Content-based instruction that reflects students’ personal histories, communities, and cultures can improve their learning. In early literacy, most studies of elementary students in classrooms where educators used texts aligned with students’ cultural backgrounds reported academic success outcomes in reading, such as vocabulary, comprehension, and word recognition. However, some educators are unable to discuss topics related to students’ racial and ethnic, language, and immigrant backgrounds due to emerging curricular restrictions, while others are reluctant to discuss these topics in the classroom due to personal beliefs about the role of educators or time and resource limitations. These concerns limit educators’ use of multicultural texts—i.e., texts that feature characters with a wide variety of racial and ethnic, cultural, and social experiences. Additionally, educators may hesitate to use texts that depict differences in opportunity, social acceptance, and mistreatment experienced across the groups that the characters represent.
Several strategies can help address challenges in implementing content-based instruction in literacy that reflects students’ cultural backgrounds. First, drawing on multicultural texts already included in the curriculum can create opportunities to highlight connections between the text and students’ cultural background, easing time and resource constraints. Second, using instructional practices that encourage critical evaluation of texts can provide clear guidance for facilitating read-aloud discussions about the experiences of characters featured in multicultural texts, reducing hesitation around these discussions.
Professional learning communities (PLCs) are a practical way to involve educators in ongoing conversations about applying new instructional practices—like critical reading and critical literacy instruction (see the text box above for a description of these instructional practices). A PLC is a group of educators who work collaboratively to improve their teaching in the service of improving student learning. Effective PLCs can produce changes in student outcomes and generate a broad range of changes in educators’ attitudes and beliefs, content knowledge, and teaching. By implementing strategies to teach with multicultural texts in a cooperative environment alongside their colleagues using the same curriculum, educators can promote literacy instruction that reflects students’ cultural backgrounds and strengthens their capacity to analyze texts.
This brief presents findings and lessons learned from a pilot study of a PLC designed to support early literacy educators’ use of multicultural texts, including (but not limited to) those from a district English language arts curriculum, to advance critical reading and critical literacy instruction. The authors use the phrase “early literacy educators” to denote those educators who were part of the pilot PLC. In other instances, the word “educators” refers to any professional person who provides instruction to students. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with early literacy educators before and after the PLC, we present three key findings on early literacy educators’ teaching beliefs, literacy instruction, and overall PLC experience. We offer recommendations for educators to consider as they build their capacity to implement instructional strategies focused on developing their students’ critical reading and critical literacy skills.
Suggested citation
Rochester, S. E., Rodriguez, Y., Martinez, D. N., & Aquino, A. K. (2025). Lessons from a professional learning community on critical reading and critical literacy with multicultural texts. Child Trends. DOI: 10.56417/2791h1358z