Abstract
“Children come full, they come as full humans, full people, full. They come full with many different experiences … and [we] get to be present in this kind of beautiful, uninhibited way of understanding that feels so, that is so brilliant. Our world does a good job of trying to erase some of that, who they are, of not being allowed to claim it, so it’s our job not to let that happen.” (Dohrn-Melendez Morgan, 2022)
Culturally sustaining language and literacy practices for PreK-3 classrooms: The children come full offers a much-needed contribution to the field of early childhood education. Written with preservice early childhood educators in mind, the book is a powerful companion for those looking for ways to honor and sustain their students’ cultural ways of being while helping them to achieve complex understandings of language and literacy. Situated in humanizing and liberatory theories, the authors challenge so-called solutions to low levels of literacy that too often characterize students of Color and their communities as deficient. Instead, Nash and colleagues ask what is already working in diverse urban classrooms and build on the experiences of successful classroom teachers to present a model of culturally sustaining early literacy teaching.
After the introductory chapter, chapter 2 invites educators to consider how they can establish classroom communities that create and sustain a sense of agency and belongingness for students. Chapter 3 illustrates culturally sustaining practices that ensure children feel seen, heard, and known in the classroom. In chapters 4 and 5 the authors provide a model for culturally sustaining reading, oral language, and vocabulary practices that are dynamic and extend beyond linear, formulaic reading and language pedagogies. Chapter 6 looks at how teachers can implement writing practices that allow children to use writing to reflect and affect their lives. Chapter 7 tackles the question of how educators can use early literacy assessments to cultivate children’s joy and genius. Throughout the book are detailed and rich examples from the authors’ classrooms that allow the reader to “see” real educators engaged in the work of culturally sustaining early literacy teaching.
While the market is littered with books that address the need for effective literacy instruction, Nash and colleagues unapologetically ground their model in Pro-Black humanizing liberatory pedagogy. The authors do more than pay lip service to these guiding theories by providing example after example of classroom practices and student work that demonstrate rigorous and relevant instruction that elevates students’ lives. Readers come away with the understanding that children’s lives outside the classroom are not just a means to an end in achieving literacy proficiency, but central to the literacy project itself. To that end, the book aids early childhood teachers, teacher educators, and administrators in understanding the need for dismantling anti-Black practices and developing strategies and practices to do so.
At a time when the education community is under assault from anti-Black policies and educators are facing unrelenting pressure to address student “learning loss” this book reminds us to pause, breathe, and acknowledge “the truth already there--the already-existing genius within Communities of Color” (Nash et al., p. 272).