The Reading Identities of Prekindergarten Dual Language Learners

Abstract

How children understand reading and who they are as readers comprises children’s reading identities. Reading identities can have very real effects on the reading outcomes of children, and may support the development of foundational reading skills and the process of learning to read (McCarthey & Moje, 2002). Despite the potential importance of reading identities to early reading, research on young dual language learners (DLLs) comprises only a small portion of the overall research on reading identities (Castro, 2014; Moje & Luke, 2009). This study explored the potential interplay between early reading, reading identities, and bilingualism to describe and understand how DLLs in prekindergarten classrooms understood reading and who they were as readers. Ten DLLs ages 4-5 participated in this study. Participants came from two prekindergarten classrooms in a public elementary school. The study design foregrounded child-centered methods that accessed children’s ways of constructing meaning through talk, activity, art, and play. Data collection processes included reading and drawing-based interviews with children, observations of children, interviews with teachers, a questionnaire for parents, and classroom observations. Findings from the study show how young children are actively constructing ideas about reading, language, and who they are as readers as they learn to read. Case portraits show the various ways that reading identities were constructed, taken-up, and expressed by the participants. These portraits show how reading identities emerge early, vary across children, are connected to context, and have varying connections to children’s bilingualism. A cross-case analysis identified four dimensions of reading identities: concept of reading, performance, self-awareness, and context. These dimensions are integrated into an emergent conceptual model of reading identities. Together, the data suggest that social, cognitive, and linguistic factors play a combined role in the early emergence of reading identities in young DLLs. The study points to the potential of new theory and child-centered research methods for considering the interrelationship between early literacy, bilingualism, and identity in young children.