Reading As a Struggle: Challenged Readers Making Meaning from Texts

When culturally diverse and economically deprived students do not excel in school, discourses about struggling readers, about abilities and disabilities, and about teacher preparedness and effectiveness are among the factors that are considered. My book shifts the label ¿struggling reader¿ away from students and positions students as being challenged by making meaning from texts and by the educational endeavors instead of, basically, struggling to read. It positions reading as the struggle and not the readers as strugglers. I investigated the factors that impede and impel meaning making for students who are challenged in this way. Six narratives reveal some of these factors that impede and impel meaning making from texts for these six culturally diverse students. The students spoke of their past, present, and anticipated, future experiences with literacy. I found that aliteracy contributes to the delayed emergence of reading for some students who are labeled struggling readers. Aliteracy represents the ability to read but the choice not to read. Sociocultural, sociolinguistic, and socioeconomic factors contribute to aliteracy and to students making meaning from texts.