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The article argues that U.S. literacy education often limits success to dominant-culture English norms, while a culturally sensitive model values first-language development, alternative expression, and socially mediated meaning-making.",{"@graph":14,"@context":73},[15,34,56],{"@type":16,"itemListElement":17},"BreadcrumbList",[18,23,27,31],{"item":19,"name":20,"@type":21,"position":22},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",1,{"item":24,"name":25,"@type":21,"position":26},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":28,"name":29,"@type":21,"position":30},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/","Research & 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program support multilingual and multimodal literacy practices?","Question",{"text":63,"@type":64},"The program uses activities that engage youth in multiple modes of communication—such as Khmer language practice, music and dance, games, and creative design—so literacy develops through varied sign systems tied to culture and identity.","Answer",{"name":66,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":67},"Why does the article critique dominant models of literacy education in U.S. schools?",{"text":68,"@type":64},"It argues that current trends often assess learning mainly through acquisition of English literacy and comprehension grounded in the dominant culture, without recognizing the social and cultural basis of students’ language practices.",{"name":70,"@type":61,"acceptedAnswer":71},"What does the article mean by a culturally sensitive model of literacy?",{"text":72,"@type":64},"It is a model that acknowledges and values multilingual literacies and alternative modes of expression, supports 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 \nby Theresa McGinnis  \nOn a Saturday morning in the stark, dingy basement of an old middle school in Philadelphia, children of migratory agricultural workers are enthusiastically engaged in a wide array of activities. In the main room, Cambodian music blasts from a videotape students are watching of a professional Cambodian dance group performing the traditional Coconut Dance. On the floor in the same room, smaller children play with board games and puzzles. Behind a movable partition, children are repeating in unison the sounds of the language of Cambodia, Khmer, led by the Khmer language teacher. Down the hall, middle school boys sit at a long table sketching recreations and modifications of their favorite video game and comic book characters. Girls gather at another table to make floral designs of tissue paper.  \nThe activities in which the Cambodian youth are engaged on this cold winter Saturday exemplify how afterschool programs, such as this migrant education program, can support youths’ multilingual and multimodal literacy practices. These activities not only reflect diverse sign systems and modes of communication but also display the impor-  \nThank-you note in Khmer and English (see page 13)  \ntant connections among literacy, language, culture, and identity. This article will explore these complexities in the context of the program’s multilingual and multimodal literacy practices.  \nThe Need for a Culturally Sensitive Model of Literacy  \nThe increase of culturally and linguistically diverse students in U. S. public schools calls for a model of literacy education in which the literacy and cultural practices of students are acknowledged and valued (Delpit, 1995; Edelsky, 1996; Street, 1995; Taylor, 1993; Weinstein-Shr, 1995) . Current trends in education, including the mandates connected to the No Child Left Behind Act, do not support a culturally sensitive model of literacy. Instead, in many schools, literacy education emphasizes “monolingual,  \nTHERESA MCGINNIS, Ed. D., is an assistant professor in the Literacy Studies Department at Hofstra University, Long Island, New York. She has worked with urban youth for over 12 years as a public schoolteacher, an afterschool tutor, and a professor. Her research interests focus on the connections among literacy, discourses, and identity, particularly in young adolescents.  \n10 Afterschool Matters Spring 2005  \nmonocultural, and rule-governed forms of language”(New London Group, 2000) . Success and failure in learning are often assessed in relation to students’ acquisition of English literacy and their ability to comprehend meanings that are based in the dominant culture—with no acknowledgement of the social and cultural basis of those ideas. In this context, the value of an out-of-school program like the migrant education program described here is its culturally sensitive model of literacy. Such a model recognizes that the many ways in which youth use reading, writing, and language are located within social and cultural processes (Martin-Jones, 2000) .  \nA culturally sensitive model of literacy acknowledgesand values multilingual literacies and alternative models of literacy. It recognizes the importance of developing a child’s first language and supports alternative modes of expression, since language is only one of many avenues by which messages are conveyed. Indeed, Kress (1997) believes that all acts of meaning making are multimodal; he says,“A sign is a combination of meaning and form”(p. 6) . Youth have several layered identities that they express in different forms in different contexts. A culturally sensitive model of literacy allows for the human ability to frame images, express ideas, and make meaning through a variety of sign systems and modalities (Bakhtin, 1981; Kress, 1997) .  \nDrawing on the work of Street (1995), Kress (1997), and Martin-Jones (2000), I approach liter","cbCaiq3qu8uHIIie","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaiq3qu8uHIIie","pdf",304924,"English","# The Need for a Culturally Sensitive Model of Literacy\n## Multilingual and multimodal literacy as cultural practice\n## Sociocultural foundations for meaning-making\n# The Migrant Education Program","[{\"question\":\"How does the migrant education program support multilingual and multimodal literacy practices?\",\"answer\":\"The program uses activities that engage youth in multiple modes of communication—such as Khmer language practice, music and dance, games, and creative design—so literacy develops through varied sign systems tied to culture and identity.\"},{\"question\":\"Why does the article critique dominant models of literacy education in U.S. schools?\",\"answer\":\"It argues that current trends often assess learning mainly through acquisition of English literacy and comprehension grounded in the dominant culture, without recognizing the social and cultural basis of students’ language practices.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the article mean by a culturally sensitive model of literacy?\",\"answer\":\"It is a model that acknowledges and values multilingual literacies and alternative modes of expression, supports development of a child’s first language, and treats meaning-making as socially mediated rather than limited to written texts.\"}]","Culturally Sensitive Literacy Pedagogy in a Migrant Education Program | PDF",1792069747,18]