Rooted in Strength: Using Translanguaging to Grow Multilingual Readers and Writers, a new Scholastic Professional title from educators Cecilia M. Espinosa and Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, is available now!
Drawing on their expertise in bilingual literacy development across a range of ages, Espinosa and Ascenzi-Moreno offer an equitable vision for K–8 teachers in supporting emergent bilinguals— students who use two or more languages in their daily lives—in becoming readers and writers. At the heart of their framework is embracing translanguaging, a creative and critical process in which multilingual people use their language and other resources in dynamic, flexible, multimodal, and purposeful ways.
“When we view literacy from a translanguaging lens, we acknowledge that bilingual or multilingual people creatively draw from their language and social resources to make meaning, regardless of the language they use.” – Cecilia M. Espinosa and Laura Ascenzi-Moreno
Rooted in Strength is for all teachers and classroom communities looking for thoughtful and practical ways to fully engage bilingual students in literacy by using their entire linguistic and sociocultural repertoires. Espinosa and Ascenzi-Moreno introduce readers to the connections between literacy and translanguaging, provide an overview of reading research for emergent bilinguals, present ways to use formative reading assessments to understand how to support students as readers, and provide tools for transforming reading and writing workshops, rooting instruction in students’ strengths.
Throughout the book, they also include actions teachers can take to reach emergent bilinguals more powerfully, along with reflection points and suggestions for professional development to inspire the confidence needed to support bilingual and multilingual students.
Cecilia M. Espinosa is an associate professor in the Department of Early Childhood and Childhood Education at Lehman College’s CUNY School of Education in the Bronx, New York. Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, Ph.D., is an associate professor in the Childhood, Bilingual, and Special Education Department at Brooklyn College’s School of Education in Brooklyn, New York.
Don’t miss a recent article by the authors on translanguaging as a transformative force in literacy in the March 2021 issue of Language Magazine, here.
To learn more about Rooted in Strength and keep up with news from Cecilia Espinosa and Laura Ascenzi-Moreno, follow @MCEspinosaCh, @AscenziMoreno and #RootedinStrengthBook on Twitter.
