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My takeaways from the article "Honoring and Building on the Rich Literacy Practice of Young Bilingual and Multilingual Learners" by Mariana Souto-Manning  (2016)

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My takeaways from the article "Honoring and Building on the Rich Literacy Practice of Young Bilingual and Multilingual Learners" by Mariana Souto-Manning  (2016)

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What did I find meaningful?
I found the strategies on incorporating and empowering bilingual/multilingual students to be very helpful.  I could relate to two of these, but need to work on the other two strategies of having artifacts/ books to represent various languages and helping children to see the value of what they can bring into my classroom.

Does the article represent the subject accurately in the best of your opinion?
In my opinion, this article absolutely stresses the benefits and importance of letting children be who they are as well as the fact that teachers need to embrace their children to help them learn to the best of their ability. I loved the equality and equity information and find this to be important for each teacher, student, parent, administrator, etc. to consider.  You cannot give two completely different children equal conditions when they do not come into your classroom with equal conditions.  We need to find what works for each individual and provide opportunities to make them successful when they leave our classrooms.

What is frustrating or hopeful in the article?
I found the most frustrating part of the article to be all the labels that we place upon students as they enter school.  These labels, such as ESL, make the children feel "different" or that they have a disability of some sort that they need to fix. I am not a favor of labels and would never use them with my students.  This labeling system "limits" these children instead of using the abilities they have to be more successful. The most hopeful part of this article to me would be the strategies that can be used and the fact that I could relate to each of these as being already used in my classroom today. I still need to work on a couple of them, but it made me hopeful to see that I am trying to provide equity for my students and helping them to learn that being who they are is the best they can be.

How does the information in the article relate to your experience or the experience of those you know?
In my experience, I have learned that the personal connections you make with your students are the most important ones. When children come to you that are bilingual or multilingual, you will make more strides when you get to know them, then if you label and "limit" them. All students should have expectations that are attainable. It is solely up to the teacher to learn what these expectations should be based upon who each student is as an individual, not as a "culture of power."  We need to put aside this "power" or embrace it to make a difference in the lives of our students.

What is your take-away or take-aways from the article?
I place my take-aways throughout my Padlet.

Souto-Manning, M. (2016). Honoring and Building on the Rich Literacy Practices of Young Bilingual and Multilingual Learners. The Reading Teacher, 70(3), 263-271.

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* Teaching from children's names:
- As a teacher, I always stress the importance of finding out names and pronunciations. You need      to start to make a connection with each child and their name is the first start.  If I have two
students with the same first name, I make sure to use their last name when addressing them in
the classroom.  I think it is important for them to know that I am interested in knowing who they
and it all starts with a name.
* Learning children's histories:
- I have a program in my classroom called Star Student.  I center this around their birthday or
their half-birthday.  I make this week all about them and invite their families in to share about
who they are.  I encourage the other students at this time to ask questions about the Star
Student in order to learn who they are as well as where they come from. This helps me and their
fellow classmates to find out who they are along with what their experiences have been.
*  Valuing artifactual literacies:
- My personal library contains books with multilingual representations of children and families.
We try to read these each week and relate them to what we are learning in order to see that each     family has a different way of approaching what life brings to them.  This is important to help
others learn that we all learn in different ways and that not one way is the "culture of power" or
the "best" way to learn. I would love to have more of these opportunities and examples in my
classroom.
* Valuing family funds of knowledge:
- I stress the importance to my students that each child has gifts that are important and
valuable in our classroom environment.  There is not one that is more important or valuable
than  the next.  It is important to make these connections with the students to help them know
we are all contributors to a well functioning classroom.  We are all pieces of a machine that need
to work together to be successful.  Without equality, we cannot have a well functioning machine.

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Why should educators empower this bilingual and multilingual education?

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Why should educators empower this bilingual and multilingual education?

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* Teachers need to set high expectations for ALL students to meet
* Practicing "equity" among our students help them all achieve success and meet these expectations
* Multilingual learners are growing within the United States each year
* It is our job to make sure these children see themselves as capable and it is up to us to make them want to reach the expectations that we set for them
* To achieve their full academic potential, students need to be included, to have access, to engage with education that is culturally and linguistically relevant (Souto-Manning, 2016)

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Why then are these children not being empowered?

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Why then are these children not being empowered?

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Teachers have the power to give equal education and empowerment to all of their students.  However, this is not happening.  Here are a few reasons why:
* Making English the "official" language of the United States
* Requiring that all instruction be conducted in English in today's schools
* Labeling bilingual children as ESL, LEP, ESOL, ENL, ELL with a negative intonation on these students as needing "help" to be successful in the classroom
* English is being called "the culture of power", while other languages are being labeled as a hindrance to the education of the children involved

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Do families that are bilingual have the same rights at those who are not?

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Do families that are bilingual have the same rights at those who are not?

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YES!! Teachers can choose to make this an important part of the learning that occurs within the classroom, however there are many laws that make this a right for all bilingual students.  These laws include:
* The 14th Ammendment of the Consitution
* The Bilingual Education Act of 1968
* The Civil Rights Act of 1964
* The Equal Opportunity Act of 1974