Chapter 2: Literacy Practices of African American Children: Three Case Studies

This chapter presents the stories of three African American children: Alicia, Peter, and Jermaine. Specifically, I explore the ways their literacy practices are situated within home contexts that feature not only activities related to reading and writing but rich relationships that accompany those practices and expansive social and historical roots that led to these literacy practices. Recognizing and understanding that literacy practices of African American students, and all students, are contextualized within rich literacy contexts is the first step in enabling teachers to create instructional practices that build on the resources that children bring to classrooms. In this chapter I present two types of literacy practices that children and parents shared over the course of the research project: (1) literacy practices that parents use to teach children to read; and (2) the literacy practices children share with their siblings and peers. First I will review theoretical insights related to literacy practices in African American homes, then I will discuss the methodology used in this 8-year longitudinal study, and introduce each of the three students and their families. Data from this study revealed that the literacy practices in these three African American homes are uniquely integrated into rich networks of literacy practices at home and school, and involve people in both the present and the past.