This practical book will help literacy teachers operationalize research on culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) to reach all students. The authors guide pre- and in-service educators in creating classroom environments and learning experiences that foster students' literacy and language development, engagement with school, and critical consciousness. Chapter authors explore questions about how CSP is enacted in classrooms and how it impacts students, especially in schools that are heavily influenced by standardized testing and curricula. Readers will find concrete examples of how CSP is being used to shape students' identities and their literacy abilities. The text is organized in three sections: Part I offers models in elementary classrooms; Part II presents models in classrooms for adolescents and youth; and Part III illustrates considerations for implementing CSP across K-12 contexts. Book Features: Focuses on enacting literacy practices that will make teaching and learning more equitable for all students. Provides authentic examples of culturally sustaining literacy pedagogy across multiple grade levels. Includes photographs, trade books, and lesson examples that reflect culturally relevant and sustaining teaching in actual classrooms.

Tens of thousands of students begin each new school year with the hope that they will finally find the teacher who will help them succeed as readers, writers, and learners. This book shows how teachers can provide the type of differentiated instruction that struggling readers need by drawing on students' individual and cultural backgrounds, as well as the results of classroom-based diagnostic and progress-monitoring assessment measures. The authors include authentic examples and case studies from diverse primary and intermediate/middle school classrooms to show how instruction can be implemented and adjusted to accommodate students' individual differences--differences that are influenced by their schools and instructional backgrounds, their cultural and linguistic histories, their interests and activities, their reading and writing habits in and out of school, and their understandings and misunderstandings about texts, print, and digital media. Classroom teachers, reading specialists, reading coaches, and prospective teachers are invited to analyse and reflect about each case presented to help them provide the type of instruction that will change the trajectory for students who continue to fail in reading.