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"When sharing with my group this piece of my journal entry I started realizing that my frustration with learning how to read had to do with more than just reading but trying to learn and adjust using a second language, a second culture." 

This semester, I'm also taking a course on Children's Literature, and one of my classmates recently sent around this youtube clip -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3j2oom5Y3tc -- it's a TED talk by Donna Jo Napoli, a writer for children (and a professor at Swarthmore). Donna Jo claims that children need to read about "terrible things." She argues that so-called "unprotected children" (children who face various kinds of challenges, which Donna Jo outlines in the talk) find comfort in books "in which the main character is also unprotected": children "find out they're not alone." Donna Jo suggests that children can take comfort in stories similar to their own, or characters they can relate to. They are glad to read about people who face challenges similar to their own. I am not calling the ESL or bilingual student an "unprotected child." I'm just thinking about Donna Jo's suggestion (and I'm sure many others have argued the same point) that children take comfort in reading about stories or characters that mirror their personal experiences. I'm interested in the notion that, if a child is facing particular challenges, he or she might like to read about characters facing similar challenges.

In your story, English proficiency and literacy seem to represent the divide between your first language and culture and your second language and culture -- you say that your "reading proficiency wasn't up to par," and that "obtaining profiency in this second language would ensure not only acceptance but survival as well." Let me know if I'm misinterpreting your writing, but it seems to me that, from your first-grade perspective, English proficiency stood between you and "acceptance" in a new culture.... If that's true, I wonder if literacy materials could help students who are trying to navigate an unfamiliar language or culture, rather than just representing another challenge for young students to overcome. A bridge rather than a barrier, so to speak? I know there are a lot of children's books that describe immigrants' experiences, or ELLs' experiences, or the experiences of children from particular backgrounds and communities...meant to provide students with the sort of support that Donna Jo describes: characters and experiences the reader can relate to. Do you remember what sorts of books you read in elementary school? (Because frankly, I don't...) Do these sorts of texts actually help students who feel frustrated as they try to adjust to a new language or culture?