Approaches to Critical Literacy Instruction in the Middle School ESL/EFL classroom

Abstract: The purpose of this literature review is to compare some critical reading comprehension classroom practices globally, with particular focus on the teaching of reading comprehension in Sweden, where student well being and equity are issues of importance. Critical literacy used is a term that encompasses many aspects of power related issues in language. The Swedish curriculum is explicit in naming these issues of student identity and democratic agency which it shares with critical pedagogical practices. The result of the review is a presentation and discussion of the different studies, using a structure based on one used for critical discourse analysis instruction with students. The evidence suggests that higher level comprehension is a skill that takes time to train and should be done explicitly by pointing out the aspects of language which convey meaning. Learning to search the text for evidence of the underlying meaning gave verystrong effect sizes on standardized tests for reading comprehension. The reading comprehension results of minority/ESL students on standardized tests improved when space was made to discuss very different experiences within the same culture in language classrooms.