Abstract
Children’s books with racially diverse characters have been a highly explored topic in recent years. Although there has been progress in the publication of children’s books with racially diverse characters, school textbooks, libraries and other educational materials persistently feature predominantly white characters across all materials. The relationship between a book character’s race and how preschool students with disabilities engage with books has not been explored analytically. The purpose of this study was to compare student’s engagement, using concept about print (CAP), when presented with books that feature white characters and Black, Indigenous, People of Color (BIPOC) characters. The three participants in this study were preschool students, ages 3-5, and enrolled in a special day classroom for students with moderate/severe disabilities.
Using a single-case research design and mixed method concurrent design allowed the researcher to collect quantitative data to capture each child’s performance and qualitative data to record literacy behaviors not captured by quantitative means. Quantitative data was collected by recording student’s responses to CAP questions and qualitative data included audio transcriptions and making observational anecdotal notes about behavior during 1:1 instruction. Overall, quantitative data did not indicate an increase in preschool students with disabilities CAP knowledge. However, qualitative data showed that students demonstrated positive behaviors, such as looking at pictures, naming letters, and connecting to prior knowledge. More research on preschool students with disabilities is needed to further explore their literacy learning and engagement habits.