Beyond Magic: Fostering Literacy Resilience in Diverse Classrooms through Home-Based Approaches

The classrooms in Israel are very diverse, with students differing in learning styles, their handling of literacy tasks, personal and socioeconomic backgrounds, and more. These differences significantly impact the curriculum aimed at promoting literacy resilience, explicit teaching processes in the classroom, and imparting metacognitive strategies and actions to overcome learning difficulties. This qualitative-interpretative study reveals the pedagogical perceptions, challenges, and coping strategies of fourteen Hebrew teachers in five elementary schools in central Israel regarding integrating home literacy in language lessons and cultivating literacy resilience among their students. The research data were collected through in-depth interviews with the teachers. The analysis of the teachers' reports reveals two main perceptions regarding literacy resilience: (1) Literacy resilience is a tool for life; (2) Home literacy significantly contributes to fostering literacy resilience. Furthermore, cultivating literacy resilience presents three significant challenges for the teachers: (1) Teaching in a heterogeneous classroom, (2) Encouraging parental involvement, and (3) Fostering independent learners. To cultivate literacy resilience in a heterogeneous classroom, teachers must be sensitive to each student's unique needs and plan teaching-learning processes based on principles of self-directed learning and peer dialogue. They must establish a personal-emotional connection that is a significant anchor for the students and outlines a path for integrating and strengthening the sense of competence in handling literacy tasks. It was also found that parental involvement is a significant factor influencing the cultivation of literacy resilience, and teachers undertake various actions to increase their level of involvement. This study adds an essential layer to the body of knowledge regarding the understanding of the factors affecting the development of pedagogical literacy perceptions that promote the integration of home literacy in the classroom. These perceptions may promote the nurturing process of literacy resilience among students from various cultures, accepting and understanding them. In this way, we can attempt to address literacy and language challenges in Israel.