Critical Literacy in the Early Years : Emergence and Sustenance in an Age of Accountability

The work of early childhood educators in facilitating young children’s literacy acquisition has never received more attention than in the new millennium. Media hype about literacy crises, falling standards, teacher quality and government promises of minimum standards for all children have simultaneously increased the ‘visibility’ of literacy and the stakes for school performance. Indeed the last two decades could be seen as an age of pronouncements with respect to literacy, with politicians internationally promising to cure supposed low literacy with standardized tests and mandated programmes. As the rhetoric around literacy intensifies many late-capitalist economies are experiencing shifts that have increased the gaps between rich and poor, changed the very nature of work, and fundamentally altered the cultural mix of their populations. More and more children attending schools where English is the language of instruction speak it as a second or third language. Many children have experienced the effects of war, terrorism, migration and poverty. Many live in fractured, fragmented and changing families. Teacher populations are changing too. In some places aging teacher workforces mean that there is already a shortage of qualified teachers. Literacy is also changing as the impact of digital technologies on global and local communication, economies and knowledges begins to bite in everyday and working lives. It is challenging to think about how spaces for the emergence and sustenance of critical literacy in early childhood education might be created.

Pursuing better childhoods and futures through curriculum : utopian visions in the development of Australia’s early years learning framework

In recent years, globalised curriculum discourses have given rise to local curriculum texts that convey and produce particularised imaginings and narratives, as well as hopes for, and expectations of, young children, their childhoods and their futures. In this article, the authors employ concepts from utopian studies and Deleuzeguattarian concepts of assemblage, rhizomes and lines (supple, rigid and lines of flight) to undertake a preliminary and partial rhizomatic mapping of utopian visions of better childhoods and futures evident in the development of the Early Years Learning Framework, Australia’s first national curriculum for early childhood settings. Drawing on the perspective of policy makers, News Corporation, the public, politicians, academics and practitioners who shaped the development of the Framework, the authors seek alternatives to the well-rehearsed dichotomies that so often characterise and confine curriculum politics and debates, and ways of exploring spaces between the possible and not (yet) possible.

Early years research

Early years research is increasingly concerned with the everyday lives of young children and adults in the cut-and-thrust of early years contexts. It is concerned with what happens in situ, that is, in the everyday lives of those within the context. It is concerned with understanding young children and adults in the contexts of their lives; but it goes beyond understanding to transforming their contexts such that children and adults have the best possible chances, now and in the future. The dual focus of understanding and transforming makes early years research a powerful force for change. This chapter explores key theoretical underpinnings of early years research and presents key aspects of conducting research in ethical and sustainable ways. Early years research, here, refers to research conducted by early years practitioner researchers in the context of their own setting. It may involve research around their own practice and/or research around a particular issue or phenomenon of importance in their setting – the focal point may be children, families or practitioners or combinations thereof. The research may be a seamless part of the daily routine of the setting or may be a discreet project, clearly delineated with a timeframe for commencement and conclusion. The research may be used for ongoing reflection and planning with the setting and/or for dissemination in research reports or scholarly publications.

The relationship between children's emotional and cognitive self-regulation at 2 to 3 years and prosocial behavior in the early years of school

This study used data from Growing Up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (LSAC) to investigate how parent report of children’s emotional and cognitive regulation at age 2-3 years was associated with teacher ratings of children’s prosocial behaviors in the early years of school. A sample of 2,392 children was drawn from the LSAC Birth Cohort for the analyses. The analyses used structural equation modeling to estimate parameters of the relationships between key variables. Within the model, estimates of mother-reported emotional and cognitive regulation at age 2 to 3 years were significantly associated with teacher-reported prosocial behavior at 6 to 7 years. Emotional regulation was a slightly stronger indicator of prosocial behavior than cognitive regulation. Being female and from a family with a higher socioeconomic position were also associated with higher levels of prosocial behavior. Results are discussed in relation to the role of early childhood teachers in fostering children’s self-regulatory behaviors and in providing environments in which empathic and prosocial behaviors are modeled, guided, and scaffolded so that foundations are laid for caring behaviors to be understood and internalized by children.

Reconceptualizing statistical learning in the early years

This chapter argues for the need to restructure children’s statistical experiences from the beginning years of formal schooling. The ability to understand and apply statistical reasoning is paramount across all walks of life, as seen in the variety of graphs, tables, diagrams, and other data representations requiring interpretation. Young children are immersed in our data-driven society, with early access to computer technology and daily exposure to the mass media. With the rate of data proliferation have come increased calls for advancing children’s statistical reasoning abilities, commencing with the earliest years of schooling (e.g., Langrall et al. 2008; Lehrer and Schauble 2005; Shaughnessy 2010; Whitin and Whitin 2011). Several articles (e.g., Franklin and Garfield 2006; Langrall et al. 2008) and policy documents (e.g., National Council of Teachers ofMathematics 2006) have highlighted the need for a renewed focus on this component of early mathematics learning, with children working mathematically and scientifically in dealing with realworld data. One approach to this component in the beginning school years is through data modelling (English 2010; Lehrer and Romberg 1996; Lehrer and Schauble 2000, 2007)...

Playing with Grammar in the Early Years : Learning about Language in the Australian Curriculum : English

As teacher/researchers interested in the pursuit of socially-just outcomes in early childhood education, the form and function of language occupies a special position in our work. We believe that mastering a range of literacy competences includes not only the technical skills for learning, but also the resources for viewing and constructing the world (Freire and Macdeo, 1987). Rather than seeing knowledge about language as the accumulation of technical skills alone, the viewpoint to which we subscribe treats knowledge about language as a dialectic that evolves from, is situated in, and contributes to a social arena (Halliday, 1978). We do not shy away from this position just because children are in the early years of schooling. In ‘Playing with Grammar’, we focus on the Foundation to Year 2 grouping, in line with the Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority’s (hereafter ACARA) advice on the ‘nature of learners’ (ACARA, 2013). With our focus on the early years of schooling comes our acknowledgement of the importance and complexity of play. At a time where accountability in education has moved many teachers to a sense of urgency to prove language and literacy achievement (Genishi and Dyson, 2009), we encourage space to revisit what we know about literature choices and learning experiences and bring these together to facilitate language learning. We can neither ignore, nor overemphasise, the importance of play for the development of language through: the opportunities presented for creative use and practice; social interactions for real purposes; and, identifying and solving problems in the lives of young children (Marsh and Hallet, 2008). We argue that by engaging young children in opportunities to play with language we are ultimately empowering them to be active in their language learning and in the process fostering a love of language and the intricacies it holds. Our goal in this publication is to provide a range of highly practical strategies for scaffolding young children through some of the Content Descriptions from the Australian Curriculum English Version 5.0, hereafter AC:E V5.0 (ACARA, 2013). This recently released curriculum offers a new theoretical approach to building children’s knowledge about language. The AC:E V5.0 uses selected traditional terms through an approach developed in systemic functional linguistics (see Halliday and Matthiessen, 2004) to highlight the dynamic forms and functions of multimodal language in texts. For example, the following statement, taken from the ‘Language: Knowing about the English language’ strand states: English uses standard grammatical terminology within a contextual framework, in which language choices are seen to vary according to the topics at hand, the nature and proximity of the relationships between the language users, and the modalities or channels of communication available (ACARA, 2013). Put simply, traditional grammar terms are used within a functional framework made up of field, tenor, and mode. An understanding of genre is noted with the reference to a ‘contextual framework’. The ‘topics at hand’ concern the field or subject matter of the text. The ‘relationships between the language users’ is a description of tenor. There is reference to ‘modalities’, such as spoken, written or visual text. We posit that this innovative approach is necessary for working with contemporary multimodal and cross-cultural texts (see Exley and Mills, 2012). We believe there is enormous power in using literature to expose children to the richness of language and in turn develop language and literacy skills. Taking time to look at language patterns within actual literature is a pathway to ‘…capture interest, stir the imagination and absorb the [child]’ into the world of language and literacy (Saxby, 1993, p. 55). In the following three sections, we have tried to remain faithful to our interpretation of the AC:E V5.0 Content Descriptions without giving an exhaustive explanation of the grammatical terms. Other excellent tomes, such as Derewianka (2011), Humphrey, Droga and Feez (2012), and Rossbridge and Rushton (2011) provide these more comprehensive explanations as does the AC:E V5.0 Glossary. We’ve reproduced some of the AC:E V5.0 glossary at the end of this publication. Our focus is on the structure and unfolding of the learning experiences. We outline strategies for working with children in Foundation, Year 1 and Year 2 by providing some demonstration learning experiences based on texts we’ve selected, but maintain that the affordances of these strategies will only be realised when teaching and learning is purposively tied to authentic projects in local contexts. We strongly encourage you not to use only the resource texts we’ve selected, but to capitalise upon your skill for identifying the language features in the texts you and the children are studying and adapt some of the strategies we have outlined. Each learning experience is connected to one of the Content Descriptions from the AC:E V5.0 and contains an experience specific purpose, a suggested resource text and a sequence for the experience that always commences with an orientation to text followed by an examination of a particular grammatical resource. We expect that each of these learning experiences will take a couple if not a few teaching episodes to work through, especially if children are meeting a concept for the first time. We hope you use as much, or as little, of each experience as is needed. Our plans allow for focused discussion, shared exploration and opportunities to revisit the same text for the purpose of enhancing meaning making. We do not want the teaching of grammar to slip into a crisis of irrelevance or to be seen as a series of worksheet drills with finite answers. Strategies for effective practice, however, have much portability. We are both very keen to hear from teachers who are adopting and adapting these learning experiences in their classrooms. Please email us on b.exley@qut.edu.au or lkervin@uow.edu.au. We’d love to continue the conversation with you over time.

Friendships in the early years

Having a best friend or close friend is closely connected to children’s health and well being in the early years. Having friends safeguards children from social isolation and is associated with academic attainment and social success. In early childhood, children often make friends through play or other shared activities. This chapter investigates friendships and children’s well being in the early years of schooling. Drawing on direct accounts and representations from interviews with young children about friendships, the chapter outlines characteristics of friendship and strategies children use to make friends and manage disputes as they negotiate roles in play and shared spaces. Three key dimensions of friendship are evident in the children’s accounts: friendship is enduring, friendship is mutual and friendship involves an emotional investment. This chapter provides educators with an understanding of the important role that friendships have for happiness and wellbeing in the early years.

The experiences of teachers teaching children with Down syndrome in the early years of schooling

This innovative collective case study research documented teachers' experiences of teaching children with Down syndrome in the early years of schooling in Australia. Results indicated differences in teachers' conceptualisation of children with Down syndrome as learners and how these variations impacted the way the child was included within the class. Unique to this research was the utilisation of a mind-mapping technique of data collection which effectively captured the individual nature of teachers' experiences, making implicit knowledge explicit through description and interpretation of these experiences. Overall findings indicated that teachers were more likely to include children with Down syndrome into general education classrooms if they operated within a contemporary understanding of disability, had positive support from key stakeholders such as school principals and parents/caregivers, and had access to current information on Down syndrome from professional bodies.

iPads in the Early Years : Developing Literacy and Creativity

Digital devices like smart phones and tablet computers are becoming commonplace in young children’s lives for play, entertainment, learning and communication. Recently, there has been a great deal of focus on the educational potential of devices like iPads in both formal and informal educational settings. There is now an abundance of educational ‘apps’ available to children, parents, and kindergarten and pre-school teachers that claim to enhance children’s early literacy and numeracy development and creativity. To date, though, there has been very little formal investigation of the educational potential of these devices. This book discusses the impact on children’s learning when iPads were introduced in three very different kindergartens in Brisbane, Australia. Chapters outline how researchers worked with pre-school teachers and parents to explore how iPads can assist with letter and word recognition, the development of oral literacy and talk around play. The book also considers the possibilities for using iPads for creativity and arts education through photography, storytelling, drawing, music creation and audio recording.

Digital Media Literacies in the Early Years

This chapter addresses children’s development of digital media literacies with iPads in preschool settings. The authors argue that children living in post-industrial societies participate in ‘transmedia’ experiences that call for new understandings of media literacy that recognise children’s ability to successfully participate in complex media ecologies. The chapter outlines a model for digital media literacies that includes the application of digital materials and media concepts through the processes of media production and media analysis. This model is then used as a framework to interpret children’s media production work across the preschools in our project.

Social justice in early years education : practices and understandings

The current political context necessitates discussions of social justice within education, and here we bring together early childhood professionals from a variety of perspectives to become part of the important debates that must be had. This special issue of Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood was first conceived at a meeting of academics interested in social justice in early childhood education in Albury, NSW, Australia. All of the editors are members of the Social Justice strand of the ARC Funded Excellence in Research in Early Years Education Collaborative Research Network (CRN), which is led by Charles Sturt University in partnership with Queensland University of Technology and Monash University. Some of the authors in this issue are also members of this research network, but their work is presented here with that of others from a variety of contexts. We believe that the combination of perspectives taken challenges old thinking about social justice in early years education in innovative ways.

Critical linguistics in the early years : exploring functions of language through sophisticated picture books and process drama strategies

In this chapter we describe a critical fairytales unit taught to 4.5 to 5.5 year olds in a context of intensifying pressure to raise literacy achievement. The unit was infused with lessons on reinterpreted fairytales followed by process drama activities built around a sophisticated picture book, Beware of the Bears (MacDonald, 2004). The latter entailed a text analytic approach to critical literacy derived from systemic functional linguistics (Halliday, 1978; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). This approach provides a way of analysing how words and discourse are used to represent the world in a particular way and shape reader relations with the author in a particular field (Janks, 2010).

Arts education and iPads in the early years

This chapter takes as a working premise that digital culture is embedded in the every-day life experiences of most children living in post-industrial societies, both in home and, increasingly, in educational contexts. We outline how our research project investigated strategies for developing learning in the arts for young children by using the iPad as a creative device, rather than one on which they consume content in the form of games, on demand television and streaming video. We ask critical questions around creative ecologies and creative production; these grow from our observations on how young children and their families engaged with iPads through activities such as combining painting with digital photography. Analysis of work samples produced by children during the project enables interrogation of the ways in which young children can participate in arts practices and learning when digital media production is available. The chapter is structured around three themes of practice for iPad-based arts and creative education in preschool settings.

Drama, storymaking and iPads in the early years

In this chapter we consider how the iPad and selected applications such as Draw and Tell (Duck Duck Moose, 2013), Popplet (Notion Inc., 2013) and Puppet Pals (Polished Play LLC, 2013) can assist children in collaborative storying, retelling and sequencing story moments that can assist young children in their acquisition of oracy and their understanding of the world, both real and imagined, and their personal relationships. The data gathered from the project will also analysed through the lense of “critical and creative thinking” (ACARA, 2013, p.20-21) skills articulated as one of the general capabilities required in all subject areas of the Australian national curriculum, but which has particular application to The Arts subject areas. In this chapter, we consider artefacts created by preschool children using iPads and selected apps and interviews conducted with preschool children and their caregivers during our research project. We then offer examples of practice to assist preschool teachers in supporting children in their storymaking using the iPad and discuss approaches for engagement that twins the live and mediatised representation of a story.

Early years national curriculum documents : revisiting inclusive education

Early years education encompasses early childhood education and care (ECEC) and the early years of school across the age range birth to eight years. The introduction of two national curriculum documents for early years education – the Early Years Learning Framework (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations DEEWR, 2009) for ECEC programs and the Australian Curriculum (Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority ACARA, 2011a) – indicates a trend towards national coherence, yet highlights a gap between notions of inclusion in the ECEC and school sectors of early years education. These gaps have the potential to impact negatively on school transition experiences through reductions in continuity of pedagogy and partnerships with families. Australian definitions of inclusion have moved beyond integration (i.e., mainstream classroom placement with support services and accommodations to address disability or lack of English), to encompass curricular and pedagogic differentiation catering for the participation rights and sense of belonging of children with a diverse range of abilities and backgrounds. This paper considers improved curriculum alignment and pedagogic continuity through enactment of elements relevant to inclusion.