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In:Reflexive and Reflective Research Approaches in Applied Linguistics
Edited by Pejman Habibie and Richard D. Sawyer
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 8] 2025
► pp. 223–245

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Chapter 13
When children don’t learn to read

A narrative inquiry and an intervention study

 | Cape Breton University
ORCiD logo with link | Cape Breton University
Published online: 3 March 2025
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/rmal.8.13jac
Abstract
Children who learn to read fluently are more likely to experience academic success. Many youngsters however fail to meet literacy, learning outcomes. This chapter describes a study involving children in grade three, labelled as struggling readers. Using narrative inquiry as the research methodology, we worked in partnership with the principal and classroom teacher to co-design a study including a structured literacy intervention. Narrative inquiry methodology was utilized because it supports the collection of rich data (stories). Using the narrative inquiry framework of commonplaces: temporality, sociality and place, the research was designed, lived out, analyzed, and reported. The methodology also provided a framework for dealing with ethical challenges encountered. Our goal was to come alongside children, families and teachers through time to deepen understandings of how they experienced learning to read and reading remediation. We were interested in understanding efforts to shift away from struggling reader identity stories. Included is an overall narrative of the study and participant and researcher stories. Furthermore, researcher and participant artwork and artifacts are embedded because they provide nuances beyond words on the page. We attended a First Nation’s in-community school, two mornings per week over five-months. Our plan had been to conduct the research over a two-year period, following the children from grade three to four. The plan, however, was interrupted by the global pandemic and related restrictions on school access.
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • The importance of this work
  • Researcher positioning and research puzzles
  • Concepts and theories that framed the study
    • An example of how culturally relevant pedagogies informed the research
  • Methodology
  • The research begins
    • How the relational shaped the tutoring spaces
    • Specific examples of how a focus on the relational supported the research
    • Our developing field texts
    • Collaboratively composing research texts
  • Applied and theoretical challenges and assets with a narrative inquiry methodology
    • Negotiating relationships takes time and access: History matters
    • Navigating competing stories
    • Connections between theory and methodology
    • Narrative inquiry’s contributions to applied linguistics
  • Ethical issues
  • Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
References (63)
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