‘Like, I’m playing, but with this’. Materialization and affect in early childhood literacy

The more-than-human turn in early childhood education has highlighted the relevance of children’s intra-actions with their environment, as well as the multiple ways in which worlds and literacies emerge in them. The rejection of representationalism as the single source of knowledge leads to the consideration of affect, embodiment, memories, sound and movement as ways of knowing. The ways in which they manifest in a school context deserve close attention to the tiny details of literacy events. Our research presents a diffractive reading of an event in a school classroom, aiming to understand human and more-than-human intra-actions in this context, the re-configurations of time, space and matter, and the ways in which children articulate entanglements with texts and bodies. We focus on the intra-actions of a seven-year old child with a photo of his favourite videogame and the ways in which affect and memory emerge. The child’s sounds and movements, the researcher, the photo and the space become entangled to re-configure time, space and matter. Our analysis provides an insight into an event often occurring in schools. We offer some clues to understand it as part of the language and literacy practices of children, and pose the necessity of reconsidering the usual concept of literacy in school.

‘Look, my name! I can write’ – Literacy events and digital technology in the preschool atelier

This article explores and displays some of the literacy events taking place in the context of early childhood education in Sweden. More specifically, the literacy events are part of the educational practices in the atelier of Reggio Emilia inspired preschools in Sweden. As parts of an ethnographic study of aesthetic activities, including digital technology, these literacy events awoke the researcher’s interest. The literacy events are analysed from a sociocultural perspective reinforced by the use of multimodal theory. The results show how the literacy events in the ateliers become playful explorations. The children use the atelier’s specific cultural and social potentiality to explore and develop written and oral language as part of the visual and aesthetic literacy practices taking place there.

Designing and Implementing Interactive, Collaborative Family Literacy Events

Shared experiences through school-hosted events, such as family literacy events, can afford opportunities to support and extend academic learning while fostering positive home–school relationships. This article describes the importance of developing primary-grade students’ literacy skills through a talent development lens and explains several ways to nurture students’ literacy skills and recognize potential, gifts, and talents during family literacy events. This article features one of the activities from the family literacy events, Environmental Print Bingo, a modification of I-Spy and Bingo which uses rich and varied environmental print resources. A description of this activity, necessary resources, and implementation tips are provided. Options for differentiating this learning activity to provide more challenge for gifted learners are suggested. Throughout the article, the application of a pedagogy for early childhood gifted education and Sternberg’s triarchic theory of intelligence as a framework are discussed; these approaches informed the design of all family literacy activities. A brief overview of nine additional family literacy event activities is also shared. Welcoming and involving families of English learners is an important consideration in many communities, and therefore, preparation tips and considerations for facilitators that will help maximize the participation of all families are included. Finally, reflections and helpful advice for implementing family literacy events in your school communities are presented, including advice for implementing online family literacy events. Ultimately, this article should help readers conceptualize, plan, and implement family literacy events in their school communities.

Literacy as part of professional knowing in a Swedish dental education

Background Academic reading and writing are seen as self-evident literacy competences in most contemporary higher educations, however, whether students also are introduced to professional literacy of relevance for dentistry during their education is a question. The purpose of this study is to analyze one of the Swedish dental programmes, with respect to its design, in relation to possible content of relevance for academic and professional literacy. Secondarily, to identify and analyze Swedish dental students’ writing in an academic setting, i.e. what these students are expected to read and write, and how they write. Methods Data, for this ethnographically inspired case-study, was produced by observations and audio-recordings of lectures, copies of teachers’ handouts and of volunteering students’ notes, and a multiple-choice-test. Data-analysis was made in five steps, starting with macro-level data, i.e. curriculum and syllabuses, followed by the syllabuses for the two observed modules, the teacher-provided material, analysis of the students’ notes, while in the fifth and final step, the results from the previous steps were compared, to find patterns of what students were expected to read and write, and what in the teacher-provided multimodal material that was emphasized in teachers’ talk. Results This study showed that students were engaged in several types of literacy events, such as reading, finding and watching videos on their learning platform, writing, and following instructions. The study also showed that there is a recurrent academic content comprised of anatomy, physiology and pathology, while the professional content comprised of patient communication and anamnesis. Further, an integrated content was found and was initiated in teacher-constructed PowerPoints and by student-questions. Note-taking patterns varied between individual students, but the general pattern for this group of students were the use of complementary notes. This type of note-taking was used to make available further descriptions of the teacher-constructed text in PowerPoints, but also an independent text describing pictures shown on teachers’ PowerPoints or the blackboard. Conclusion Findings from the present study reveal that students either copy text from teachers’ PowerPoint-slides, re-formulate text from teachers’ PowerPoint-slides, or write complementing text to teachers’ PowerPoint-slides. Further, the students individually choses type of note-taking based on situation. The study also revealed that the academic literacy – in the two modules during the fifth and sixth semesters of a dental education analyzed – mainly has a professional basis for reading, writing, and communication purposes. The study also showed that academic and professional literacy are closely connected through recurrent integration.

Reimagining Isolated Literacy Classrooms as Interdependent Networks: Tracing Rituals, Repetitions, and Technologies

Recent literacy scholarship increasingly seeks to center and value the literacies of systematically marginalized youth in response to deficit-oriented narratives that locate oppressed communities as incompetent or delayed. Often, this reframing leans on a contextualization of literacies as culturally, historically, and socially situated acts that people do. Located alongside recent literacy research combatting racism, homophobia, transphobia, linguicism, xenophobia, and the invisibilizing of indigenous peoples, this piece reimagines the active and rich literacies produced in an isolated (i.e., self-contained) special education literacy classroom. While theoretically utilizing situated literacies, this article also directly responds to critiques of situated literacies as too human-centric, an especially relevant criticism for classrooms with students who have complex support needs. Actor-network theory, as a theoretical and methodological lens, provides entry into the analysis of human and nonhuman actors collectively producing intricate literacy events during a curricular exploration of inclusive picturebooks (i.e., texts featuring main characters with lived dis/ability experiences). Findings presented trace two literacy events animated by actors such as students, technologies, rituals, and repetitions. Implications for this research argue for future theoretical and pedagogical framings of literacies as inherently interdependent productions, not just in isolated special education classrooms but all literacy classrooms. This shift moves away from illusive discourses of independence and autonomy and toward understandings of all literacies as interdependently shaped by endless network actors.

Literacy practices as social: relational-keys in literacy events

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to work toward more fully conceptualizing literacy practices as social by theorizing the combined relational and intellectual context for learning. This context is created through students’ and their teachers’ uses of language. In particular, the quality of language that creates this intellectual relational context is relational-keys that are inherent to any talk between people. Building upon Hymes (1974) conceptualization of key, relational-keys can be described as the emotional mood or spirit of a conversation, but they are much more than that per se. They are constitutive of the complex, multi-layered relationships that people have with each other, with themselves and with the material environment through their uses of language. Design/methodology/approach Drawing upon a classroom ethnographic study in a first-grade classroom and using discourse analysis of classroom interactions, the author uses data from instructional conversations to illustrate how students and their teachers collaboratively perform relational-keys. Findings Findings reveal that students and their teacher perform relational and intellectual stances toward reading and toward each other through relational-keys, that frame the act of reading and their experience of doing it together. Originality/value The concept of relational-key provides literacy researchers with another tool to analyze what happens in instructional conversations. It also provides teachers with a curricular resource to identify relational-keys that are enacted. Therefore, teachers are able move away from the enaction of relational-keys that contribute to subtractive schooling, and toward relational-keys that nurture empowering stances in students toward reading and their relationships.

Learning to Present in English: Exploring the Voices of Preparatory-Year Female Undergraduates in Saudi Arabia

This study examines how a group of students enrolled in preparatory year program at a Saudi university describe their experiences while engaging with a specific literacy event, i.e. oral presentations in an English as a Foreign Language classroom. It adopts a case study methodology that relies on qualitative data-collection techniques, including reflections written by female undergraduates, informal conversations with these undergraduates, observational fieldnotes of classroom activities and a research journal. Relying on a social understanding of literacy, collected data are thematically analysed to examine how students view their experiences in this academic literacy event. Three major themes are highlighted in this study in relation to students’ experiences with this event: topic choice, fear and anxiety and the gains and losses associated with learning to prepare and make short presentations in English. Discussion sheds light on the impact of these experiences on the identity positions that learners develop and negotiate to participate in this event. It also highlights some of the challenges that mediate students’ experiences in this event and how they recognize and address these challenges. The study draws attention to the need for more in-depth, qualitative research to examine academic literacy events in tertiary education in which learners’ voices are brought to light to explore the situated nature of learning and its impact on learners.

Literacy Events and Literacy Practices: A Critical Discourse Study of Intersection of Class, Gender and Literacy in Pakistan

This article attempts to examine some of the literacy practices in middle class youth of Pakistan over 18 years of age and determine the relationship between literacies, gender and particular middle class social practices. Young men and women of Pakistan acquire multiple literacies depending upon different social institutions they find themselves in and different discourses they are exposed to during course of their lives. These social institutions in turn shape their outlook and mould them into desired individuals. The literacies which have been identified in the current research include school literacies, home literacies, leisure time literacies, oral literacies, media literacies, religious literacies and communication channels related literacies. In order to achieve its ends, this research analyzes discourse samples of students of the Department of English, Bahauddin Zakariya University, Multan which were collected using qualitative methods of open-ended questionnaire and case studies. The questionnaire was conducted with 16 research participants (8 male and 8 female students). The findings have been discussed with case studies of two research participants (1 male and 1 female).

Learning to Present in English: Exploring the Voices of Preparatory-Year Female Undergraduates in Saudi Arabia

This study examines how a group of students enrolled in preparatory year program at a Saudi university describe their experiences while engaging with a specific literacy event, i.e. oral presentations in an English as a Foreign Language classroom. It adopts a case study methodology that relies on qualitative data-collection techniques, including reflections written by female undergraduates, informal conversations with these undergraduates, observational fieldnotes of classroom activities and a research journal. Relying on a social understanding of literacy, collected data are thematically analysed to examine how students view their experiences in this academic literacy event. Three major themes are highlighted in this study in relation to students’ experiences with this event: topic choice, fear and anxiety and the gains and losses associated with learning to prepare and make short presentations in English. Discussion sheds light on the impact of these experiences on the identity positions that learners develop and negotiate to participate in this event. It also highlights some of the challenges that mediate students’ experiences in this event and how they recognize and address these challenges. The study draws attention to the need for more in-depth, qualitative research to examine academic literacy events in tertiary education in which learners’ voices are brought to light to explore the situated nature of learning and its impact on learners.

Using written task answer sheets as notes while speaking: changing task-report practices in a second language book club

The current study extends upon recent Conversation Analysis research on literacy events in second language (L2) educational settings. The study investigates the use of task answers as notes in an L2 book club member’s task report practices, including how he looks for things to say, how he chooses to read aloud, and how his task-report practices change over time with explicit instruction. Specifically, this case study shows how a facilitator’s specific instruction to not use task answers as notes during second orientation works as a catalyst for the L2 student to move from heavy to less reliance on his written answers to complete his task report. The findings offer insights into the way the student uses his task answer sheets as an affordance for managing an L2 task and how his changing task-report practices with the textual resource better meet the institutional agenda, one of which is to provide a venue for members to practice English as a second language.