mine. he/él
I love bilingual education, bilingual teachers, and bilingual researchers. I want these voices and perspectives to be more strongly centered in national reading debates because students are increasingly multilingual and deserve this. Bilingualism is not an instructional add-on.
So I’ll probably get yelled at for this, but here is my visual attempt to articulate some sources of disconnect between multilingual literacy and the science of reading.
I think this famous rope model is the ultimate argument for balanced reading instruction. Instructionally, we balance decoding with language comprehension to account for the changing cognitive demands of each for students and the texts they encounter over developmental time.
Happy to announce that I'll be the new chair of the Teaching, Curriculum, and Society department at
@bclynchschool
starting this Fall. Looking forward to making meaningful changes that challenge some pervasive institutional inequities.
Wish me luck, I'll need it! 😅
¡Adelante!
As
#AERA23
approaches, please know that it’s okay if your talk, roundtable, or poster is not well attended. It’s okay if all the questions go to the other presenters in your symposium. So much of this is arbitrary. Trust your work, run your own race, and good luck to us all! 🙏🏼
Anyone who argues that decoding instruction must precede or supplant language instruction because comprehension can't proceed without decoding, is missing a lot of information about both the act and teaching of
#reading
. 1/4
I am hereby subtweeting a WHOLE BUNCH OF FOLKS on here by reminding you that "English learners" are not linguistically deficient just because they are learning English.
Probably the most ableist pandemic fatalism I've heard is, "We're all gonna end up getting it anyway..." used to justify unsafe covid practices. Some folks can't afford to get infected in the first damn place.
The bilingual educators I work with have begun referring to themselves and their students as “languagers”, which is officially my favorite nominalization of 2021. 👍🏼😊
It is becoming clear to me that we need a new National Reading Panel report for the 21st century that is more open-minded to methodologies, learners, and language.
Dear
@NYCSchools
,
Congrats on requiring systematic phonics instruction so children learn to decode text.
But in the name of all things holy, please also prioritize *language* so children can actually comprehend text.
Remember Reading First.
One of my biggest concerns about the "science of reading" as method and as pedagogy is that it is too perfect a fit with monolingual educational policy, but a constant source of misfit with bilingual educational policy.
Here is your regular reminder that the “big 5” (phonics, phonemic awareness, fluency, vocabulary, comprehension strategies) from the National Reading Panel were derived from a research corpus that excluded emergent bi and multilingual children.
I am pleased to share the
@bclynchschool
's statement on the act and the teaching of
#reading
. Colleagues
@wargojon
,
@marielapaezvega
, and others not on twitter contributed to this statement which articulates an interdisciplinary perspective on reading.
The National Literacy Panel Report on 2nd Lg Learners by Diane August and
@ReadingShanahan
is the most important report many reading experts have either never heard of or talk about.
A thread based on my own recollection and proximity to the report. Clarifications welcome. 1/7
It was an honor to speak at the
#mabe2023
pre-conference about the science of reading and multilingual learners. We explored Baldwin’s (1969) warning not to “take the will for the deed”, and how the will of SoR to incorporate multilingualism is not currently matched by its deeds.
I got my first teaching experience as a senior at
@ClarkUniversity
in Worcester MA in a bilingual 1st grade class. Today, 30 years later, I was back in that school working w/
@worcesterpublic
as they rethink and expand bilingual education for linguistic justice 💜
Probably the saddest thing to me about these reading debates is when folks say that cultivating a love for reading is elitist. I’m no Calkins defender, but I’m a fan of
@GholdyM
. The idea that joy can wait when it comes to reading instruction is troubling. It is not a 0-sum game!
Definitely looking forward to the work people will do to follow the money trail of publishers who claim their products follow the "science of reading".
I hope folks who attended and reveled in
#AERA2022
will take a moment to note that the ableism that made your attendance possible this year was the same ableism that kept many from enjoying that same privilege.
My twitter reactions to the NAEP data have been outrage and sarcasm. But the emotional base is sadness. These standardized narratives of failure and deficit on repeat are just beyond. The pandemic offered hope of a reset, but that did not happen. And that just makes me really sad
"[W]e’re taught...to learn a standardized language. And when you ask, Why is it this way? Why is this the standard?, you arrive at a very arbitrary answer, and an answer which actually excludes, often, people of color: Your English is wrong. This English is right"
-Ocean Vuong
Reminder that recognizing and incorporating
#multilingualism
in education shouldn’t be in the service of making more $ or having better executive functioning.
Multilingualism is a characteristic of the lived experiences of humans and is therefore valuable all by itself.
Spanish-English
#bilingual
educators: Decoding instruction in Spanish shouldn't mirror English. Spanish-speaking children don't always show strong phonemic awareness but are still good word readers. Beware of US curricula that don't distinguish. Es decir: Orthography matters!
A cautionary note for
#duallanguage
programs:
If your implementation of a “non-negotiable” strict language separation becomes a form of school and/or classroom language policing, your model is at odds with the authentic
#bilingualism
you are aiming to promote.
This year, we are starting a 3-year study of
#GRExit
in the Curriculum & Instruction doctoral program
@bclynchschool
. I didn't realize how great a feeling it would be to open up doctoral applications and see those GRE score boxes EMPTY. 🙌🏼👏🏼
Here is your reminder that brains do not learn how to read. Children learn how to read. Yes children have brains, but they also live lives. Those lived experiences also affect how reading develops.
#reading
#literacy
#scienceofreading
If you spent ~6 hours listening to
#soldastory
, please consider spending just 48 minutes more to take in this historical counter-narrative. Brilliant insights by
@sarahlouwou
,
@RacheGabriel
, and Rebecca Silverman. We’ve been here before
Translation software is a good thing in multilingual teaching and learning contexts. Students who use it are not just translating, they are translanguaging for learning. This is not a weakness, it is a multilingual strength!
In designing Fall syllabi, please consider…
Assigning massive amounts of weekly readings *always* privileges those who:
1. grew up speaking the language of the texts (likely English in the U.S.)
&
2. are able to read quickly and efficiently
In this sense, breadth =/= depth.
Here is your reminder that "language barriers" reside only within monolingual systems and ideologies. They do not reside within
#bilingual
and
#multilingual
students.
#GRExit
news...
The Curriculum & Instruction doctoral program
@bclynchschool
has suspended the GRE as an admissions requirement!
Over 3 years, we will explore effects of the policy on minoritized student representation alongside internal efforts to humanize doctoral education.
Science of reading advocates who want to quash *any* critique of that movement as inherently anti-child, anti-science, pro-word guessing, and pro-balanced literacy are starting to sound downright dictatorial. Such reductive and absolutist thinking imperils education.
Catherine Snow has always been a personal mentor and a source of critical insight into literacy. Definitely worth reading👇🏻
“the science of reading has become something more like a religious commitment than anything that you would call a science”
Readers of this
@nctq
report should know they did NOT evaluate reading “programs”. They evaluated program syllabi.
Good researchers know you don’t measure one thing, but call it something else. It’s like measuring vocabulary but calling it language.
My son is in a “Theories of Learning” class and has a 50-item, timed multiple choice test tomorrow on theories of learning and I just can’t quit thinking about the irony.
As
#literacy
educators, we should remember that typical
#bilingual
literacy development is often wrongfully considered a sign of monolingual
#reading
difficulties.
Dear state education officials,
High stakes, English-only assessments linked to accountability actions like school takeovers are one of the biggest threats to expanding
#bilingualed
.
They’re a set up to normalize failure among bilingual schools and students.
Anyone who tells you that a multilingual pedagogy means you need to implement “scaffolded” English-only instruction b/c English is the classroom lingua franca knows nothing about multilingual theory.
Congrats to the great Dr. Jasmine Alvarado (
@JasNathaly
) who just defended her dissertation "What Counts as Family Engagement in Schools? Raced, classed, and linguicized relations between families and a 2-way dual language bilingual program". So excited for all you'll do! 💜
Dear Principals and District Administrators,
Even if you don't have bilingual programs in your schools, it is very worthwhile to ask yourselves how you can work with teachers to *bilingualize* the programs and instruction that you do have for multilingual learners.
If you ignore language, or treat it as something that can take a back seat to decoding instruction, I promise that you won't move the needle on anything but measures of decoding.
I’ve spent the past year with colleagues improving our upper elem language-based literacy curriculum centering representative texts, linguistic repertoires and language instruction for multilingual learners. Fingers crossed to work with implementing teachers this fall. ¡Adelante!
fyi for folks waiting for the next episode of
#soldastory
, or who are thinking about listening to it…
This podcast is *story telling* not *journalism*. It is not consistently accurate, nor is it fair, impartial, or independent. It is a single story.
Worth keeping in mind.
The number one ingredient for successful university/district partnerships is for researchers to spend time in classrooms. And I don’t mean staged walkthroughs. Kids and teachers know that performative drill. I mean get there, stay there, interact, and learn.
Celebrating Dr. Marie Clay’s contribution to the field of education,
@PDavidPearson
reminds us that her work should be celebrated. Let’s reject the story they’re trying to sell.
#MarieClay
#ReadingRecovery
The Institute of Education Sciences awards two collaborative grants to support language and literacy development among bilingual and English learners. C. Patrick Proctor is co-principal investigator for both projects.
Read more: 🦅✨
#LSEHD
Science of Reading (aka structured literacy) propaganda from
@BostonGlobe
. This article is a love letter to Sold a Story and the scientifically flawed research of the NCTQ. It’s yet another text modeled on the SoR cultural revolution blueprint.
We only have terms like “English learner”, “long term English learner”, or this tontería “long term emergent multilingual” because multilingual students have to pass monolingual English tests.
We keep demanding to dismantle the terms when we should demand to dismantle the tests
Many long term emergent multilinguals (LTEMs) experience underlying gaps in language comprehension and application, especially with reading and writing.
If you have concerns about the science of reading, or perhaps more especially, if you DON’T have concerns, then read
@lipatel
’s essay “What I learned from debating the Science of Reading more than 20 years ago is still true”. This is brilliant. 💜🔥👊🏻
Hey educators...if you consider yourself a
#language
person, you are also a
#literacy
person, and vice versa. These should not be treated like separate domains of instruction.
In
#reading
research, cognitive science has been very helpful for providing the field with in-depth understandings of decoding processes. But when it comes to understanding the role of language in reading, cog sci isn’t going to get us where we need to be.
If twitter’s got you like, “Damn, I didn’t win an award, get a big grant, publish an influential paper, join an elite editorial team, or get into the best doctoral program,” don’t fret. You’re not alone and your time is coming. Action + non-attachment to outcomes is key.
So the hypothesis that The Idea of cueing for word reading is responsible for the national reading crisis vis-a-vis Clay-F&P-Calkins does not hold given these WWC-approved studies. To
@apmreports
, I can only ask, Why are these causal data not provided in
#soldastory
?
I've always known that Renata Love Jones (
@MsLove_Jones
) is a brilliant scholar, and now she's been named a 2021 Reading Hall of Fame Emerging Scholar. Renata's work in multilingual and multidialectical literacy is critically rooted in justice and joy. 🙌🏻
I spent my morning in a bilingual 4th grade classroom working with emergent bilingual students during writing block. One student kept asking me to remind her what my name was. She gave me this when I left.
Children are beautiful and loving and hold them as close as you can 💜
How kids learn to read words has SO MUCH to do with their linguistic knowledge. If you teach an emergent bilingual student straight English decoding, and they don't know the words they are decoding, then comprehension will still suffer even if decoding is 100% accurate.
In science, words are conceptual (e.g., condensation).
@MGonzalezHoward
and
@SciEdHenry
explain how the "ELL" carries negative conceptual meaning and argue for "a broader commitment to equity and justice
that is rooted in seeing, valuing, and building on" student multilingualism.
Your daily paradox.
The term "English learner" is a product of educators' and testers' imaginations, and does not accurately capture students' linguistic realities.
But when students get an
#ELL
label, it profoundly affects their linguistic realities.
#ellchat
#bilingual
Sheltered English Immersion (SEI) policies contend that one can only learn English by being submersed in English.
***This is total BS***
SEI teachers: One of the best ways to "shelter" your instruction is to incorporate the assets of your students' home languages & cultures.
I just finished 3 months of data collection evaluating the 1st year implementation of a reading program in 3 bilingual schools in a large New England city.
There is one emerging, and surprising, finding that addresses the “learning loss” narrative.
1/3
I had the honor of robing these two brilliant people on Sunday. Drs. Alvarado (
@jnat_alvarado
) and Montgomery (
@nicholldenice
) are amazing scholars and human beings. I loved being able to learn from and with them during their doctoral odysseys 💜🙏🏼🥹
Dear up and coming
#literacy
researchers,
You don’t have to run a “lab” to be a real researcher. You can run a chop shop, a barber shop, a salon (a la
@wargojon
), or whatever metaphor for collaborative creation inspires you. The goal is to explore literacy in all its forms.
I am dreaming of a reality where state educational policy is written to be flexible and responsive to the unique diversities of districts, schools, and classrooms.
In the reading debates, ideologies become vehicles of monetization. Folks love to dump on Calkins’ Units of Study and other empires… but watch how science of reading is the next to cash in.
#hypocrisy
Dear district administrators: Too many teachers of emergent bilinguals are being required to teach "grade level" curricula and administer related assessments. Results are used to denigrate the Ts & Ss, but they are not the problem!
The curricula and assessments are the problem.
Come join us a
@bclynchschool
! We are seeking an assistant professor of reading education to join our interdisciplinary faculty in the Teaching, Curriculum, and Society department.
If you are a bilingualist and have issues with the
#scienceofreading
and can't quite bring yourself to articulate them all in one cogent frame, don't worry! Just read this by
@snogueron
. She did it for you. Gracias 🙏🏼
@ILAToday
#LRA21
@LRA_LitResearch
Wednesday, 12/1, 1:15-2:45
Please join me and 3 amazing scholars - Renata Love Jones (
@MsLove_Jones
), Yalda Kaveh (
@YaldaKaveh
), and Marcela Ossa Parra - to explore critical, relational, & transdisciplinary dimensions of multilingual literacy research.
1/6
@apmreports
'
#soldastory
claims that cueing strategies for word reading have devastated national reading performance.
Marie Clay (Reading Recovery), Fountas & Pinnell (Leveled Literacy Intervention), and Lucy Calkins' curricula are blamed.
Have these claims been tested?
One of the biggest reasons why multilingual literacy research needs quantitative, qualitative, and mixed methods approaches, is because quant methods alone cannot account for current theories of bi and multilingualism.
Case studies are a major component of medical research b/c they provide explanatory data that explore phenomena in depth at the person level. Entire journals are devoted to them, but none exist for literacy.
A Journal of Literacy Cases would be a great contribution to the field.
We are finding that
#LANGUAGE
differentiates
#Reading
and
#writing
for
#middleschool
students. Orthography (word reading & spelling) has similar effects, but morphology & syntax affect reading more than writing. To write, you def have to read. But to read, do you have to write?
¡Ojo! Taking a multilingual perspective means recognizing that we are all multilingual AND working to disrupt the monolingual systems currently foisted on multilingual learners.
The Simple View of Reading (SVR) can be a useful empirical framework for understanding reading comprehension. But it is, ironically, oversimplified and misunderstood especially when it comes to media portrayals and reading policy. A short thread…
Not too long ago, the great Kathy Escamilla (
@escamill12
) reminded me that advocating for bilingualism and bilingual education requires that one develop a thick skin. Damn if that’s not the truth…
Or, for anyone reading this who is English literate but doesn't speak Spanish, I could easily teach you to decode in Spanish so you could read a Julio Cortázar short story and be understood by a Spanish speaker. But if you don't speak Spanish, you have no idea what you just read!
This is the only medical analogy about education that I agree with: The sicker you are, the more money pharmaceutical companies make. The lower the test scores, the more money the curriculum and test development companies make. No Child Left Behind put this philosophy on steroids
The influence and impact on people and fields of study cannot be overstated when it comes to Maria Brisk. My mentor since 1997, Maria teaches implicitly by example and explicitly by telling you what is the what. I am honored to have worked with this amazing scholar and person. ❤️
Current theory on language-based literacy instruction
If you focus on language via meaningful texts and multivariate language practices, students will be able to produce and/or perform on tasks of "academic language".
That's different than just saying "teach academic language"
Kathy Escamilla at
#NABE2021
: "The Science of Reading and Emerging Bilingual Learners: ¡Ojo!"
Today's
#reading
debates are essentially 20th century redux: "Will we once again sacrifice the learning of our emerging bilingual students to misguided monoglossic reading policies?"
Excited to have this paper out with the great
@jnat_alvarado
: “Bilingual teacher candidates as policy appropriators in a previously anti-bilingual state”. We explore discourses of remediation, commodification, and advocacy in the MA bilingual law & with bilingual student tchrs👇🏻
"We believe that legislating how reading must be taught based on narrowly bounded ideological positions, expressed polemically, and aimed at establishing an uncontested orthodoxy is inappropriate and counterproductive".
Agreed!