Prisca Martens

Critical lessons from the transactional perspective on early literacy research

This article is a synthesis of early literacy research organized according to critical lessons that delineate our shared knowledge base that we name a ‘transactional perspective on early literacy development.’ The critical lessons are grouped into three sets to present the continuum of methodological stances that interpretive researchers take as they design and carry out early literacy studies. This synthesis is particularly timely now – as children and teachers in classrooms around the world struggle to maintain control over literacy learning and teaching within narrow governmental agendas and mandates. Given current governmental agendas (i.e. No Child Left Behind in the USA, the National Literacy Strategy in the UK, among many), it is critical to remember that we share a robust theory, a transactional view of early literacy development that explains how young children come to be literate members of society.

Children’s Eye Movements, Miscue Analysis Patterns, and Retellings When Reading a Counterpoint Picture Book

This study incorporated eye movement miscue analysis to investigate two second-graders’ oral reading and comprehension of a counterpoint picture book. Findings suggest the second-graders’ strategies when reading the written and pictorial text affected their comprehension as opposed to the number and location of their eye movements. Specifically, the data highlight the contextual nature of the counterpoint picture book and how the readers’ strategies influenced the ways students navigated the text, what they fixated on while reading the written and pictorial texts, and the effects of these eye movement data on their comprehension. These results highlight the importance of young students’ need to be able to distinguish and value the role of written and pictorial sign systems to facilitate success in an ever-expanding multimodal world.

Examining a Reader's Meaning-Making Process of Picture Books Using Eye Movement Miscue Analysis.

The goal of this case study was to examine a second grader’s reading of picture books using eye movement miscue analysis as a method to further understand reading as a meaning-making process. Two picture books with different relationships (e.g., enhanced and counterpoint) were selected because they elicit varied ways of presenting meaning and thus provide a unique opportunity to study reading. Findings from this case study highlight that reading is more than the eyes moving sequentially from word to word while the reader actively constructs meaning. Reading picture books demands an expanded repertoire of strategies since only looking at multimodal signs, such as written and pictorial cues, that are available when reading is not sufficient to ensure full comprehension of picture books. Implications for teaching reading and understanding multimodality in learning are addressed.