2-min. read

Creating a Home Away from Home: Building a Culture of Belonging for Students in Your Literacy Classroom

By:

See how creating a culture of belonging in literacy classrooms—through strategies like VABBing and responsive vocabulary instruction—can transform student engagement and success.
A group of four children read books while sitting in a library.

As someone who’s lived in various places—from the bustling ‘burbs of Houston to the rainy haze of Seattle—Atlanta will always be home. With crazy drivers, perfect seasons, and mouthwatering food, it’s a city where strangers talk to you like old friends. But more importantly, it's where my family is. The love, acceptance, and support I've always felt there have shaped me into who I am today—and that has enabled me to impact the lives of countless students along the way.

Imagine if your literacy students could feel that same love, belonging, and support. What a difference that would make! To get there, we must first acknowledge and address the facts.


Why Classroom Culture Matters for Student Success

Consider this: By the time students enter high school, they will have spent approximately 8,100 hours in school. Throw in extracurricular activities and aftercare, and many students spend more waking hours at school than with their families.

On top of that, we don’t just expect our students to show up—we want them to be actively engaged, follow our rules, and thrive in the school environment for 13 years of their lives. And if they skip school, they’re breaking the law.

If we ignore the social and emotional impact of this extensive time in school on students, we're being cruel. While we may not need to change the time commitment required for students, we should absolutely maximize the impact of their experience.

Subscribe to Our Blog

Creating a Culture of Belonging Is Beneficial to Learning

Research shows that a sense of connection and belonging is one of the things that’s crucial for student success. A study by TNTP examined schools that were able to maintain student growth over 10 years, enabling those who entered below grade level to achieve an average annual growth of 1.3 years by cultivating connections and creating support structures for each student. 

How can you create a welcoming environment for students in your literacy classroom? Here are a few ideas:

The Power of VABBing

Dr. Sharroky Hollie’s book, Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching and Learning, introduces the Validate, Affirm, Build, Bridge (VABB) framework. This is a four-pronged approach to building a classroom where all students feel at home. 

  • Validate. To validate students, we often need to present counter-narratives, letting them know that broader stereotypes don’t define them. Reminding them that they are culturally and linguistically rich individuals helps build relationships by understanding who our students truly are.
  • Affirm. Affirmation involves using texts, images, and narratives that reflect students' unique experiences and give them tools to analyze media critically. This integration of culturally relevant materials reinforces their sense of belonging.
  • Build. Building is about understanding and recognizing the cultural and linguistic behaviors of students that you can use to help develop rapport and relationships. This way, students see that their background is not just appreciated but also integral to their learning journey.
  • Bridge. Bridging is providing the academic and social skills students will need beyond the classroom. It’s about teaching them how to navigate different contexts skillfully while staying true to themselves.

Academic Literacy Instruction

Hollie’s VABBing framework can help foster a sense of belonging by guiding educators toward texts that center on—not just include—different character ethnicities. For instance, when teaching literacy, we might incorporate texts like Bud, Not Buddy by Christopher Paul Curtis, in which the ethnicity of the main character directly impacts the plot—as opposed to The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, which I think we can all agree is a beautifully illustrated book, but the story itself would be the same regardless of the ethnicity of the main character.

However, it’s important to note that leveraging such texts validates and affirms students by allowing students to see themselves reflected in everyday activities. These are not just stories; they are affirmations of identity for your Black, urban, orphaned, or abused students. Depending on your chosen text, it might validate for some students while building and bridging for others. The goal is to find a balance of texts that fits your classroom’s diverse needs.

Some texts go deeper than others to establish a feeling of belonging. While many texts may feature a diverse character somewhere in a picture or the book, it takes intentionality to find texts that reflect and express the stories of others. Then, and only then, are we truly opening windows and exhibiting mirrors that reflect our students' lives.

Academic Vocabulary Instruction

In his book, Hollie suggests using slang like “throw shade” to help build bridges to academic language, like “saboteur.” This also enriches student vocabulary. These exercises validate, affirm, build, and bridge the linguistic skills of your students.

Responsive vocabulary instruction involves:

  • Contextualizing word selection (i.e., tiering words by frequency and relevance)
  • Teaching Tier 2 (i.e., academic) words as concepts, not just memorized terms
  • Building Tier 3 (i.e., content-specific) words with a personal dictionary that contains a curated list of words students frequently use in their writing
  • Developing synonyms and antonyms using a personal thesaurus that includes words that reflect a student’s tone, voice, or style and go-to alternatives for common words to minimize repetition
  • Utilizing common vocabulary strategies for a deeper understanding and multiple assessments

Effective Classroom Management That Supports Student Belonging

Effective classroom management is like building a fence—it is not meant to confine but to protect. Safe environments enable students to take the risks necessary for learning and growth. Students must feel secure in their learning space physically, emotionally, and mentally. Your students’ needs should be central to classroom structures, with engagement protocols designed to accommodate varying cultural norms.

Ultimately, whether students identify as readers or non-readers, creating a culture that supports all reinforces connection, which leads to a cohesive community and deeper engagement with the content. Belonging doesn’t just make students feel good; it lays the groundwork for their academic success and personal growth. Let’s bring a little bit of home into our literacy classrooms—where every student feels seen, heard, and valued.

To learn more about evidence-backed literacy instruction, check out our literacy products. 

Subscribe to our blog today, and share!

More Resources in Our Literacy Blog Library
Tune into Kheshana’s episode of the Extraordinary Educators™ Podcast.
Proven Strategies for Creating a Classroom That Supports All Learners 
Beyond the Curriculum: Creating a Positive Classroom Where Hearts and Minds Thrive

Related Content