Deborah Wells Rowe

AUTHOR/AUDIENCE INTERACTION IN THE PRESCHOOL: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL INTERACTION IN LITERACY LEARNING

This study investigated the role of social interaction in the literacy learning of twenty-one 3- and 4-year-olds. Over a period of 8 months, data were collected at a classroom writing center using the ethnographic techniques of participant/observation, field notes, collection of written texts, audio and video tape. Patterns in the data indicated that author/audience conversation occurring as children completed self-selected literacy activities encouraged them to (a) activate, confirm/disconfirm, and revise their existing hypotheses about literacy; (b) form new literacy knowledge; (c) become audiences for their own texts; (d) internalize the audiences perspective and use this information to plan texts for absent audiences; (e) experience literacy activities beyond their independent abilities; and (f) with their teachers, build shared understandings about literacy. Overall, the findings indicate that childrens self-selected literacy activities are rich contexts for literacy learning, and that social interaction, as part of these events, provides the predictable context and motivation for literacy learning, as well as influencing the kinds of literacy strategies children internalize and use independently.

Designing for diverse classrooms: Using iPads and digital cameras to compose eBooks with emergent bilingual/biliterate four-year-olds

This paper reports the findings of a two-year design study exploring instructional conditions supporting emerging, bilingual/biliterate, four-year-olds’ digital composing. With adult support, children used child-friendly, digital cameras and iPads equipped with writing, drawing and bookmaking apps to compose multimodal, multilingual eBooks containing photos, child-produced drawings, writing and voice recordings. Children took digital cameras home, and home photos were loaded onto the iPads for bookmaking. In Year 1, eBook activities successfully supported children’s multimodal composing. Children used similar writing forms on the page and screen, and explored the keyboard as an option for writing. Children used digital images as anchors for conversation and composing, and produced oral recordings extending and elaborating written messages. However, most dual-language recordings were created by Spanish-English bilinguals, with speakers of other languages rarely composing in their heritage languages. In Year 2, we redesigned eBook events to better support all children as multimodal, multilingual composers. Revised eBook activities included multilingual, demonstration eBooks containing all the children’s languages, with translations by bilingual adults known to the children. Beginning early in the school year, these eBooks were publicly shared in large group activities. The results showed that all emergent bilingual/biliterate children created dual-language recordings for their eBooks in Year 2. We concluded that: (a) the ability to integrate photos and voice recordings with print and drawings provided new opportunities for learning and teaching not available in page-based composing; (b) the affordances of iPads for children’s learning were shaped by local language and literacy practices.

The Development of a Descriptive Measure of Early Childhood Writing: Results From the Write Start! Writing Assessment.

This study describes the development of an observational tool, the Write Start! Writing Assessment, created to provide descriptive information on four features of preschoolers’ writing: forms, directional patterns, intentionality (ways of assigning meaning to marks), and message content. Observational categories were generated from a review of research and then refined through constant-comparative analysis of the writing of 139 low-income, African American children aged 2:6 to 5:11. Children participated in the study from 1 to 3 years. Fall and spring writing samples were collected as children responded to a standard task asking them to write a photo caption. Cross-sectional analyses across seven age bands show the range and relative frequencies of writing categories. A wide range of normal variation was observed within age groups. Growth curve analyses confirmed that children showed significant change in all four writing features over the preschool years. Data from a subsample of 10 children were analyzed longitudinally over 3 years to triangulate findings. Although children moved toward more conventional writing, inter-individual variability in initial starting points and pacing of transitions into more advanced categories was observed for all four writing features. Intra-individual variability was observed in back and forth movement between less and more advanced writing performances, concurrent use of multiple hypotheses, and differential development of the four writing features. The authors conclude that the descriptive information provided by Write! Start! measure provides a starting point for differentiation of instruction for young writers.

The Affordances of Touchscreen Tablets and Digital Cameras as Tools for Young Children’s Multimodal, Multilingual Composing

This chapter describes two related studies exploring the use of touchscreen tablets and digital cameras as a means for creating a “third space” where intercultural sharing and multilingual composing was invited and valued as part of classroom literacy events. Specifically, we used design-based research methods to develop, implement, and refine activities where children used digital cameras and touchscreen tablets to take photos at school, home, and in their communities, and then to use the images in the classroom for composing their own eBooks. Participants in Study 1 were 4-year-old, emergent bilinguals enrolled in a publicly funded prekindergarten classroom in the United States. Study 2 participants were multilingual second graders enrolled in the same school district. Analyses focus on children’s, teachers’, and families’ experiences composing with print, photographs and oral recordings, and publicly sharing their eBooks using the classroom’s digital projector. We conclude that touchscreen tablets and digital cameras afforded our participants with powerful opportunities for multimodal, multilingual composing that went well beyond those available in page-based activities. The multidirectional travel of digital tools between home and school encouraged students, families, and teachers to select and combine resources drawn from a complex circulation of interests, cultural experiences, languages, and composing practices. The affordances of digital technologies were collaboratively constructed and shaped by the ideologies and interactive practices of the classrooms, homes, and communities where they were placed.