Teaching Reading Equitably to Striving Readers Using an Identity‐Based Approach

ABSTRACT

Learning to read is one of the most powerful and critically important aspects of education. Despite this, educators are yet to reach a consensus on how to effectively teach children to read. This paper begins by providing a critical lens on how children in high poverty settings in Ireland experience literacy instruction and their associated outcomes in terms of literacy mastery. This paper argues for the need to develop a model of teaching reading that considers equality and identity as key components of literacy instruction. An approach to the teaching of reading equitably through engaging in a stimulating and identity‐based approach to literacy instruction in a high poverty school setting in Ireland is then presented. The first author of this paper demonstrates how she worked with four pupils over the course of one academic year, interweaving their identities into literacy instruction and capitalizing on her knowledge of foundational skills while keeping motivation and engagement levels high. This paper is not intended to provide an exact blueprint for educators to replicate; rather, it tells the story of one teacher's attempt to incorporate identity‐based work with the teaching of foundational literacy skills. How this looks across a vast array of differing contexts will be unique and thus the translation of this paper into practice is largely context dependent for educators.