Practicing What We Teach: How Culturally Responsive Literacy Classrooms Make a Difference

This accessible book features K–12 teachers and teacher educators who report their experiences of culturally responsive literacy teaching in primarily high-poverty, culturally nondominant communities. These extraordinary teachers show us what culturally responsive literacy teaching looks like in their classrooms and how it advances children’s academic achievement. This collection captures different dimensions of culturally responsive (CR) practice, such as linking home and school, using culturally responsive literature, establishing relationships with children and parents, using cultural connections, and teaching English language learners and children who speak African American language. This engaging collection:

• Provides a window into what teachers actually do and think when they serve culturally diverse children, including classroom-tested teaching practices.
• Depicts teachers enacting CR teaching in the presence of scripted curricula and rigid testing schedules.
• Covers childhood, secondary, and higher education classrooms.
• Helps readers imagine how they can transform their own classrooms through “Make This Happen in Your Classroom” sections at the end of each chapter.
• Includes a “Becoming a Culturally Responsive Teacher” self-evaluation form.

Patricia Ruggiano Schmidt is a professor of literacy education at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, New York, and recipient of the International Reading Association’s Elva Knight Research Award. She consults internationally on culturally responsive literacy teaching. Althier M. Lazar is a professor in the teacher education department at Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia.