Literacy researchers often include young children in the research process. Yet discussions about the complexities of gaining and keeping assent are often missing in research reports. In this paper, we report on our attempts to make the assent process, a typical requirement for Institutional Review Boards, an educative experience for children in a…

One of the tensions in conducting participatory literacy research with young children is finding the balance between protection and voice. In this paper, we describe how we sought to create participant-centred research techniques within the evolving design of a yearlong action research study with kindergarten students. Through weekly classroom…