Katherine M. Doyle

Learning Literacy: Engaging with Print and Digital Texts in the First Year of School

This chapter investigates the possibilities available when teachers and children engage in learning and teaching literacies with print and digital materials. The data reported was collected as part of a 5-year school reform project set in one school in a high-poverty community. The main project aimed to investigate whether a focus on teacher professionalism, collaborative curriculum planning and reshaping pedagogy could have a positive effect on student outcomes. The student population at the school was diverse, and there was an identified need to connect substantively with the outside school lives of the student cohort more effectively. Here we report on the results of one component of the larger project where the teacher of one preparatory class and researchers worked collaboratively to digitise the curriculum. This shared work led to the introduction of new texts, tools and technologies into the curriculum. The analysis of work samples, interview transcripts and classroom observations followed the developing literacy capacities of the young students throughout the year. Drawing on socio-material understandings, we consider the tools, resources and technologies featured as these students learnt about and with literacy. We also provide a vignette of the literacy journey of one student as a focussed example of print and digital literacy learning achievement in the class. The findings provide insight into the positive impact of literacy teaching and learning that takes account of students’ engagement with digital and print texts within early years’ classrooms.