Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action

Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action shows bilingual education teachers, administrators, and leadership teams how to plan, implement, monitor, and strengthen biliteracy instruction that builds on students’ linguistic resources in two languages, beginning in kindergarten. Escamilla and her team present a holistic biliteracy framework that is at the heart of their action-oriented Literacy Squared school-based project. Teachers learn to develop holistic biliteracy instruction units, lesson plans, and assessments that place Spanish and English side by side. Educators also learn to teach to students’ potential within empirically based, scaffolded, biliteracy zones and to support emerging bilinguals' trajectories toward biliteracy.

Foreword by Ofelia García.

Special Features

• Key terms and/or guiding questions introduce every chapter.
• Sample instruction units, lesson plans, student writing in Spanish and English, and paired writing rubrics make chapter content accessible and practical.
• Empirical evidence of students’ reading and writing development in Spanish and English grounds presentation of trajectories toward biliteracy and scaffolded biliteracy zones.
• Questions for reflection and action at the end of each chapter help biliteracy educators apply key concepts to their local district and school context.

See more from the same authors: Biliterate Writing from the Start

Sandra Butvilofsky, Ph.D., Biliteracy Instructional Coach at Escuela Bilingüe Pioneer, Boulder Valley School District received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado Boulder with a specialization in biliteracy. Her work in Literacy Squared involved assisting in program development, conducting research, and providing professional development to bilingual teachers and administrators. Dr. Butvilofsky has also been the Deputy Director of the BUENO Center, Assistant Research Professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, and Associate Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso. Her research interests include examining the biliterate writing and reading development of Latinx bilingual learners from preschool through fifth grade to demonstrate the potential of bilingual/biliteracy education. Her work has been published in peer reviewed journals and edited books. She is co-author of the book Biliteracy from the Start: Literacy Squared in Action. Her elementary teaching experience includes 5 years as a bilingual classroom teacher and 5 years as a trained Descubriendo la Lectura®/Reading Recovery® teacher.

Wendy Sparrow is a professional research associate at the University of Colorado–Boulder. Her research interests include the bilingual literacy development of Latino elementary school children and fidelity of program implementation in bilingual and dual language programs and interventions. Before becoming involved in research, she spent seven years as an elementary bilingual classroom teacher and Title I literacy instructor in the public school setting.

Kathy Escamilla, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus of Education in the Division of Equity, Bilingualism and Biliteracy at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Dr. Escamilla’s research focuses on issues related to the development of bilingualism and biliteracy for emerging bilingual children in US schools. She is a co-founder of Literacy Squared, a program dedicated to creating biliterate pedagogies with and for Spanish-speaking children and their teachers. She is a lifelong bilingual educator and has been a teacher, administrator, and professor in her 50+ years in public education.

Susan Hopewell, Ph.D. co-author of Biliteracy from the Start, Literacy Squared in Action and Associate Professor of Equity Bilingualism and Biliteracy at the University of Colorado Boulder, has spent her entire career working with, and learning from, bilingual learners. As the current director of Literacy Squared, Dr. Hopewell provides extensive professional development to schools around the United States to help them better design effective biliteracy instruction.

Lucinda Soltero-González, is an assistant professor of education in the Division of Educational Equity and Cultural Diversity at the University of Colorado–Boulder. She was an elementary school teacher and a bilingual special education teacher for over seven years before earning her Ph.D. in language, reading, and culture from the University of Arizona. Her research interests include the development of bilingualism and early biliteracy in young Spanish-speaking children and biliteracy practices in U.S. schools.

Olivia Ruiz-Figueroa worked in the Tucson (AZ) Unified School District for 22 years. She is one of the original authors of Instrumento de observacíon, the Spanish reconstruction of Marie Clay’s Reading Recovery program and assessment. She co-authored Evaluacíon del desarrollo de la lecture, the Spanish version of the Developmental Reading Assessment, and has worked with Literacy Squared since its inception. Growing up in a bilingual/bicultural home, she continues to focus on assessment, instruction, and cultural equity for emerging bilingual students being educated in the United States.

Manuel Escamilla earned a Ph.D. in curriculum and instruction with an emphasis in early childhood education from the University of Kansas. He has been a Head Start program director and has spent most of his professional life working with parents to improve the higher-education opportunities for their children. He is a project director for the BUENO Center for Multicultural Education at the University of Colorado–Boulder.

Ofelia García, is Professor Emerita in the Ph.D. programs in Urban Education and Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures at The Graduate Center of the City University of New York. García has published widely in the areas of bilingualism/multilingualism and bilingual education, language education, language policy, and sociology of language. The American Educational Research Association has awarded her three Lifetime Research Achievement Awards—Distinguished Contributions to Social Contexts in Education (2019), Bilingual Education (2017), and Second Language Acquisition Leadership through Research (2019). She is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Education.