ERIC Number: EJ1157760
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 13
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1350-4622
EISSN: N/A
Readers as Place-Makers: The Experience of Place in the Literacy Life-Worlds of Middle Childhood
Fischer, Sarah
Environmental Education Research, v23 n10 p1476-1488 2017
This study explored five adults' experiences of place within their middle childhood literacy life-worlds. Middle childhood, the stage of development in which children often acquire reading independence, is also characterized by significant increases in children's geographic accessibility and independence. The findings propose that in the literacy life-worlds of middle childhood, readers' experiences of place can be characterized as "Repositioning" (instances in which participants saw themselves differently in relation to their physical or conceptual environments), "Transportation" (participants' sense of being imaginatively transported to a literary landscape where they could engage in new experiences), "Nesting" (the way participants manipulated their physical environment in preparation for the act of reading) and "Layering" (the means by which participants attempted to embody, in a very physical sense, a literary world by layering it on top of their immediate environment). These findings have significant implications for place-conscious literacy curricula, suggesting that children engage in dynamic transactions with out-of-school places as they enact their emerging identity as independent readers.
Descriptors: Place Based Education, Children, Childrens Literature, Literacy, Child Development, Self Concept, Reader Response, Phenomenology, Interviews, Ethnography
Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A