Document Type

Article

Publication Title

The Reading Teacher

Publication Date

2026

Abstract

In this article, I share experiences from my roles as a teacher, researcher, and parent to show how raciolinguistic ideologies take hold in early childhood. Specifically, I illustrate how children come to uphold English superiority, map language to belonging, and make judgments about whose language counts. In sharing these experiences, I call on educators and caregivers to attend to raciolinguistic socialization and work toward disruption so that all children's languages are valued in literacy learning. I suggest centering multiple languages, cultivating curiosity, and questioning curricular assumptions as ways to work alongside children in challenging hierarchies and creating learning spaces that honor the multilingual world in which we live.

Funding Source

This work was supported by Illinois State University. This article was published open access thanks to a transformative agreement between Milner Library and Wiley.

Comments

First published in The Reading Teacher (2026):  https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.70071

DOI

10.1002/trtr.70071

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