Critical Literacy in the Early Childhood Classroom

Book excerpt: This book shares the author’s transformative journey as a literacy teacher/researcher examining her experience as a White, middle-class female. Kuby argues that it is not enough for teachers to implement curricula and pedagogical strategies designed to foster inclusiveness. Instead, teachers must look inward, questioning their personal histories, biases, and beliefs in order to develop better self-awareness. In this book, Kuby reflects on how her self-interrogation shaped her interactions with 5- and 6-year-olds and influenced her critical literacy teaching. “If we wish to create an enlightened citizenry, critical literacy needs to begin on the very first day of the first year of schooling.” —Jerome C. Harste, professor emeritus, Indiana University “What Candace shows us is that critical literacy is for all children and that critical literacies are ways of being that cut across time and space and move beyond the four walls of the classroom and beyond the ‘regular’ school year.” —From the Foreword by Vivian M. Vasquez, American University, Washington DC “In this very thought-provoking book, Candace Kuby uses both her own struggle with White privilege, and that of her students, to demonstrate the importance of cultivating critical consciousness through and in literacy even with those who are very young. Equity and justice for all can only be attained by practicing critical pedagogy for and with all children.” —Gaile Cannella, School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University