“Smarter Than We Give Them Credit For”: Assumptions and Disruptions in a Summer Reading Program

Research supports the claim that teachers’ assumptions about middle level readers can influence classroom practice, including how students are positioned for success—or marginalized—in the ELA classroom. Assumptions are part of teachers’ larger belief systems, which can act as “mental parameters within which teachers conceptualize the teaching and learning process “ (Donaghue, 2003). Researchers call on literacy teacher- educators to create spaces where such parameters are “disrupted,” and teachers’ assumptions about young readers become visible, leading to transformed understandings and actions. This article reports on such a space that was created in a summer reading program where secondary literacy teachers’ assumptions about middle level readers were disrupted when they worked with middle level “book buddies” around the youths’ text choices