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This study, framed by dignity-focused language policy and intersectional anti-adultism, investigates how 74 adults misclassified as English learners (ELs) during U.S. K-12 education conceptualize essential knowledge for educating bilingual students. Through semi-structured interviews, participants stressed two key areas for schools that serve bilingual students: recognizing students’ nuanced linguistic histories and acknowledging students as education partners. The findings emphasize centering impacted individuals’ perspectives, advocating for eliminating racial bias in EL policy implementation, and addressing institutionalized adultism in EL policy. Implications include the need for professional learning, policy, and practices prioritizing EL youths’ perspectives.

A portion of EL-identified youth want to exit the EL instructional services to which they are legally entitled. Moreover, institutionalized adultism within EL policy does not provide youths a role in decision-making about these services. As a result, little is known about how individuals who attempt unsanctioned exits conceptualize EL instructional services. This study uses an intersectional anti-adultism conceptual lens to analyze the retrospective interviews of 35 women of color who attempted to exit EL instructional services during their K–12 schooling. The findings highlight three dominant themes in participants’ conceptualizations of EL instructional services: they were academically limiting, socially isolating, and that placement in these services was a product of racism. Moreover, this detailed analysis evidenced how schooling transitions impacted participants’ conceptualization of EL instructional services. These findings have implications for how research, policy, and practice can center EL-identified youths’ decision-making and disrupt their experiences of marginalization.

The authors featured in this department column share instructional practices that support transformative literacy teaching and disrupt “struggling reader” and “struggling writer” labels.

The authors featured in this department column share instructional practices that support transformative literacy teaching and disrupt “struggling reader” and “struggling writer” labels.

Purpose This paper aims to investigate teacher-initiated whole-group oral reading practices in two ninth-grade reading intervention classrooms and how teachers understood the purposes of those practices. Design/methodology/approach In this qualitative cross-case analysis, a literacy-as-social-practice perspective is used to collaboratively analyze ethnographic data (fieldnotes, audio recordings, interviews, artifacts) across two classrooms. Findings Oral reading was a routine instructional reading event in both classrooms. However, the literacy practices that characterized oral reading and teachers’ purposes for using oral reading varied depending on teachers’ pedagogical philosophies, instructional goals and contextual constraints. During oral reading, students’ opportunities to engage in independent meaning making with texts were either absent or secondary to other purposes or goals. Practical implications Findings emphasize the significance of understanding both how and why oral reading happens in secondary classrooms. Specifically, they point to the importance of collaborating with teachers to (a) examine their own ideas about the power of oral reading and the institutional factors that shape their existing oral reading practices; (b) investigate the intended and actual outcomes of oral reading for their students and (c) develop other instructional approaches to support students to individually and collaboratively make meaning from texts. Originality/value This study falls at the intersection of three under-researched areas of study: the nature of everyday instruction in secondary literacy intervention settings, the persistence of oral reading in secondary school and teachers’ purposes for using oral reading in their instruction. Consequently, it contributes new knowledge that can support educators in creating more equitable instructional environments.

Educators are expected to take into account students’ linguistic experiences when designing literacy instruction. However, official school records traditionally provide limited information about students’ linguistic histories. This article presents educators with a linguistic survey that can help bridge this gap. The survey is an easy‐to‐use classroom resource through which educators can gather information about their students’ linguistic experiences. Notably, it is based on ideas about and research on bilingualism that are not traditionally discussed in mainstream literacy education. To illustrate the survey's potential for instruction, the article includes a case study of a 10th‐grade student and discusses the implications of the type of information garnered by the survey for literacy pedagogy. As a whole, this article supports educators in making more linguistically informed decisions about literacy instruction.

This article presents a multifaceted representation of the in-school reading experiences and ideas about academic reading shared by five adolescent Latina long-term English learners (LTELs). It uses data collected during ethnographic observations of the five focal students' biology and English language arts classrooms and in-depth qualitative interviews with these students and selected teachers to contextualize their standardized reading test scores. The findings of this yearlong multiple case study illustrate that the focal students' everyday experience of in-school reading focused on constructing meaning with texts orally in a group. During these classroom reading activities, the teacher played a primary role in facilitating comprehension. On the other hand, the standardized tests that were used to determine their English proficiency required reading to be a silent and independent activity. Moreover, the ideas about academic reading that these students shared reflected their daily experiences with oral reading. By calling attention to the distinction between academic reading on tests and in the classroom, this research documents that what constitutes academic reading is not static across all contexts. These findings contribute to existing work that moves away from seeing academic literacy as a set of decontextualized language skills; this research highlights the socially situated nature of reading. Additionally, these findings problematize the exclusive attribution, without further investigation, of standardized reading test scores to LTELs' English proficiency. This work speaks to the importance of a more holistic understanding of the literacy development of students who are considered to be LTELs.

The authors featured in this department column share instructional practices that support transformative literacy teaching and disrupt “struggling reader” and “struggling writer” labels.

In this contribution, a literacy teacher educator describes how she used responses to an assignment about race and literacy test scores to redesign course curriculum.