1st Edition

Becoming Bilingual Readers Identity, Translanguaging, and Biographic Biliteracy Profiles

By Bobbie Kabuto Copyright 2022
    134 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    134 Pages 2 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    Building on Bobbie Kabuto’s groundbreaking 2010 book Becoming Biliterate, this book explores how identity impacts the development of bilingual readers and how reading practices are mediated by family and community contexts. Highlighting bilingual readers from Spanish, Greek, Japanese, and English language backgrounds, Kabuto offers an in-depth, interdisciplinary analysis of these readers’ behaviors and identities through the original approach of Biographic Biliteracy Profiles.

    The Profiles serve as a culturally relevant assessment tool for developing meaningful narratives and can reveal how bilingual readers make sense of texts in the context of their home and school environments. An ideal approach for unpacking the complexity of bilingual reading behaviors and how they change across time, the Profiles allow readers to explore what a bilingual reader’s identity means to becoming biliterate; the roles of code-switching and translanguaging; the influences of readers’ families and communities; and how they all interact and shape readers’ identities, behaviors, and meaning-making.

    Offering practical applications on observing and documenting bilingual readers, this book is an invaluable resource for scholars and students in courses on bilingualism, L2/ESL reading, and multilingualism.

    (Re)Introduction to Becoming Biliterate

    Chapter 1: Culturally Relevant Assessment Practices for Linguistically Diverse Readers

    Chapter 2: Laying the Groundwork for Biographic Biliteracy Profiles

    Chapter 3: Profiles of Reading in a Translanguaging Context

    Chapter 4: Profiles of Code-Switching in a Translanguaging Context

    Chapter 5: Profiles of Bilingual Reading Identities and Abilities

    Chapter 6: Biographic Biliteracy Profiles: Implications for Creating Culturally Relevant Assessment Practices

    Appendix A

    Appendix B

    Biography

    Bobbie Kabuto is Professor of Literacy Education and Department Chair of the Elementary and Early Childhood Education Department at Queens College, City University of New York, USA.