Building on Linguistic Strengths: Tenets of a Culturally Sustaining Teacher

Abstract

AbstractChanges in the U.S. demographics over the past few decades reflect the growing diversity in American classrooms as more students come to school speaking, reading, or writing two or more languages. By building on students’ full repertoire of linguistic and cultural resources, educators have the potential to transform literacy instruction in multilingual classrooms. This article showcases four tenets of culturally sustaining teaching and details how preservice teachers in a reading practicum enacted these four tenets by recognizing and building on bi/multilingual students’ linguistic and cultural strengths. The article concludes with a discussion of how these enactments suggest new possibilities for literacy educators in similar contexts.