Translanguaging and Latinx Bilingual Readers

Abstract The traditional monolingual and monoglossic perspective of literacy and biliteracy is compared with the perspective offered by translanguaging. The author explores how the monolingual and monoglossic view of literacy has been responsible for the failure of many Latinx bilingual students. A translanguaging perspective turns its attention toward the language actions of a bilingual reader and away from the language of a written text. Focusing on the actions of three Latinx bilingual readers—a pre‐reader, an elementary school student, and a middle school student—the author explores how bilingual readers leverage their translanguaging, turning what are said to be static monolingual texts into multilingual/multimodal ones. Through the actions of three Latinx readers in different types of educational contexts, the author shows how literacy educators can take steps to acknowledge bilingual readers’ translanguaging and enter with them into a translanguaging space to do literacy.