“The dinosaurs are so loud; they can’t sleep. Zzzz”: Supporting emergent bilingual children’s reading comprehension through digital literacies

Abstract

As classrooms worldwide become diverse, the ways teachers engage children in literacy learning must be inclusive to accommodate the multitude of languages spoken. Multimodal literacy practices using digital tools provide innovative opportunities for emergent bilinguals to express their meaning-making processes. This paper details a year-long investigation into the multimodal literacy practices of eight young children who spoke different languages within an English-only classroom setting. The children showcased their reading comprehension through digital ensembles produced in responses to picturebooks. Transcribed small group interactions were analyzed to capture how one mode influenced another, and content analysis was applied to the student work samples. The findings reveal specific ways the emergent bilinguals transformed available resources to make sense of texts.