Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the work of a group of scholars who are investigating transformative literacy learning and teaching practices in support of emergent bilinguals' experiences in and out of school. It also discusses the potential of translanguaging pedagogical practices that use the entire linguistic repertoire of bilinguals flexibly to teach and learn rigorous content and develop language practices for academic use in the preschool classroom. The book investigates the affordances of translanguaging pedagogies in support of young, emergent bilingual children's performance of the academic discourse of "Show and Tell" activity. It considers translanguaging from a cultural–historical activity perspective to explain the potential pedagogical implications of translanguaging in an elementary afterschool Spanish/English bilingual program. The book proposes a framework for looking differently at translanguaging through the lens of human capital theory.