Designing for diverse classrooms: Using iPads and digital cameras to compose eBooks with emergent bilingual/biliterate four-year-olds

2016 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 425-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Wells Rowe ◽  
Mary E Miller

This paper reports the findings of a two-year design study exploring instructional conditions supporting emerging, bilingual/biliterate, four-year-olds’ digital composing. With adult support, children used child-friendly, digital cameras and iPads equipped with writing, drawing and bookmaking apps to compose multimodal, multilingual eBooks containing photos, child-produced drawings, writing and voice recordings. Children took digital cameras home, and home photos were loaded onto the iPads for bookmaking. In Year 1, eBook activities successfully supported children’s multimodal composing. Children used similar writing forms on the page and screen, and explored the keyboard as an option for writing. Children used digital images as anchors for conversation and composing, and produced oral recordings extending and elaborating written messages. However, most dual-language recordings were created by Spanish-English bilinguals, with speakers of other languages rarely composing in their heritage languages. In Year 2, we redesigned eBook events to better support all children as multimodal, multilingual composers. Revised eBook activities included multilingual, demonstration eBooks containing all the children’s languages, with translations by bilingual adults known to the children. Beginning early in the school year, these eBooks were publicly shared in large group activities. The results showed that all emergent bilingual/biliterate children created dual-language recordings for their eBooks in Year 2. We concluded that: (a) the ability to integrate photos and voice recordings with print and drawings provided new opportunities for learning and teaching not available in page-based composing; (b) the affordances of iPads for children’s learning were shaped by local language and literacy practices.

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Lama K. Farran ◽  
Diana Mindrila

This study examined the connection between drama, language, and cognition in 61 preschool Latino children. Parents and teachers completed surveys and observations of children’s behaviors. Results showed that parent home language and literacy practices and beliefs about drama integration were related to children’s cognition. Recommendations for practice are presented. 


2020 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 285-302
Author(s):  
Tracey T. Flores ◽  
Emily Rose Schwab ◽  
Wintre Foxworth Johnson ◽  
Alicia Rusoja

In this article, we share findings from three qualitative studies, illustrating how children of color and their families make meaning of the racial, linguistic, cultural, and gendered worlds in which they develop. The first study examines how White adoptive Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans, Queer (LGBTQ) parents engage in race conscious child-rearing of their young African American son and the dialogism of racial identity formation and racial literacies; the second study examines the family literacy learning and teaching practices of one adult English to Speakers of Other Languages student; the third study examines how Latinx parents engage intergenerational sharing of stories as tools of resistance. Utilizing critical race theory, LatCrit theory, and sociocultural perspectives on literacy and intergenerational learning as analytical lenses, this article illuminates the consequential nature of intergenerational learning that occurs through the lived and embodied literacy practices of children and families of color and the implications for literacy researchers and practitioners.


2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brook E. Sawyer ◽  
Carol Scheffner Hammer ◽  
Lauren M. Cycyk ◽  
Lisa López ◽  
Clancy Blair ◽  
...  

2003 ◽  
Vol 23 ◽  
pp. 95-112 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Baker

This chapter reviews the multidimensional research on bilingual education, covering contexts where bilingual children are in transitional classrooms as well as schools where curriculum content is experienced in two (or more) languages. Bilingual education has become a major tool in language reversal planning, since language transmission within families within minority languages typically provides a considerable shortfall in language reproduction. To play its part in language reversal, bilingual education needs to show its relative effectiveness, both as an educational approach and for language maintenance planning. Immersion and dual language approaches have increasingly demonstrated such success. However, bilingual education is neither a universal panacea for language planners, nor is it effective purely due to dual language classroom approaches, as recent research reveals. Such research locates the political nature of bilingual education, not only at the level of policy making, but also in qualitative research in classrooms. It illuminates how language and literacy practices can latently legitimate and reproduce unequal relations between language majorities and minorities. Emerging directions in bilingual education research include trilingual education, the bilingual education of deaf students, the consequences of information technologies for bilingual classrooms, and the effect of the internationalization of English on language contact in schools. This reflects an international interest for research at the varying levels of philosophy, policy, provision, practice, and not least the politics of education as a site of language contact.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146879842098516
Author(s):  
Adina R Schick ◽  
Lauren Scarola ◽  
Silvia Niño ◽  
Gigliana Melzi

Teachers’ sharing of picture books is a quintessential activity in early childhood classrooms, and has been found to be predictive of children’s language and literacy skill development. Although most research, to date, has focused on the manner in which preschool teachers share text-based books with their students, recent work has recommended that teachers include wordless books as part of their classroom book sharing routines. Yet, little is known about how the absence of text might influence teachers’ discourse styles. The present study, thus, explored the discourse styles used by preschool teachers of Latino dual-language learners when sharing both text-based and wordless picture books with their class. Results showed that, while there were common features across both book types, when sharing wordless books teachers tended to adopt a more co-constructive style, by asking questions and supporting children’s participation in the sharing of the story. At the same time, they were more likely to elicit predictions and analyses from the children. The findings highlight the importance of including wordless books in preschool classroom book sharing interactions, especially in classrooms serving dual-language learners.


2021 ◽  
Vol 57 ◽  
pp. 27-39
Author(s):  
J. Marc Goodrich ◽  
Christopher J. Lonigan ◽  
Beth M. Phillips ◽  
JoAnn M. Farver ◽  
Kimberly D. Wilson

2018 ◽  
Vol 40 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Wood ◽  
Mary Claire Wofford ◽  
Clariebelle Gabas ◽  
Yaacov Petscher

This study aimed to describe the narrative retell performance of dual language learners (DLLs) in the fall and spring of the school year and examine predictive relationships. Participants included 74 DLLs in kindergarten and first grade from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Microstructural measures included number of different words (NDW), words per minute (WPM), and verb accuracy. Macrostructural measures included number of total story elements and number of different types of story elements. Path analysis models were used to test the relations among variables. Findings indicated that narrative measures were sensitive to developmental differences across the school year. Fall NDW performance in narrative retells was moderately related to both spring NDW and the total number of macrostructural elements in the spring. Spring WPM was uniquely predicted by fall WPM. Authors concluded that narrative retells are sensitive to developmental differences across a school year for DLLs. Findings support the use of narrative retell measures as a promising tool to examine and describe English language growth of young DLLs within a school year.


2021 ◽  
pp. 238133772110382
Author(s):  
Vivian E. Presiado ◽  
Brittany L. Frieson

Critical scholarship in bilingualism and bilingual education has documented multiple ways that the rich language and literacy practices of Black children participating in bilingual education programs are often erased in favor of dominant narratives about the literacy practices of their White Mainstream English–speaking peers. Utilizing Black girl literacies, raciolinguistics, and translanguaging as theoretical orientations, and counternarratives as an analytical tool, this article presents a cross-case analysis of two ethnographic case studies that explored how multilingual Black American girls enrolled in an elementary dual-language bilingual education program employed their literacies to navigate their social worlds, by challenging raciolinguistic ideologies and hegemonic systems of oppression in their daily lives. It also presents the nuanced nature of multilingual Black girls’ literacies and the various roles that they serve, which are often ignored in multilingual spaces. The need to learn from multilingual Black girls’ counternarratives is emphasized by engaging in a deeper sociopolitical understanding of the complex issues that Black girls face on a regular basis, which are often extended in bilingual spaces. Specifically, we call for educators to create critical translanguaging spaces that honor multidimensional counternarratives and intimately connect with the unique epistemologies and literacies that Black girls in bilingual programs bring to the table.


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