Culturally Relevant Intervention

 Intro 

As diversity increases in the country, the challenge of adapting education for all our students does as well. One of those challenges is creating culturally responsive instruction or an environment. During this post, we will discuss practices for building a culturally responsive library. Also, we will take our time to provide the readers with a professional development approach to build the library. Lastly, we will answer the following questions; Why is it important to address culturally responsive intervention through literature and resources in the classroom? What factors or resources should teachers consider?  

HOW?

Creating a culturally responsive library of resources can appear something extraordinary. However, we can start by familiarizing ourselves with diversity. Educators can learn the purpose of having a diverse library in the classroom and how would a diverse library would look. Also, they can evaluate their libraries and try to find a predominantly culture within the library. If there is such a culture, teachers need to provide the students with more options that promote diversity. Then again, teachers need to be familiar with technology to maximize their culturally responsive library. Teachers need to be capable and knowledgeable about technology to help their students (Shearer, Carr, & Vogt, 2018). Educators can translate texts to ESL students to almost any language and facilitate their transition into the English language. Also, technology provides educators with access to other tools that can result in more engaging lessons with the students. Remember, being a culturally responsive teacher does not only involve being aware of student's cultures. You need to be an educator who understands the ongoing trends and utilizes them to create instruction!

Professional development is considered part of a school’s complete strategy for improving and sustaining effective literacy instruction. Based on a comprehensive needs assessment, a plan for professional learning includes research, book study, discussion groups, demonstration lessons, mentoring, coaching, collaboration, and focused inquiry (Shearer, Carr, & Vogt, 2018). Based on this information, a good strategy would be researching the school demographic and discussing practices that can facilitate selecting books. Once the literacy team has picked the types of books that fit their students, then they can collaborate on selecting the texts. 

Why is it important to address culturally responsive intervention through literature and resources in the classroom?

As Alicia Discepola mentioned, it is unrealistic to ask students to leave their culture outside their classroom. Furthermore, it is not appropriate for educators to exclude learners from their learning. Culturally responsive teaching focuses on the community and takes the student's common knowledge to create a point of reference. We need to provide accessible information with technology. We live in a multicultural environment, and we need to be aware of it. As educators, we need to "educate" ourselves with all the different sources we have to provide culturally responsive instruction. 

What factors or resources should teachers consider?  

One of the resources that we need to consider when creating a culturally responsive classroom is technology. Educators can use available web 2.0 tools to expand possibilities to communicate, collaborate, and create (Shearer, Carr, & Vogt, 2018). A relevant factor to consider when designing a culturally responsive library is the socioeconomic status of your school district. School districts moving towards online instruction. However, not all of their students are capable of affording the internet. For this reason, educators need to have different options for those students without internet service. Lastly, a culturally responsive library includes and promotes different cultures. For this reason, our collection needs to have multicultural books. As I stated in my previous post, the international children's digital library can help educators with multicultural options. 

References

Shearer, B. A., Carr, D. A., & Vogt, M. (2018). Reading Specialists and Literacy Coaches in the Real World, Fourth Edition (4th ed.). Boston, US: Waveland Press, Inc.

Young, T., Bryan, G., Jacobs, J., & Tunnell, M. (2019). Children’s Literature, Briefly (7th ed.). Boston, U.S.: Pearson.