Exploring an English Language Learner's Literacy Learning Opportunities

Abstract

This investigation is an ethnographic case study of the literacy learning opportunities of a fifth-grade Hmong child (pseudonym Deng) who came to the United States from Laos via Thailand at the very end of his third-grade year in school. Deng was one of 25 students in a mainstream urban classroom in the Midwest during his fifth grade in school when this investigation took place. Because Deng had only been in the United States for a little more than a year at the time this investigation began and because English was a relatively new language for him, I was concerned about his opportunities for literacy learning in a classroom where English was the medium of instruction. Deng and I worked collaboratively to explore his literacy learning opportunities in the context of a trade book unit pertaining to the text Maniac Magee.