Whose Structure of Whose Literacy? What Selena Teaches Us About Equity and Literacy Amidst the Science of Reading Movement

This essay explores how dominant ideologies undergirding recent movements to limit literacy instruction ignore the unique structures of, and cultural knowledge embedded in, multilingual children’s sociocultural literacies. We detail a professional development session that draws upon the music icon Selena to explore how translanguaging happens within early reading processes and present instructional practices for infusing translanguaging into phonics instruction. Embracing a translanguaging and sociocultural literacies framework in foundational phonics instructions opens up possibilities for unique culturally and linguistically sustaining praxis while strengthening biliteracy and metalinguistic skills. Such pedagogies serve as resistance to dominant, monolingual forces in contemporary reading initiatives.