Culturally Relevant Text

As classrooms become more and more diverse, it is important to provide literature that portrays student diversity. Culturally relevant text is important because it acknowledges the importance of students' home culture, helps students to learn about their possible selves, assists students with being culturally literate, and allows individuals to envision how their home culture blends with the overall mainstream culture. Readers of culturally relevant texts can more easily construct meaning from a text that contains familiar elements because their background knowledge helps them make predictions and inferences about the story. When teachers use culturally relevant books, students understand the books more fully, and as a result become more engaged in their reading. When students become engaged in texts, they are motivated to read more. Another important reason for using culturally relevant texts is that they help students understand who they are. Many young English learners enter school as monolingual speakers of their heritage language and leave as monolingual speakers of English. In the process of losing their language, they lose essential elements of their culture. Schools with enlightened language policies ensure that students’ linguistic and cultural backgrounds are represented in the curriculum. Using culturally relevant books is one way that teachers can do this. Selecting culturally relevant texts should be done thoughtfully and intentionally.