OPENING ELEMENTARY CURRICULUM THROUGH PERMEABLE READ-ALOUDS

Abstract

This research explored the ways that professional development can be designed to increase elementary school teachers’ understandings of their students’ literacies and lived experiences, opening spaces where they can enact read-alouds that are permeable to students’ life-worlds and literacies. Informed by a sociocultural perspective on literacy (Street, 1984; Gee, 1996; Heath, 1983), this research explored the following three questions: Q1: In what ways can teachers use read-alouds to open their curriculum and connect to children’s lived experiences? Q2: What elements of read-alouds show promise for engaging students in literacies that are grounded in their life-worlds and experiences? Q3: How can professional learning be designed to help teachers to know and understand their students’ lives and literacies, informing read-aloud practices? Data, consisting primarily of interviews and conversations with first-grade teachers, classroom observations, and field notes were collected in one Midwestern public school district. This qualitative study led to deeper understandings of the ways that teachers can learn to open the space of their read-alouds to make room for the students’ life-worlds. Findings reveal that professional learning can empower teachers to shift their read-aloud practices from teaching to the curriculum to teaching to open the curriculum.