Patrick C. Manyak

Fostering biliteracy in a monolingual milieu: Reflections on two counter-hegemonic English immersion classes

This article presents data from two yearlong ethnographic studies of the biliteracy instruction and development of young Latina/o children in two counter-hegemonic English immersion classes in the English-only milieu established by California’s Proposition 227. The author first describes the struggle that the teachers engaged in as they sought to resist the proposition’s monolingual mandate by affirming and extending their students’ developing bilingualism and biliteracy. Next, utilizing trenchant examples of the instruction, practices, and products of biliteracy in the classrooms, the article creates an impressionistic portrait of the strategies, possibilities, and limitations of pursuing biliteracy in this monolingual milieu. The author concludes by offering several theoretical and practical reflections on young children’s biliteracy development in less-than-ideal political and programmatic settings.

Literacy Instruction, Disciplinary Practice, and Diverse Learners: a Case Study

This article presents a close analysis of a reading group in a first-grade class of Spanish-dominant Latina/o children established through the English-only mandate of California’s Proposition 227. First, I discuss how the practice of the reading group was shaped by the intersection of socio-political and institutional discourses and practices. Next, I present findings that demonstrate that the reading group functioned in problematic ways to construct the children as individuals who were responsible for their own cognitive-academic performances; to evaluate and rank the children by these performances; and to reconstruct their bodily and linguistic habitus in the image of a disciplined literate subject.

Character Trait Vocabulary: A Schoolwide Approach

Research has documented the large differences in young childrens vocabulary knowledge. In light of the strong relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension, this gap is particularly worrisome and points to the critical need for well-articulated vocabulary instruction across the grades. The author describes character trait vocabulary, in which the teacher asks students to describe the traits of characters in their reading. The children share their thinking and the teacher lists the terms offered for each character and prompts the children to explain their responses. After the children have analyzed the characters, the teacher displays a grid with a set of new terms chosen specifically for the characters under discussion. In a schoolwide approach to the practice, the teacher consciously tries to incorporate terms from the provided grade-level list. The teacher introduces a word at a time, providing a brief child-friendly definition and example, and asks the students to consider whether the term would apply to each of the characters.

Phonemes in Use: Multiple Activities for a Critical Process

Several decades of research have established the critical role of phonemic awareness in the development of beginning reading. In particular, phonemic awareness makes early phonics instruction useful for children and facilitates their ability to blend letter sounds while decoding words, to learn sight words reliably, and to spell phonetically. A key finding in phonemic awareness research is that instruction involving segmenting and blending phonemes combined with a focus on the letters that represent those phonemes contributes greatly to success in beginning reading and spelling. The author found that students benefit greatly from a variety of activities combining phoneme segmenting and blending with letter—sound instruction. This variety allows children to develop a robust ability to apply phonemic awareness to tasks of reading and writing and supports students who may struggle with this critical process. In this article, the author describes five “phonemes-in-use” activities and practical ideas for implementing them in the classroom.

Vocabulary Instruction for English Learners: Lessons From MCVIP

In this column, the author describes a current research project on vocabulary instruction in settings with high percentages of English learners (EL). The project focuses on designing and implementing a multifaceted, comprehensive vocabulary instructional program (MCVIP) in mixed EL and native English speaker (NES) classrooms in relatively high-poverty schools. The author presents the instructional components of MCVIP, discusses early findings from the project, and encourages teachers and schools to reflect on how the MCVIP approach might inform their own instruction.

Explicit Code and Comprehension Instruction for English Learners.

Explicit code and comprehension instruction is important for English learners (ELs), and several key findings from research on young ELs learning to read initially in English can offer guidelines for developing effective code-based instruction for these children. The authors of this column address comprehension instruction for ELs, suggesting several principles to guide such instruction. They conclude by reminding readers that explicit code and comprehension instruction represents only one element of a multifaceted framework for robust literacy instruction for ELs.

ESL Learners in the Early School Years

In this chapter, Toohey, Day, and Manyak discuss theoretical perspectives and empirical research that advance our understanding of the complex social processes involved in young children’s acquisition of ESL. In the first two sections, they examine post-structuralist and sociocultural theories of identity and of mediated practice, highlighting constructs that provide insight into children’s second language learning. In the last two sections, they review recent studies of young children’s ESL learning that have applied these theoretical perspectives. The studies reveal how learners’ identities, classroom practices, and learning resources interweave to inhibit or promote children’s acquisition of English.