Chameleon Readers

Synopsis: This text for the reading methods or children's literature course, was written with the hope of producing chameleon readers: Children who can truly understand children who do not share their own cultural heritage. The book aims to teach kindergarten and elementary school teachers who are interested in multicultural literacy programs how to incorporate reading into this curriculum. The first goal of this book is to present specific background information about stories and story telling traditions from various cultures to help teachers understand and translate, or extend stories from other cultures that they read to students or that they receive from students with diverse cultural backgrounds. Another major goal of this book is to examine and expand our current operating definitions of good stories, making it more representative of the true range of the narrative forms we have in this country at this time. The third goal of this book is to advocate instruction of all children about distinctive storytelling traditions of numerous ethnic groups, and to heighten awareness of the importance of narrative in the classroom.