Jane Torr

Talking about picture books : the influence of maternal education on four-year-old children's talk with mothers and pre-school teachers

This study analyses how pre-school children who differ in terms of maternal education respond to and interpret the images and written text in the same two picture books, one informational (The sleepy book[Zolotow and Bobri, 1960]) and one narrative (The baby who wouldn’t go to bed[Cooper, 1996]). Twelve children were recorded in their homes interacting with their mothers, and 12 children were recorded in their pre-schools interacting with a teacher. There were systematic differences in the manner in which the children who were interacting with their pre-school teachers responded to the texts compared with the children who were interacting with their mothers. The pre-school teachers provided the children of early school leaving mothers with opportunities to interact with text, which differed from those provided by their mothers. Such differences were not apparent to the same extent for the children of tertiary-educated mothers.

A Comparison Between Informational and Narrative Picture Books as a Context for Reasoning Between Caregivers and 4‐year‐old Children

It is widely recognised that adult/child interactions surrounding the sharing of picture books are significant for young childrens literacy understandings (De Temple & Beals, 1991; Snow, 1993). Recently Pappas (1993) has challenged the traditional view that narratives or stories are the most appropriate vehicle for learning in young children. To date, little research has focused on whether and how the interactions surrounding picture books vary according to the genre of the book. In this study, two picture books, one narrative and one informational in style, were read to 12 four‐year‐old children. The study found that the discourse surrounding the informational book was greater in quantity, contained more cognitively demanding questions, more conditional clauses and more interactions involving reasoning and technical terminology. These findings suggest that the informational picture book has distinctive features which encourage and support children in their construction of new knowledge and patterns of r...

The Pleasure of recognition : intertextuality in the talk of preschoolers during shared reading with mothers and teachers

Mature readers draw on a complex web of previous experiences when interpreting written and visual texts. Yet very little is known about how preschool children, who cannot yet read, make connections between texts. This study explores how 13 4‐year‐old children made intertextual connections during shared reading with their mothers (seven children) and their preschool teachers (six children). The findings indicate that very young children actively draw on their knowledge of other texts, and their personal lived experiences, to reflect on the meanings they encounter in unfamiliar picture books. The functions served by the childrens intertexts ranged from the simple pleasure of recognition to more sophisticated comparisons between texts in terms of theme and plot. The extent to which the adults were able to integrate the childrens intertexts into the discussions varied. An awareness of the important role played by intertextuality in childrens interpretations of texts may provide early childhood professionals with a framework within which to plan systematically for the language and literacy development of young children in their care.

A longitudinal investigation of mothers’ mind‐related talk to their 12‐ to 24‐month‐old infants

Children’s exposure to mind‐related talk has been shown to foster young children’s metacognitive understanding and to orient them to the patterns of literate language long before they commence formal literacy instruction at school. In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study of the mind‐related talk of 22 mothers when their infants were aged 12, 18 and 24 months. Results revealed broad and stable individual differences in mothers’ propensity to use encouragement‐of‐autonomy, mental‐state and modulation‐of‐certainty talk to their infants during a free play session. Mothers’ talk about beliefs increased with infant age, and higher‐educated mothers used significantly more mental‐state and modulation‐of‐certainty talk than lower‐educated mothers. These findings are discussed in terms of current understandings of the discourse contexts supporting children’s developing understanding of the mind, and implications are derived for early childhood pedagogy in settings for children in the first two years of life.

Learning 'special words': technical vocabulary in the talk of adults and preschoolers during shared reading

It is widely recognized that there is a relationship between vocabulary development and childrens reading ability. This article will focus on the strategies employed by 24 adults (12 mothers and 12 qualified preschool teachers) when introducing new and unusual vocabulary to four-year-old children during shared reading. The mothers differed in terms of educational achievement; half the mothers had left school by the age of 16, and half the mothers were tertiary educated. All the adult–child dyads read the same two picture books (one narrative and one informational) and the surrounding talk was analysed to determine what kinds of supportive strategies were used by the adults to introduce and explain unfamiliar vocabulary items. There were differences between the two groups of mothers in terms of the frequency and manner in which technical vocabulary was introduced and defined. The preschool teachers differed from both types of mothers. The implications of these findings for young childrens emergent literacy are discussed.

From ideology to productivity : reforming early childhood education and care in Australia

Early childhood education and care services in Australia are undergoing major reforms, following widespread community concern about the quality of provision in general and the viability of corporate childcare in particular. A National Quality Framework has been developed by the current Australian Government to improve the quality, access and equity of early childhood services. As with any major social, political and economic change, however, the implementation of the reform agenda is subject to complex and often competing forces. In the paper, we describe the early childhood landscape in Australia today, and the possibilities and potential barriers to carrying out the much needed reforms proposed by the Australian Government. Early childhood professionals and the wider community are embracing the opportunity to work together to achieve a transformation in the way we educate and care for young children.

Teaching Literacy in English Language in Singaporean Preschools: exploring teachers' beliefs about what works best

Singaporean preschool teachers are responsible for preparing their young students for a formal education that is predominantly conducted in English. What these teachers believe about how young children learn English literacy skills is important to study, especially when much of the research is situated in very different contexts. Talking to teachers about their roles is a way of examining interpretations of ‘effective’ teaching and learning in terms of actual literacy pedagogy. Three broad categories were discernible in this exploratory study of interviews with eight teachers, clustering around their concepts of the child as learner, their construction of themselves as active facilitators of childrens learning, and the impact of parental pressures on their decision making.

Australian Chinese parents’ language attitudes and practices relating to their children’s bilingual development prior to school

This article reports on a deep investigation of five Australian Chinese families regarding their preschool-aged children’s bilingual experiences and development. Each family was visited 3 to 5 times by the first author. The mothers were interviewed about their attitudes toward their child’s bilingualism and their practices to promote it. A detailed observation lasting 4 to 5 hours was undertaken of each family to record the interaction between parents and children. The findings suggest that Chinese parents have positive attitudes toward bilingualism for pragmatic reasons, such as future career success and ease of communication with family members. Yet they also expressed concern that their child’s development of the home language would have a negative effect on their child’s English language development. Observations demonstrated that parents’ interactions with their children were frequently playful and informal, and English language was frequently used. Many of the materials parents provided to support their child’s home language, such as picture books and DVDs, were actually rooted in English culture. These findings suggest there is room for Chinese parents to increase their awareness of bilingual development in children, including the relationship between first and second language development and strategies for facilitating their children’s learning.

Ants, apples and the ABCs: The use of commercial phonics programmes in prior-to-school children’s services:

Commercial phonics programmes (e.g. Jolly Phonics and Letterland) are becoming widely used in the early years of school. These programmes claim to use a systematic explicit approach, considered as the preferred method of phonics instruction for teaching alphabetic code-breaking skills in Australia and the UK in the first years of school (Department of Education, Science and Training, 2005; Rose, 2006). However, little is known about the extent to which they are being used in prior-to-school settings, and the reasons behind decisions to use them. This study surveyed 283 early childhood staff in Sydney, Australia and found that commercial phonics programmes were being used in 36% of the early childhood settings surveyed. Staff with early childhood university qualifications and staff working in not-for-profit service types were less likely to use a commercial phonics programme than staff without university qualifications and staff working in for-profit services. Staff with less than 10 years’ experience were also more likely to use a commercial phonics programme. The rationale behind decisions determining whether or not staff used the programmes ranged from pragmatic reasons, such as parent pressure or higher management decisions, to pedagogical reasons, such as teacher beliefs about how children learn to read and write. The practices staff engage in to teach phonics are explored.

Educators’ use of questioning as a pedagogical strategy in long day care nurseries

Educators’ questions can encourage children to engage in extended conversations, facilitate comprehension and stimulate thinking. Many studies of educators’ questioning have focused on children aged 3 years and older. Little is known about the manner in which educators of infants in non-parental group care settings use questioning as a pedagogical strategy. Six university-qualified early childhood educators in Sydney, Australia, were videorecorded for 40 min each in their long day care centres. Informed by systemic functional linguistic theory, the educators’ questions addressed to infants (defined as children under 2 years of age) were coded according to whether they served a pedagogical or regulatory function. Pedagogical questions were defined as questions intended to promote children’s learning, whereas regulatory questions functioned as commands and offers which were intended to manage behaviour. The educators’ pedagogical questions were then further analysed according to the response required of the infant. Confirm questions sought a yes or no response, specify questions (who, when, where, what) sought the name of a person, time, place or entity and explain questions (why or how) sought an explanation or justification. The findings demonstrated that educators differed greatly in terms of the frequency and manner in which they used questioning as a pedagogical strategy when interacting with infants. So-called open questioning, which has been shown to stimulate conversation with older children, may not be appropriate for infants whose distinctive developmental trajectories differ from those of preschool-aged children. The findings suggest the need for a more nuanced understanding of the role of questioning in promoting infants’ language, literacy and intellectual development.