Marianne McTavish

FIRST GRADERS’ PREFERENCES FOR NARRATIVE AND/OR INFORMATION BOOKS AND PERCEPTIONS OF OTHER BOYS’ AND GIRLS’ BOOK PREFERENCES

In this article, we report on grade ‐ one children’s preferences for narrative and/or information books, and their perceptions of what boys and girls like to read. Data include responses on two book preference tasks by 40 children in four schools. Children chose books and explained the reasons for their choices. One task was a closed, force ‐ choice task, the other, an open ‐ ended task. Boys and girls had similar interests, either preferring stories or liking information books and stories to the same degree. Yet boys and girls perceived that boys prefer information texts and girls prefer narratives. The children’s perceptions reflect gendered stereotypes . Key words: literacy, reading, motivation, genre, gender Dans cet article, les auteurs signalent que les eleves de 1re annee preferent les livres qui racontent des histoires ou donnent de l’information et presentent ce que, selon de ces eleves, les garcons et les filles aiment lire. Les donnees comprennent les reponses de 40 enfants dans quatre ecoles a deux questionnaires, l’un a reponses libres et l’autre a choix multiples, sur les preferences en matiere de livres. Les enfants ont choisi des livres et donne les raisons de leur choix. Les garcons et les filles avaient des interets similaires, preferant soit les histoires, soit les livres d’information et les histoires au meme degre. Et pourtant, les garcons comme les filles avaient l’impression que les garcons aimaient mieux les livres d’information et les filles, les histoires. Les perceptions des enfants refletent les stereotypes marques par le sexe. Mots cles : litteratie, lecture, motivation, genre

I Get My Facts from the Internet: A Case Study of the Teaching and Learning of Information Literacy in In-School and Out-of-School Contexts.

This article investigates the intersection between the in-school information literacy practices and out-of-school (i.e. home and community) information literacy practices of a third grade student and examines how this intersection may be contributing to his overall literacy learning. Data collected from field notes; observations of in-school and out-of-school information literacy practices; video-tapings of the home and classroom domains; drawings and writings from the home and the classroom; and interviews with the focal participant were analyzed and organized into recursive themes illustrative of in-school and out-of-school information literacy practices. Analysis revealed that the out-of-school and in-school information literacy practices of the focal participant ran parallel to each other and only intersected in ways in which school practices took precedence. The participants out-of-school information literacy practices were not strongly recognized or valued in the classroom.

Constructing the Big Picture: A Working Class Family Supports Their Daughter's Pathways to Literacy

This article examines the historical literacy experiences and current literacy practices of the parents of one working class family as they shape the literacy learning of their four-year-old daughter. Data collected from field notes, observations, and videotaped interviews of the parents and daughter were analyzed and events sorted into categories congruent with foundational concepts of emergent literacy, such as intentionality, concepts of writing, and concepts of print. Analysis of the data revealed that socioeconomic status or residential location does not determine a childs literacy background and that great variation exists in diverse families. Despite living in communities deemed “at risk,” some families are able to provide activities to support the development of critical early literacy concepts in their children. The article also provides practical suggestions for teachers so that the home, school, and community can work together to foster childrens literacy knowledge.

Measuring Situated Literacy Activity: Challenges and Promises

This report presents the results of the development of a methodological approach to provide empirical evidence that family literacy programs “work.” The assessment techniques were developed within the action research project Literacy for Life (LFL) that the authors designed and delivered for 12 months, working collaboratively with three different cohorts of immigrant and refugee families in western Canada. The goal was to develop valid and reliable measures and analyses to measure the impact on literacy skill and knowledge in a particular version of a literacy program that incorporated real-world literacy activities into instruction for low-English-literate adults and their prekindergarten children, ages 3 to 5. The authors offer this approach to assessment as a promising way to measure the impact of socially situated literacy activity that requires taking the social context of literacy activity into account. They offer this work not as the answer to the challenge of documenting the value of working with families and literacy, but as one way to think about focusing curriculum and assessment within programs that validate the real lives of the participants and build bridges between those lives and literacy work within family literacy programming.

‘i’Babies: Infants’ and toddlers’ emergent language and literacy in a digital culture of iDevices:

Children today are growing up in a digital world that is changing and advancing at an unprecedented rate. While some adults may struggle to keep up with new technological gadgets, we find our very young may be quite at ease with the use of digital technologies, even before learning to speak. This study builds on a foundation of family literacy studies that looks at the literacies children are exposed to within their home environments. Given the influx of technology in children’s home environments, it is important to understand children’s digital literacy developments from a family literacy perspective. Studying two very young children and their families interacting with these new devices provides a deep and detailed look into how digital technologies might be influencing young children’s language and literacy development in first and second languages. Findings from this study can inform parents and educators of what, why and how young children interact and learn with digital devices.

I'll Do It My Own Way!: A Young Child's Appropriation and Recontextualization of School Literacy Practices in Out-of-School Spaces.

What do young children do with the literacies they have learned at school? This article reexamines traditional notions of literacy by documenting a second grade childs literacy practices in school and out-of-school contexts. Data collected included field notes, interviews, observations of school and out-of-school literacy practices, and artefacts (such as worksheets, constructions and computer screenshots) from the school, home and community contexts. In analysis, literacy practices were traced to show how meanings travelled across contexts and switched modes. Findings show that the focal child recontextualized school literacies in out-of-school spaces and changed them in flexible, playful and technologically contemporary ways. The study offers new knowledge of how school literacy may impact on some childrens out-of-school literacies and recognizes that these out-of-school spaces may serve to prepare children more appropriately for the future.

Children’s Funds of Knowledge in a Rural Northern Canadian Community: A Telling Case

In this article, we describe how the funds of knowledge in a community in rural Northern Canada were actualized or leveraged in an early childhood classroom. We draw on a video recording of a First Nations elder demonstrating to the children (and early childhood educators) how to skin a marten, a historical cultural practice of the community. We argue that elders are an untapped source of knowledge that preschools and schools can call on to legitimize and bring to the forefront, Indigenous knowledge that has been ignored or undervalued by assimilationist and colonialist policies. We also argue that the elder’s demonstration is culturally congruent with First Nations traditions of sharing or passing on knowledge and that it is imperative that educators are aware of and implement culturally appropriate pedagogical practices. We conclude by sharing some ideas of how early childhood educators might facilitate through play, children’s taking up and appropriating cultural knowledge such as the elder shared in this case.