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‘The toys you sleep with’: Embracing otherwise literacies in early childhood wor(l)ds J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2024-04-12 Giovanna Caetano-Silva, Fernando Guzmán-Simón, Eduardo García-Jiménez
Early childhood literacy is pervaded by dominant discourses telling children both what to say, how to say it, and what is worthy of adults' attention. These discourses are affected by the need to constantly see language through solely representational accounts, and children as still progressing, developing and becoming literate while excluding the strong presence of more-than-humans and the diverse
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Drama during story time supports preschoolers’ understanding of story character feeling states J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Lauren van Huisstede, Scott C Marley, Katie A Bernstein, Melissa Pierce-Rivera, Annette Schmidt, Jenny Millinger, Michael F Kelley, Maria Adelaida Restrepo, Cristal Vargas Cesario
Inference generation, an emerging skill in preschool-aged children, is critical for story comprehension and often requires instruction and practice to develop. Drama-based instruction (DBI) is a promising strategy for supporting preschool students’ inferencing skills, emotion understanding, and overall story comprehension. The current study examined the effects of a DBI story time intervention on preschool
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Book Review: Consumable reading and children’s literature: Food, taste and material interactions J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2024-03-23 Natalia I. Kucirkova
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Exploring the value of family shared reading with young people who have Profound and Multiple Learning Disabilities (PMLD) J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2024-02-20 Lauran Doak
Shared reading with young children is promoted as good practice in national and international policy. Existing literature explores cognitive and developmental benefits of family shared reading for young, typically developing children, but much less is known about benefits for young people with learning disabilities. Additionally, the analysis of ‘benefit’ is often cast in economic terms to society
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Such tiny signs on a piece of paper. Engagement with language and literacy in a multilingual preschool class J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2023-05-11 Helle Pia Laursen, Line Møller Daugaard
Drawing on recent literacy research that foregrounds affect and space, we trace the creation of an early literacy learning space as it emerges through a group conversation between a preschool class...
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‘But dragons don’t exist, do they?’: Preschoolers’ focus in determining whether a picturebook is a non-fiction or not J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2023-04-20 Anna Backman
Preschoolers are offered few opportunities to become acquainted with non-fiction books, and when they are given the possibility to read non-fiction picturebooks, these are often fictionalised in on...
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The meaning-making in kindergarten children’s visual narrative compositions J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2023-03-07 Sylvia Pantaleo
During a 10-week classroom-based study in a school in western Canada, 17 Kindergarten children had multiple opportunities to learn about how elements of visual art, design and layout in picturebook...
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Children’s digital play as collective family resilience in the face of the pandemic J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2023-02-28 Anne Burke, Kristiina Kumpulainen, Caighlan Smith
In this article we explore how digital play as conducted through various social media and online meeting platforms facilitated resiliency and confidence building in children during the COVID-19 pan...
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Encountering the world with voice search: A young immigrant and emergent bilingual child’s digital literacies J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2023-02-28 Yeojoo Yoon
This article explores a 4-year-old recent immigrant and emergent bilingual child’s encounter with voice search technology to understand how assemblages among a young immigrant child, his voice, his...
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Early literacy experiences of two children during Covid-19 lockdown in South Africa: A semi- ethnographic study J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2023-02-03 Sibhekinkosi Anna Nkomo, Xoliswa Patience Magxala, Nicholas Lebopa
As the world came to grips with the coronavirus diseases (COVID-19), educational institutions and the society at large faced the challenge of figuring out how to continue with teaching and learning...
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Children’s spaces in pages: Examining spatiality in COVID-19-themed children’s books J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-12-19 Aireen Grace Andal
This article examines spatiality in selected children’s books about COVID-19. Spatiality is an important lens because the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis related to distancing and mobility restric...
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Playing the story: Learning with young Children’s in/visible composing collaborations in outdoor narrative play J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-12-06 Kimberly Lenters, Ronna Mosher, Jennifer MacDonald
In this article, we examine young children’s narrative play as posthuman, collaborative composing assemblages. Thinking with Tsing (2015), we re/consider collaboration as that which benefits from c...
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Morning circle as a community of practice: Co-teachers’ transmodality in a dual language bilingual education preschool classroom J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-12-02 Sabrina F Sembiante, Alain Bengochea, Mileidis Gort
To understand how verbal, visual, and actional modalities serve dual language bilingual education instruction and learning in the preschool activity of Morning Circle (MC), we ask: (a) What is the ...
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Emancipating early childhood literacy curricula: Pro-Black teaching in K-3 classrooms J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-11-10 Eliza Braden, Gloria Boutte, Kamania Wynter-Hoyte, Susi Long, Catharine Aitken, Saudah Collins, Jennipher Frazier, Edith Gamble, Lindsay Hall, Stephanie Hodge, Caitlyn McDonald, Ashanda Merritt, Sabina Mosso-Taylor, Kyanna Samuel, Christina Stout, Jennifer Tafel, Takenya Warren, Jacqui Witherspoon
The legacy of colonization includes stereotypes and misinformation about African and African descendant people as well as a void in an understanding the vast contributions of precolonial Africa to ...
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Who will remember?: Racial identity and civil rights literature for black children at Freedom School J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-11-08 Rebekah E Piper, Tambra O Jackson
Within Freedom Schools, the intellectual identities of academic achievement and success for Black children are fostered with positive cultural identity and social action as the foundation. This is ...
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Identifying anti-Blackness and committing to Pro-Blackness in early literacy pedagogy and research: A guide for child care settings, schools, teacher preparation programs, and researchers J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-10-27 Kamania Wynter-Hoyte, Eliza Braden, Gloria Boutte, Susi Long, Meir Muller
This article is written for educators who serve as teachers, administrators, policy-makers in childcare settings, schools, classrooms, teacher preparation programs, programs that prepare educationa...
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Prioritizing Pro-Blackness in literacy research, scholarship, and teaching J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-10-25 Gloria Swindler Boutte, Catherine Compton-Lilly
Against the backdrop of endemic anti-Black racism in Early Childhood literacy, we frame these special issues using Pro-Blackness as an antidote in early childhood classrooms. Pro-Black does note co...
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Awakening the essence of classroom community building J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-10-20 Melanie M Acosta, Paul Woodard
In continuing the legacy of community-mindedness, good Black educators today consistently enact emancipatory pedagogies designed to protect Black children’s personhood. Cultivating community in the...
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“But there is a God”: Teaching Black civic barometers and curricular bodies in early childhood education J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-10-20 Marcus W Johnson
This study set out to gain a deeper understanding of how early childhood students, specifically Black boys in first- and second-grade, would respond to the teaching of historical figures and events...
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Family learning and working in lockdown: Navigating crippling fear and euphoric joy to support children’s literacy J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-10-02 Lorna Arnott, Laura Teichert
This paper offers a nuanced perspective of two families’ lockdown literacy journies with their young children during the COVID 19 pandemic. We present informal home learning examples stimulated by ...
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Towards a model of word reading acquisition in children from low income backgrounds J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-09-17 Maria E Porta
The present study examined a six-component theoretical model of word reading acquisition in 449 Spanish-speaking children from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Measures of phonological awareness (PA)...
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Katy transforms storytime: Culturally sustaining pedagogy in the community J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-09-08 Wenjie Wang, Rhianna Thomas, Betsy Cahill
The increasingly diverse population of young children in the U.S. requires innovative culturally and linguistically sustaining literacy practices in early childhood education. Through parent-child ...
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Valuing and supporting the complex writing processes of emergent writers J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-09-05 Melinda Zurcher, Angela Stefanski
This collective case study sought to investigate the distinctive writing processes and productions of young writers within the space of a writers’ workshop. Based on video-taped observations, field...
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From stories at bedtime to a love of reading: Parental practices and beliefs About reading with infants J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-09-03 Suzanne M Egan, Mary Moloney, Jennifer Pope, Deirdre Breatnach, Clara Hoyne
Although it is well established that reading with young children supports early language and literacy development, few studies have focused on the importance of parental beliefs about reading with ...
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Prison abolition literacies as Pro-Black pedagogy in early childhood education J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-09-02 Nathaniel Bryan, Rachel McMillian, Keith LaMar
The prison abolition movement has brought attention to the American carceral crisis, or better yet, the mass incarceration and disproportionate criminalization of Black people in America. It has al...
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Conducting racial awareness research with African American children: Unearthing their sociopolitical knowledge through Pro-Black literacy methods J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-09-02 Wintre Foxworth Johnson
Black children around the globe develop and learn in persistently racist environments. Decades of early racial awareness research primarily center on the development of young children’s self-esteem...
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Centering Black Women’s ways of knowing: A review of critical literacies research in early childhood J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-08-26 Francheska D. Starks
In the most recent edition of the Handbook of Reading Research, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas and colleagues (2020) identify the need to recontextualize critical literacy pedagogy and research in ways that center Black and Indigenous communities. Although critical literacy has a rich tradition in emancipatory work (e.g. Freire, 1996), Thomas et al. argue for the need to begin elsewhere, with the knowledge
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“They never told us that black is beautiful”: Fostering Black Joy and Pro-blackness pedagogies in early childhood classrooms J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-08-19 Michelle Grace Williams
Black Art in various forms has long been used by people in the African Diaspora to promote Black joy and Pro-Blackness yet it is often not included in language and literacy to early childhood pedagogies to uplift Black children in North American schools. Likewise, many anti-racist Early Childhood research studies focus on the challenges faced by Black people with little emphasis on Black joy and Pro-Black
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@Home collective(ly): Opening doors and doing books with literacy-cast J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-08-17 Christy Wessel‐Powell, Beth A Buchholz, Jason DeHart, Elizabeth M Frye, Devery Ward, Sarah Vander Zanden, Elizabeth Campbell
Although isolating, lockdown also created unexpected opportunities for connection and inspiration. This article describes the lockdown literacies of a sibling pair, Marco and Mara, as they wrote di...
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Playing Minecraft: Young children’s postdigital play J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-08-15 Kenneth Pettersen, Hans Christian Arnseth, Kenneth Silseth
New sociomaterial and performative directions in literacy research on digital technologies and play in early childhoods may complicate the established concept of digital play. This study contribute...
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“You need to learn the spelling”: Playing, teaching, and learning of trilingual siblings with refugee backgrounds J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-08-13 Aijuan Cun
Though a limited amount of literature has examined the family literacy practices of students with refugee backgrounds in the United States, little research has focused on play and conversations of Burmese siblings with refugee backgrounds. Drawing upon theoretical perspectives from new literacy studies, Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory, and Gregory’s concept of synergy, this qualitative study explores
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“The dinosaurs are so loud; they can’t sleep. Zzzz”: Supporting emergent bilingual children’s reading comprehension through digital literacies J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-08-11 Sally Brown, Ling Hao, Rong Zhang
As classrooms worldwide become diverse, the ways teachers engage children in literacy learning must be inclusive to accommodate the multitude of languages spoken. Multimodal literacy practices using digital tools provide innovative opportunities for emergent bilinguals to express their meaning-making processes. This paper details a year-long investigation into the multimodal literacy practices of eight
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‘School is light and we are blind’: Afghan refugee parents’/guardians’ beliefs about literacy and language(s) J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-07-07 Assadullah Sadiq
This article examines four Afghan refugee parents/guardians in Islamabad, Pakistan for their beliefs about literacy and language(s). Semi-structured interviews with each parent/guardian showed that they all highly valued reading and writing as essential life skills. However, while they viewed literacy as having instrumental value, they also strongly believed it shaped and developed a person morally
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Literacy learning in infant-toddler programs: Practice architectures as a lens for examining educator pedagogy J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-07-04 Elizabeth Rouse, Maria Nicholas
The ‘schoolification’ of early childhood education and care programs, seen as readying children for formalised schooling, has had an impact on the education of younger and younger age groups. While the focus of past research has mainly focused on 4-5-year-old children, this study shifts the focus to two-three-year-old children and the literacy focus of educators working with these very young children
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The home literacy environment as a venue for fostering bilingualism and biliteracy: The case of an Ethio-Norwegian bilingual family in oslo, Norway J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-06-21 Kassahun Weldemariam
Numerous studies indicate that the language and literacy development of young children is highly contingent upon the construction of an enriching home literacy environment. Using sociocultural theory as a framework, in this article I explore how a bilingual child’s language and literacy acquisition is embedded as a social practice within the home literacy environment of everyday life. Drawing on data
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In their own words: Parents’ voices about a book-provision program J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-06-15 Cristina Gillanders, Meytal Barak
Book distribution or book provision programs that provide free books to families with young children have become increasingly popular approaches to promote home literacy practices. This qualitative study aimed to understand parents’ perceptions of the implementation of a book provision program and its impact on their families’ literacy practices and behaviors. Forty-three parents participated in twelve
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The elevation of Black Girls’ hair: An analysis of visual representations in Children’s picturebooks J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-05-22 Reka C Barton, Darielle Blevins, Marva Cappello
This article utilizes Black girlhood as a framework in a critical multimodal qualitative inquiry to explore the complexities of representations of Black girls’ hair, in picturebooks. Using a data corpus of 55 picturebooks published between 2010–2020, the authors analyzed the multimodal messages embedded in the initial introductions of Black girl protagonists. The findings suggest that contemporary
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School quality matters: A multilevel analysis of school effects on the early reading achievement of Black girls J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-05-15 Jemimah L Young, Inna N Dolzhenko
Early reading achievement is essential for all children’s development and future success. However, U.S. schools continue to under prepare Black children in early literacy, as evidenced by disparate outcomes observed for this population of learners. The under preparation of Black students is problematic, given the strong negative correlation between early reading proficiency and high school graduation
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Finding Max’s wolves: Literacy socialization in the margins J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-05-13 Ava Becker-Zayas
For decades, language and literacy scholars working within a sociocultural framework have laboured to bring attention to the strengths of marginalized students in an effort to create more inclusive and equitable learning environments (e.g., Cummins, 2000; Dyson, 1997; González et al., 2005; Heath, 1983). While this work has moved the field forward in invaluable ways, it has not consistently engaged
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Agency in a first-grade writing workshop: A case study of two composers J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Danielle Rylak, Lindsey Moses, Carolina Torrejón Capurro, Frank Serafini
There is a need to better understand the agentic choices that students make to communicate meaning through their multimodal compositions. Utilizing a case study approach, this article examines the composing of two first-grade students and discusses how these students utilized multimodal composing techniques from structured writing units during an “open unit” where students were given wider parameters
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Exploring literacy engagement in a significant disability context J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-05-05 Usree Bhattacharya, Wisnu A Pradana
This study tackles the question: how is literacy engagement enacted in the context of significant disability? We delve into the complex literacy practices of Kalika, a three-year-old child with Rett syndrome, a rare neurodevelopmental disorder, to elucidate how she engages with printed text. Rett syndrome leads to near total loss of verbal communication and limited functional hand use, making it particularly
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Early childhood educators as language teachers: Preschool teachers’ understanding of language learning and language use J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-05-03 Joanna Cichocka
This article discusses a research study that involves five preschool teachers working in linguistically diverse classrooms. It focuses on how these teachers’ beliefs regarding language teaching and learning have emerged from their own experiences, and how they affect their understanding of their work. The study draws on the concept of plurilingualism and, to explore what the participants think, know
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Cognitively challenging talk during shared reading: Effects of parent gender, child gender and relations with story comprehension J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-04-29 Roel van Steensel, Brenda Gouw, Saskia Liefers, Tessa van Aspert
Although research on the home literacy environment and its impact on early literacy has long focused on mothers, the past decade has seen a shift in scholarly attention to the role of fathers. Building on this shift, we examined whether the nature of parent–child interactions during shared storybook reading varies with parent gender, child gender and the interaction between the two, and we analysed
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Book Review: Arts Integration in Diverse K-5 Classrooms: Cultivating Literacy Skills and Conceptual Understanding. By Liane Brouillette J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-04-26 Tara Concannon-Gibney
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‘That’s my dumb husband’: Wild things, battle bears and heteronormative responses in an afterschool reading club J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-04-17 Rachel Skrlac Lo, Angela Wiseman
In this paper, we analyse a group of 6 and 7 year olds’ interactions during a literacy event. We explore the complexities of their meaning-making following a read aloud of Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak 1963). Our focus is on discourses of gender/sex/uality, a term that acknowledges the complex relationship between gender, sex and sexuality, and how these discourses are enacted. Our guiding question
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Exploring young children’s argumentation as a heuristic intertextual practice J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-03-29 Huili Hong, Qijie Cai, Min Wang
Argumentation is a fundamental communicative ability that children develop over time through formal schooling and daily practice with peers and family members. Literature on children's argumentation appears to have focused on their social interactions out of school, clinical environment, or informal pedagogic contexts. Even though there are research inquiries into children’s argumentation in formal
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The effects of e-stories on preschoolers’ narrative comprehension, retelling and reading attitudes among poor and good comprehenders J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Dilek Altun
Previous studies have presented discrepant findings of e-stories’ contribution to children’s narrative comprehension, which can be attributed to not only the variation of multimedia features among studies but also to learner and text features. The main goal of the present study was to expand understanding of the effect of e-stories on children’s narrative skills and reading attitudes for poor and good
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Iranian Preschoolers Vocabulary Development: Background Television and Socio-economic status J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-02-28 Mohamad Reza Farangi, Saeed Mehrpour
Children’s early language development is under the influence of several positive and negative factors including television as an input source and family’s socio-economic status. Considering that, this study investigated the effects of these variables on children’s vocabulary development using a quasi-experimental design. To this end, 60 Iranian children, 30 from high and 30 from low socio-economic
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Creating opportunities to read and build fluency at home J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-02-09 Alisa Hindin, Lilly Steiner
The purpose of this study was to examine the outcomes of a home-based, repeated reading intervention in which texts are matched to children’s school-based instructional reading level. Results indicated that across the five cases, improvements were evident in reading accuracy, rate, and fluency for the take-home texts and all participants’ instructional reading levels increased during the intervention
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Children’s language play as collaborative improvisations–rethinking paths to literacy J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-01-31 Lars Holm, Annegrethe Ahrenkiel
Inspired by research in language play and linguistic ethnography, this article examines children’s language play in early childhood education and care (ECEC) as a locally situated generic practice created through children’s semiotic repertoires. The article is based on video-recorded linguistic ethnographic fieldwork in a Danish day care centre. By analysing two play sequences with 3–4 year old children
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Book Review: Research methods for early childhood education J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-01-13 Eliza Braden
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In memoriam Michele Knobel, PhD (1966–2021) J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2022-01-03 Guy Merchant
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From story to book: Discourse analysis between teacher and student in the creation of a culturally relevant text J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-12-31 Anna Jennerjohn
Lack of representation of children from nondominant cultural and linguistic backgrounds continues to be problematic in children’s literature, and especially within early literacy texts for beginning readers. One remedy is for children to tell their own stories through the language experience approach, which can then be printed into culturally relevant texts and used for beginning reading material in
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‘Like, I’m playing, but with this’. Materialization and affect in early childhood literacy J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-12-31 Fernando Guzmán-Simón, Alejandra Pacheco-Costa
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
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Book Reviews: Working with young children in museums: Weaving theory and practice J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-12-21 Yanlin Chen,Jennifer Parker Monger,Karen Wohlwend
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‘Look, my name! I can write’ – Literacy events and digital technology in the preschool atelier J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-12-21 Lena O Magnusson
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
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Daniel R Meier, Supporting Literacies for Children of Color: A Strength-Based Approach to Preschool Literacy J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-11-24 Aliza Salvador
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The literacy-enhancing potential of singing versus spoken language in public library storytimes: A text analytics approach J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-10-09 Soohyung Joo, Maria Cahill, Erin Ingram, Hayley Hoffman, Amy Olson, Kun Lu
Through analysis of the language, this study aimed to investigate the current practice of using songs in public library storytimes. Language interactions in 68 storytime programs involving 652 child participants were observed and transcribed. Then, textual analysis was conducted to examine the language of singing songs, focusing on how language used in singing songs differs from spoken language in
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Special issue series (two issues) of the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-10-05 Guy Merchant
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“WE LOST THE PLADO”: Tracing privileged school literacies in one kindergarten classroom J. Early Child. Lit. (IF 2.227) Pub Date : 2021-09-22 Daniel E Ferguson
Drawing from a network case study, this article traces enactments of a letter writing enquiry in one Kindergarten public school classroom in New York City, and in doing so, explores both the affordances and limitations of sociomaterial approaches employed by the researcher towards school literacies. Looking down at one morning meeting revealed rotting pumpkins, playdough, pocket charts and cheese sandwiches