By Yvette Manns
Allowing students to show up as their authentic selves helps educators build confident, lifelong readers.
Many educators enter this work because they want every child to have a fair chance, regardless of zip code, family background, or exposure to rich language at home. Students also deserve space to express their authentic selves in school while receiving literacy instruction grounded in research and evidence. Literacy can change life trajectories: students who are not reading at grade level by the end of third grade face a higher risk of drug use, incarceration, unemployment, and poverty. With effective, equitable literacy instruction, we can give children the tools to succeed.
When we combine an understanding of student learning differences with the science of reading and structured literacy approaches, we create a roadmap and a vehicle for giving every learner access to meaningful reading instruction. Below are practical ways educators can empower young readers from all backgrounds.
Honoring the Intersectionality Between Learners
In clinical and classroom settings I’ve worked with students with dyslexia, dual-language learners, and children whose families have limited access to functional literacy. Many students arrive with layered experiences and needs: different home languages or dialects, varying exposure to print, and diverse cultural practices. Recognizing intersectionality means meeting each learner where they are instead of treating language differences as deficits.
The science of reading can and should honor students’ home languages and dialects. Referring to learners as “dual-language learners” or “multilingual learners” highlights the value of all languages they bring to the classroom. Bilingualism is often an asset, not a hurdle. Teachers can explicitly teach phonics, decoding, and encoding strategies while acknowledging that students may use different sentence structures or terms at home—like regional vocabulary differences such as “pop” versus “soda”—and help students connect those familiar words to classroom learning.
Honoring home language supports comprehension and vocabulary development by linking students’ existing schema to new words and concepts. For example, when decoding instruction is paired with opportunities to discuss word meaning in students’ familiar language or dialect, learners can map new skills onto their lived experiences. That connection increases engagement, strengthens decoding and comprehension, and helps more students become confident readers.
Promoting Commitment over Compliance
Children are future adults who want their voices to matter. In classrooms, rigid rules and a culture of compliance can limit student engagement. When I taught elementary school, I used flexible seating and offered choices about how students learned and demonstrated understanding. Those options helped children own their learning.
Rather than imposing a fixed list of rules, invite students to co-create classroom agreements. Collaborative expectations based on students’ values and needs promote buy-in and accountability. Commitment looks like curiosity, critical thinking, and sustained effort; compliance often results in doing the minimum to avoid consequences. Prioritizing commitment gives students the freedom to be curious and to participate fully in literacy practices.
Developing lifelong readers requires both receptive and expressive opportunities: listening and reading (receptive) as well as speaking and writing (expressive). It is difficult to expect strong writing from readers who have had limited chances to talk through ideas. Encourage classroom routines that build oral language—partner discussions, read-alouds with conversation, and structured talk moves—so students can practice the vocabulary and sentence structures they will later use in writing.
Validating Students through Diverse Representation
Rudine Sims Bishop described books as mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors—mirrors that reflect a child’s own life, windows offering views into other experiences, and doors that allow readers to step into new worlds. Thoughtfully chosen texts help students build empathy, broaden perspectives, and see themselves represented as protagonists.
Data from the Cooperative Children’s Book Center shows disparities in representation: about 10 percent of children’s picture books depict Latinx characters, 9 percent depict Black characters, 15 percent depict Asian characters, and roughly 2 percent depict Indigenous characters. Teachers can intentionally curate classroom libraries that include a wide range of cultures, family structures, abilities, and religious traditions so students encounter both mirrors and windows in their reading.
Structured literacy often uses decodable texts—stories that align with phonics patterns and the high-frequency words students have been taught. Decodable books can and should reflect diverse characters and families. When decodable stories include varied representation, students practice phonics and decoding while simultaneously seeing themselves reflected in the stories and developing empathy for others.
Using diverse, culturally responsive texts alongside explicit phonics and decoding instruction reinforces the science of reading while validating student identities. This alignment helps students connect decoding skills to meaningful comprehension and to real-world contexts.
By honoring students’ intersectional identities, prioritizing commitment over mere compliance, and offering diverse representation in reading materials, educators can create inclusive classrooms that foster confident, lifelong readers. When instruction is both research-based and culturally responsive, every child stands a better chance to become a skilled, engaged reader.
About the author
Yvette Manns is a former elementary teacher, instructional coach, children’s book author, and education consultant. She currently works as an education specialist at Reading Horizons. Contact: [email protected].
This article was originally published by The Learning Counsel, a research institute and news media hub focused on the shift in education toward digital curriculum.