This qualitative study explores parents' considerations in selecting narrative picturebooks to read with their children. Participants included 104 middle-socioeconomic status parents (84 mothers, 20 fathers) of young children (51 boys, 53 girls; M[subscript age] = 61.26, SD = 9.52). We presented parents with two translated children's books whose…

Children's life experiences can position their exploration of global cultural communities within early childhood classrooms. Some early childhood educators, however, are concerned that many young children do not have direct experience of global cultures and thus believe that differences between cultural practices will be confusing to young…

Previous research has demonstrated correlation between letter-naming and letter-writing fluency, and a relationship between letter-naming fluency and successful reading development. Awareness of critical features of letters has received less attention as a part of handwriting development, but it is theorized to also play a role in letter-writing…

Grounded in the perspectives of language socialization and transnational habitus, this one-year ethnographic case study explores two middle-class Chinese sojourner families' educational, bilingual and biliterate practices after their arrival in the U.S. It addresses the process that their middle childhood children experienced, from the excitement…

Pre-reading and early childhood literacy skills are important for brain development and fundamental to a child's long-term cognitive and social well-being. As such, the fostering of these skills is an important preventive health measure. Family physicians can play key roles in encouraging parents to routinely read with their children. However, in…

Autonomous motivation has long been linked to reading achievement in older students and recently has received attention for the role it plays in the achievement of younger children. Given America's nearly nationwide adoption of the Common Core State Standards (which emphasize skill acquisition), concern over whether and how reading motivation is…

The present article provides an overview of the best-selling apps for the age range of 0-8 years under various categories, including 'Kids', 'Books', 'Educational games', 'Family games' and 'Word games' in the two major application stores (Google Play and iTunes App Store) in four economically diverse European countries: Hungary, Turkey, Greece…

This paper presents findings from a study of family literacy provision in England and focuses on the effects of family literacy programmes on the home literacy environment. The fieldwork took place between September 2013 and December 2014 and involved 27 school-based programmes for pupils aged between 5 and 7, and their parents. The study used…

We examined whether eBooks for children (aged 3 to 8) available on the market can serve as a good support for language and literacy. This follows studies published 10 years ago, which showed that children's e-books are usually overloaded with multimedia effects that distract children from the storyline, and from language and literacy learning.…

Reading aloud to children is a ubiquitous practice in early childhood settings. While there are many recommendations for how educators should conduct these experiences, little research in the past decade has examined how read-alouds are actually accomplished. Using anthropological and sociological theories of learning, literacy and research, our…

This article provides a unique lens for understanding young children's poetry writing. It focuses on defamiliarization as a cultural tool and practice to engage students' imagination, playfulness, creativity and aesthetic experience into their poetry writing and to experience the world differently and aesthetically. The research aims of this…

Paradigmatic literacy features refer to ways of thinking and using language associated with academic-scientific discourse or written language. They are intimately bound up with education and appear in their emergent forms, mainly in conversations with adult partners. The present qualitative study investigates whether, and in which ways,…

Within the last decade, two large reading reform efforts have directed state and local state school reading instruction, the Reading First Initiative (2002) and the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts (2010). These initiatives have heavily shaped literacy teaching and learning with a focus on disparity reduction in literacy…

The purpose of this article is to describe higher order talk and writing about text with seven and eight year old students. Much research has been conducted with intermediate and secondary students but less is known about higher order thinking with primary grade students. Participants in this study included all second and third grade teachers and…

In the past, physical barriers such as geography and distance limited global communication. In this paper, we explore how young children in immigrant families engage in transnational literacy practices. Specifically, we explore the transnational funds of knowledge that result from those experiences. This three-year longitudinal collective case…