Research on the relationship between literacy and play has a rich history. Yet few studies have examined children's use of spontaneous play during literacy events as children are learning to read and write. This case study examines the use of play and the quality of playfulness in a kindergarten/first grade multiage classroom during Writer's…

This article uses multiple theoretical perspectives to understand the synergy that occurs between linguistically diverse parents and children during reading interactions. Through the detailed analysis of code-switching during book-sharing activities in a middle-class, bilingual home, we can observe how linguistically diverse parents support the…

This article reports a multi-method evaluation of a one-year small-scale preschool family literacy programme with bilingual Pakistani-origin families in the UK. The programme was implemented mostly through home visits and included provision of literacy resources, some postal communication and group meetings. The study was conducted in…

Sharing storybooks with babies increases their future achievements in literacy, especially in reading (Hall, 2001; Moore and Wade, 1997, 2003; Scarborough et al., 1991; Wade and Moore, 1998; Wells, 1985). This study, focusing on case studies of two 20-month-old children, attempts to identify the role the storybook plays in children's vocabulary…

This article hones what is meant by "emergent comprehension". The authors define emergent comprehension as the period when young children, prior to conventional reading, engage in meaningful experiences that stimulate the development and use of meaning-making strategies with potential to affect later reading comprehension. The construct "emergent…

In this article, I explore the role of semiotic import (Van Leeuwen, 2005) in the composing processes of three bilingual students (six to seven years old) emerging as writers of English. Using social semiotic (Van Leeuwen, 2005) and design (New London Group, 2000) frameworks, I trace a qualitative "micro-history" of how the students imported…

The study purpose was to describe parent-child engagement and parental guidance of children's participation in literacy-related activities at home. Of the 37 families who participated in a home-based multimethod assessment of storybook reading and play activities, 13 were considered low income. The children's mean age was 60 months. Parents read…

How do primary students construct understandings of the opposite sex? In what ways do these constructions manifest in the visual texts created in literacy and language arts classrooms? Using visual discourse analysis (Albers, 2007) and scheme analysis (Sonesson, 1988) as interpretive methods, we analyzed the visual texts created by 23 third grade…

This article examines the relationship between children's talk in the classroom and their multimodal texts. The article uses an analytic framework derived from Bourdieu's concept of habitus to examine how 6-7-year-old children's regular ways of being and doing can be found in their multimodal texts together with their talk (Bourdieu, 1977, 1990).…

Semiotic work is principled engagement in the making of meaning. The semiotic work of school-based learning entails interpretation and expression framed by the curriculum and the social practices of the classroom, and realized multimodally in diverse pedagogic interactions and activities. Micro-examination of the relationship between a teacher's…

This article reports on aspects of a small-scale study conducted in the south of England that explored the learning experiences of three four-year-old children with identified special educational needs, who attended a combination of early education settings--one "more special" and one "more inclusive" (Nind et al., 2007). The article reflects on…

In this article, semiotic analysis of children's practices and designs with video game conventions considers how children use play and drawing as spatializing literacies that make room to import imagined technologies and user identities. Microanalysis of video data of classroom interactions collected during a three year ethnographic study of…

This article argues for the development of a framework through which to describe children's multimodal texts. Such a shared discourse should be capable of including different modes and media and the ways in which children integrate and combine them for their own meaning-making purposes. It should also acknowledge that multimodal texts are not…

This article investigates the intersection between the in-school information literacy practices and out-of-school (i.e. home and community) information literacy practices of a third grade student and examines how this intersection may be contributing to his overall literacy learning. Data collected from field notes; observations of in-school and…

This article examines the writing of three Grade 3 students and discusses how these girls drew upon their symbolic tools, specifically those developed as a result of their experiences with particular kinds of texts. The students were participants in a multifaceted study that explored Grades 3 and 4 students' understandings of and responses to…