Giuliana Pinto

‘A day in the life’: advancing a methodology for the cultural study of development and learning in early childhood

This paper explores the methodology of an ecological investigation of aspects of culture in the interactional construction of early childhood in diverse global communities: Peru, Italy, Canada, Thailand, and the United Kingdom. Regarding culture as a dynamic dimension of the child’s socialisation, the approach taken was to film a ‘day in the life’ of a two‐and‐a‐half‐year‐old girl in each location. The principal investigators viewed these five ‘days’ and selected clips were made into a compilation tape, to be interrogated and interpreted by the local investigators and the child’s family. These latter reflections were also taped and then applied to a growing appreciation of the child in cultural context. Other inter‐researcher techniques were used to elucidate and explore events and values further. Reflexive concerns as to the interplay between aims and methods in interpretive research are critical components of this endeavour to develop new cultural understandings of the girls in context.

Theory of Mind and Language of Mind in Narratives: Developmental Trends from Kindergarten to Primary School.

Narrative competence can be considered an indicator of children’s knowledge about other people’s minds. The present study investigates the relations between, on the one hand, children’s narrative competence and their second order language of mind (comprehension of deception) and, on the other, their developmental trends from kindergarten to primary school. Participants in the study included 142 Italian-speaking children (63 attending their last year in kindergarten and 79 attending first grade in primary school). Children were given a narrative task containing a deception. The ability to detect and comprehend deception increased significantly from kindergarten to primary school. Regression analyses showed that narrative competence influences the comprehension of deception. Findings confirm the importance of narratives as a research tool and the possibility to use mental language to assess different levels of theory of mind mastery.

The relationship between oral and written narratives: A three-year longitudinal study of narrative cohesion, coherence, and structure.

BACKGROUND The relationship between oral language and the writing process at early acquisition stages and the ways the former can enhance or limit the latter has not been researched extensively. AIMS The predictive relationship between kindergarten oral narrative competence and the first- and second-grade written narrative competence was explored in a 3-year longitudinal study. Among the first and second graders, the relationship between orthographic competence and narrative competence in written productions was also analysed. SAMPLE One hundred and nine Italian children participated in this study. MEASURES Kindergarteners produced an oral narrative, whereas the first and second graders produced a written narrative. The oral and written narratives were analysed in terms of cohesion, coherence, and structure. The first-grade orthographic competence was assessed via a dictation task. RESULTS Multiple linear regression and mediational analyses were performed. Kindergarten oral narrative competence affected the first- and second-grade written narrative competence via a mediational effect of orthographic competence. CONCLUSION The results suggest the importance of practicing oral narrative competence in kindergarten and first grade and the value of composition quality independent of orthographic text accuracy.

Emergent Literacy and Early Writing Skills.

ABSTRACT In the present study, the authors aimed to assess the short- and long-term predictive power of the various components of an emergent literacy model on early writing abilities in a language with a mainly transparent orthography (Italian). Emergent literacy skills were assessed in 72 children (M age = 5.05 years, SD = ± .03) who were followed longitudinally from preschool to the end of the first grade of primary school. Their early writing abilities (orthographic correctness in writing individual words) and their advanced writing abilities (orthographic correctness in text writing) were tested at the beginning and at the end of the school year. Multiple stepwise and logistic regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the predictive capacities of emergent literacy abilities on early and advanced writing competences. Results show that notational competence is a strong predictor of early writing skills and that phonological competence only has an effect insofar as it is integrated with notational competence. Emergent literacy competences do not significantly predict orthographic errors in advanced text writing. This research allows for reconsideration of the importance of phonological awareness and gives a central role to notational competence in predicting early writing competence.

From scribbles to meanings: social interaction in different cultures and the emergence of young children’s early drawing

The cultural components of drawing allow one to consider it a symbolic form of cultural communication. The behavioural and cognitive mechanisms involved in the cultural transmission of symbolic communications are situated in an environment embedded in cultural–historical features that should be taken into account, as they give rise to variations in socio‐cultural practices. The aim of the present paper is to provide evidence of a range of different pathways through which the acquisition of drawing emerges in divergent cultural contexts. This work stems from the international Day in the Life (DITL) project. From the DITL dataset countries, we show how family members in seven (in Thailand, Peru, Italy, Canada, the UK, the USA, and Turkey) expose their 30‐month‐old child to opportunities for experiencing drawing. We focus on the way the children are given the opportunity to draw, their spontaneous uptake, and on the different modalities through which they discover relationships between drawings and the objects they represent. In the different interactions observed, we confirm the omnipresence of situations that child development research has identified as promising for drawing‐skill development. In all contexts, drawing materials, shared child–adult attention, dyadic asymmetrical relationships, and reciprocal involvements are found to be present.

Evaluating the Predictive Impact of an Emergent Literacy Model on Dyslexia in Italian Children A Four-Year Prospective Cohort Study

The strong differences in manifestation, prevalence, and incidence in dyslexia across languages invite studies in specific writing systems. In particular, the question of the role played by emergent literacy in opaque and transparent writing systems remains a fraught one. This research project tested, through a 4-year prospective cohort study, an emergent literacy model for the analysis of the characteristics of future dyslexic children and normally reading peers in Italian, a transparent writing system. A cohort of 450 children was followed from the last year of kindergarten to the third grade in their reading acquisition process. Dyslexic children were individuated (Grade 3), and their performances in kindergarten in textual competence, phonological awareness, and conceptual knowledge of the writing system were compared with a matched group of normally reading peers. Results showed the predictive relevance of the conceptual knowledge of the writing system. The study’s implications are discussed.

A Day in the Life: Secure Interludes With Joint Book Reading

Abstract A Day in the Life is an interdisciplinary study of thriving 2-year-old girls and their families in diverse communities around the globe. We understand development to be active participation in cultural systems of practice, and examine childrens interactions with their caregivers, other companions, and the environment. We focus upon children engaged in their everyday activities, attending to the patternings of local interactions that constitute cultural activity, as well as inter-articulations between the values and understandings shaped and reshaped in the day with those formed in dialogue among research participants. A crucial element of the project is the full participation by local investigators. Our core methodology films a day in the life of each child, tracking the child through her landscape. We have observed nurturant interactions in all settings where we collected our data: Thailand, Canada, Italy, the United Kingdom (UK), Peru, the United States (USA), and Turkey. Likewise, we have separately examined the various joint book-reading experiences of the children in those settings. In this article, we observe the bidirectional place of affect in joint book-reading episodes of children with different adult partners, and inspect the potential for such emergent literate activities to contribute to strong affective relationships between the children and family members.

Phonological devices in poems by English and Italian children

Poems were elicited from 133 English children between two and six and 171 Italian children between three and seven, using a similar technique, and the results were compared. Both groups produced large numbers of poems. There were great similarities and some differences. The majority of poems in both samples contained phonological devices (mostly rhyme and alliteration) and the proportion was higher (87%) in the Italian sample than in the English sample (59%). The proportion of poems that contained rhyme was close to 45% in each sample, with no consistent age difference in either sample. About one-third of Italian poems and just over a fifth of English poems contained alliteration. The frequency of alliteration declined with age in the English sample but not in the Italian sample. Possible reasons for the differences between the samples are considered. It is argued that the similarities are more important, and their theoretical implications are discussed.

Predicting Dyslexia in a Transparent Orthography From Grade 1 Literacy Skills: A Prospective Cohort Study

We conducted this prospective cohort study to explore the predictability of dyslexia from 1st-grade literacy skills in Italian students. We followed 407 Italian students in primary school from the 1st through the 3rd grades. Students were diagnosed with dyslexia in the 3rd grade. We retrospectively tested participants’ 1st-grade performance in phonological awareness, reading, and spelling as predictors through a binary logistic regression analysis. The data confirmed that it was possible to detect dyslexic students from the 1st grade from reading and spelling performance, but phonological awareness was not predictive.

Where is my attention? Children’s metaknowledge expressed through drawings

The aim of the present research is to assess the developmental pattern of the metacognitive knowledge of attention in Italian primary school students. Data were collected from 95 pupils divided into two age groups: the first (6–8 years) and second primary school cycles (8–10 years). The children were asked to perform two specific thematic drawings on attention vs inattention in the school context. The drawings were coded on the basis of the Children’s Awareness of Attention through Drawing, consisting of five scales which explore the behavioural, pragmatic, cognitive, emotional and social awareness of attention. The analysis of the thematic drawings reveals that from the early years of primary school, children are aware of some components of attention: behavioural awareness, pragmatic awareness and social awareness. Other components are instead acquired as of the age of eight.