Conference database for ARLE - The International Association for Research in L1 Education

Research Seminar, ARLE SIG Literacies 2023

Juli-Anna Aerila Merja Kauppinen	The Literature Resources in Finnish ECEC Centers - Confirming a Solid Ground for Future Readers
Jennie Berg	Dialogic read-aloud in a digital era. A methodological reflection paper.
Dr. Tuva Bjørkvold	Frame play for literacy
Jesper Bremholm	Exploring of individual writing trajectories within a large text-corpus in primary school
Jesper Bremholm	Test 2
Elissavet Chlapana Antonia Koniou	Promoting preschool children’s narrative ability through play-based learning
Kristina Danielsson Ann-Charlotte Rohman Roth Marina Wernholm	Among witches and dragons - young children’s interaction and negotiations when creating fairy tales with digital tools
Desirée Fristedt	Critical literacy in preschool class – planning, implementing and evaluating teaching
Merja Kauppinen Juli-Anna Aerila	Teachers applying emotional and holistic literature pedagogy
Stavroula Kontovourki Theoni Neokleous Stelia Demetriou	Space and Materiality in Early Literacy Pedagogies: Examples of Practice in Kindergarten Classrooms
Maria Kreza	The development of phonological awareness in kindergarten: preschool teachers' views and practices
Natalie Lavoie Jessy Marin Joane Deneault	Providing young pupils occasions to write and review their texts together: Is this helpful and motivating?
Eleni Ntente Nektarios Stellakis	THE CONTINUUM OF EMERGENT LITERACY AND FISRT SCHOOL LITTERACY
Arne Olav Nygard Atle Skaftun	'Knowers' in early years literacy education
Katerina Papadimitriou Nektarios Stellakis	What are preschool teachers’ attitudes about informational books?
Helin Puksand Tiiu Tammemäe	Which is more complicated, reading or listening?
Catarina Schmidt	The Potential of Picture Books in Multilingual Primary School Classrooms: Approaches of Meaning Making and Literacy Learning
Ingvill Krogstad Svanes	Spontaneous writing in Norwegian after-school programme
Athina Spyridoula Tsezou	Visual literacy and the development of narrative language: A case study using digital animation production tools in early childhood education
Chrysoula Tsirmpa Nektarios Stellakis	"At first, I would become an even better mother, a better person for the society": Mothers’ needs and expectations for participation in a Family Literacy Program (FLP).
Angela Wiseman	Imagining the World: Young Children’s Engagement with Picturebooks about Family Diversity
Mari Ylenfors	Literacy Teaching for Multilingual Students facing Difficulties with Literacy Development - a Case Study
Konstantina Zachariadi Georgia Lampropoulou Nektarios Stellakis	The reading habits of children with high reading motivation and their parents' contribution

Juli-Anna Aerila & Merja Kauppinen (Finland)
THE LITERATURE RESOURCES IN FINNISH ECEC CENTERS - CONFIRMING A SOLID GROUND FOR FUTURE READERS

In this study, we investigated the literature resources of 10 ECEC centres in Western Finland. The the engagement in reading is enhanced by appropriate and interesting literature (Cremin et al., 2009) which offers the readers possibilities to empathize with the characters and other details of literature (Alsup, 2015). Children's relationship to literature and reading is based on positive reading experiences in early childhood (Aerila & Kauppinen, 2021; Levy & Hall, 2021). Therefore, the quality and number of books in ECEC centers is of importance. The data of the study data were collected during the year 2023 by a research assistant who visited the ECEC centres and counted as well as photographed all the books present in the ECEC groups and other spaces like daycare libraries. The data of the study consists of information on the authors, illustrators, titles, publishers, covers and the publication years of the books organized by the ECEC groups and centres. The data were analyzed via qualitative analysis (Krippendorff, 2019) but supported with quantifications. The aim of the study was to investigate the quality of the literature resources in daycare centers from the perspective of diverse child-readers. The preliminary results indicate that the quality and the number of books vary between groups and ECEC centers. It seems that the literature in the daycare centers concentrates on the most popular authors and book series as well as books aimed at socioemotional learning. In addition, the books are quite old and do not meet with the diversity of children and their needs in ECEC groups. The results of the study accord with previous results on literature resources (Lähteelä et al., 2022). In general, it seems that the personnel and administration of ECEC centers value children's literature differently: at best, there is high-quality and age-appropriate books for children.

Aerila, J.-A. & Kauppinen, M. (2021). Kirjasta kaveri. PS-Kustannus.

Alsup, J. (2015). A case for teaching literature in the secondary school: Why reading fiction
matters in an age of scientific objectivity and standardization. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315742069.

Cremin, T., Mottram, M., Collins, F., Powell, S., & Safford, K. (2009). Teachers as readers: building communities of readers. Literacy (Oxford, England), 43(1), 11–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1741-4369.2009.00515.x

Krippendorff, K. (2019). Content analysis : an introduction to its methodology. SAGE.

Levy, R. & Hall, M, (2021) Family Literacies: Reading with Young Children. Routledge.

Lähteelä, J., Kauppinen, M., Aerila, J.-A. & Siipola, M. (2022). Koulun kirjavalikoimat osana kielitietoista kirjallisuuskasvatusta. Ainedidaktiikka 1(6) https://doi.org/10.23988/ad.109925

Jennie Berg (Sweden)
DIALOGIC READ-ALOUD IN A DIGITAL ERA. A METHODOLOGICAL REFLECTION PAPER.

This paper reflects on methodological considerations for a study of Primary School classroom practices to be carried out during autumn 2023. The study is one of three empirical sub-studies in my ongoing thesis project about activities drawing on children’s literature, such as reading, listening, and dialogue. These activities can be supported by various resources such as printed and digital resources.

The study which this paper draws on focuses on teachers’ dialogic read-aloud of children’s literature to develop students’ comprehension and reading engagement. It is essential that children are involved in activities in school where they interact with others about the content of texts to get motivated to read and to reach an understanding (Lennox, 2013, Gambrell, 2011; Schmidt, 2020).

Research in reading instruction and digital resources in Primary Schools is limited (Hermansson & Olin-Scheller, 2022; Kucirkova, 2013). This points to the need to investigate how teachers orchestrate teaching where students, in dialogue with others, talk about the content of children’s literature and how printed and digital resources can support this for further reading development in a digitalized world. The study, therefore, aims to investigate Primary School teachers’ dialogic read-aloud of children’s literature, with the goal of reading comprehension and reading engagement, and how printed and digital resources support these activities.

To observe how teachers work with dialogic read-aloud with printed and digital resources in the classroom focused observations will be carried out (Fusch et al., 2017). The observations will be documented using an observation template and through video recording. The activities will be documented through note-taking.

Four teachers will participate in the study and three observations per teacher will be conducted, in total, twelve focused observations. Contact will be made with schools and teachers, i.e., Primary School teachers in grades K-3 teaching reading children’s literature, to select two schools and two teachers at each school. This is based on a purposive and convenience sample (Creswell & Creswell, 2018). As the study will highlight how digital technology becomes integrated into teaching, the chosen schools should be equipped with a good offer of digital resources that allows for carrying out activities in and through technological tools. I will use my professional network to contact schools, including the schools for internships and other connections with schools in the county, based on my teaching background. The education administration of the municipalities will also be helpful.

I hypothesize that the results will involve teaching reading comprehension strategies through e-books and printed books with document cameras and highlight the importance of teachers’ well-founded pedagogical choices when teaching dialogic read-aloud of children’s literature in Primary School classrooms. I would like to discuss this with the audience.

Keywords: dialogic read-aloud, children’s literature, digital resources, focused observations

References
Creswell, J. W. & Creswell, J. D. (2018). Research design: qualitative, quantitative, and mixed methods approaches. (Fifth edition.). SAGE.
Fusch, P., Fusch, G., & Ness, L. (2017). How to Conduct a Mini-Ethnographic Case Study: A Guide for Novice Researchers. Qualitative Report, 22(3), 923–. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2017.2580
Gambrell, L. (2011). Seven Rules Of Engagement: What’s Most Important to Know About Motivation to Read. The Reading Teacher, 65(3), 172–178. https://doi.org/10.1002/TRTR.01024
Hermansson, C. & Olin-Scheller, C. (2022). Across Textual Landscapes: The Role of Affect During Digital Reading Encounters. Children’s Literature in Education, 53(3), 327–342. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10583-022-09502-y
Kucirkova, N. (2013). Children’s interactions with iPad books: research chapters still to be written. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 995–995. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00995
Lennox, S. (2013). Interactive Read-Alouds: An Avenue for Enhancing Children’s Language for Thinking and Understanding: A Review of Recent Research. Early Childhood Education Journal, 41(5), 381–389. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-013-0578-5
Schmidt, C. (2020). Librarians’ book talks for children: An opportunity for widening reading practices? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 146879842096494–. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798420964941

Contact information
Jennie Berg, PhD-student
Jönköping university
jennie.berg@ju.se

Dr. Tuva Bjørkvold (Norway)
FRAME PLAY FOR LITERACY

Early schooling is dominated by the appropriation of literacy, raging from coupling of grapheme and phoneme, to metacognition about language, reading and writing short texts and listening to books read aloud. A challenge in emergent literacy education is to offer social situations where the students can act through texts, not primarily practice reading and writing (Gee, 2015). This study explores literacy practices among students age 5-9, connected to a systematic concept of frame play during school hours. Frame play is characterized by free play within a planned frame, a frame being for instance a hospital, a shopping mall, an amusement park or a small community (Broström, 1999). Students and teachers negotiate and agree on a frame before the session starts. Both the students and the teacher are active engaged in the play in roles they choose, they play freely, interact, and improvise. In this study, the frame is a hotel in England, in a dedicated room for frame play with artifacts such as costumes, play-food, tables and chairs. The theoretical foundation is New Literacy Studies, suggesting that literacy is something you do with text in a social setting, not a decontextualized competence (Barton, 2007). The research question is “How is literacy used to frame play and by students in a play frame in early schooling?”.

The study is a case study of a school where frame play has been part of the local curriculum for all students grades 1-4 since 2012. The data material consists of systematic observations of play sessions throughout a school year in all grades and with different student groups, a total of 15 observations. Because of the vulnerability of children and their imaginary play, only partly participatory observation and research log was used. We have also collected artifacts and taken anonymous photographs in a way that would not disturb the play. The researcher has not intervened in the sessions, only been present. The aim was to map the literacy events that occur spontaneously, either through the framing or by the students. Therefore, no processing or work on the classroom afterwards is included.

Preliminary findings suggest that literacy is used to a large degree in framing the play, both by teachers and students. There are typical texts connected to a hotel and travel, such as signs, menus, lists, brochures, passports, security information and forms. The students read, write and use these texts in their play, for instance to register at the hotel, order food or go on sightseeing. Further, the students create texts themselves, as writing letters from the hotel, writing prescriptions as doctors, or making secret notes as an undercover detective. The students act through texts, writing and reading in both conventional and invented language.

References
Barton, D. (2007). Literacy: An introduction to the ecology of written language. Blackwell Publisher.

Broström, S. (1999). Drama games with 6-year-old children: Possibilities and limitations. In Y. Engeström & R. L. Punamaki (Eds.), Perspectives on activity theory (pp. 250-263). Cambridge universtity press.

Gee, J. P. (2015). Literacy and education. Routledge.

Contact information:
Tuva Bjørkvold
Oslo Metropolitan Univsersity
tuvbj@oslomet.no

Jesper Bremholm (Denmark)
EXPLORING OF INDIVIDUAL WRITING TRAJECTORIES WITHIN A LARGE TEXT-CORPUS IN PRIMARY SCHOOL

Despite the growing importance of writing as a resource for learning and participation in contexts both in and out-of-school, our knowledge of writing development is quite incomplete. This regards in particular knowledge of the developmental trajectories that students pass through as they encounter and grapple with the complex system of more formal writing in the primary school years (Bazerman et al. 2017). In the research project Automated Tracking of Early Stage Literacy Skills (ATEL, 2018-2023), we collect texts from young students (aged 6-8) from 13 schools in Denmark during the first three years of primary school (> 50.000 texts). An essential objective of the project is to develop proficiency scales for early writing development, as this is trackable in young students’ computer-based writing using a book creator app that is widely used in Danish primary schools (Bremholm et al. 2022). These proficiency scales are a precondition for the overall goal of the project, which is to implement an automatic assessment of young students’ writing development in this app, and to provide the teacher with pedagogical feedback (Kabel et al., in process).
In this paper, I propose to present a sub-study of the ATEL project. Our aim in this sub-study is to deepen our knowledge about student writing seen from a growth perspective and to contribute in-depth insights about individual writing trajectories. In order to being able to follow individual students and explore their writing trajectories, we conducted a selection process spring 2022 through three steps:
First, we chose nine Year 3 classes from nine of the participating 13 schools (one class from each school). All nine schools are from the same Danish mid-size municipality. Choosing Year 3 classes enabled us to collect all texts written by the students in the book creator app, from their first year of formal schooling in 2018 (Year 0) and until autumn 2021 (Year 3).
Second, we conducted an automatic scoring of all the included student texts written during the school years 2018-2021, using the algorithms developed in the ATEL-project (Christensen et al. in process). The scoring gave an overview of students’ writing development in each of the nine classes.
Third, based on the scores for each class, we selected three students from each class: two that exemplified typical writing trajectories in the specific class, and one that diverged from the typical patterns. This resulted in 27 case students.
Hereafter, we aim to conduct in-depth analysis of all texts written by these students. The analysis is done using the analytical categories of the framework used to establish proficiency scales (Kabel et al., 2022), but in this sub-study we also pay specific attention to the semantic linguistic features that were difficult to include in the coding of the large sample, among other things, students’ ways of establishing cohesion and interpersonal meaning.
In the paper, I present the results of our analysis, examples of writing trajectories illustrating both typical trajectories in the different classes and divergent trajectories.

References
Bazerman, C., Graham, S., Schleppegrell, M., Applebee, A. N., Matsuda, P. K., Berninger, V. W., Murphy, S., Brandt, D., & Rowe, D. W. (2017). Taking the long view on writing development. Research in the Teaching of English, 51(3), 351–360.
Bremholm, J., Bundsgaard, J., & Kabel, K. (2022). Proficiency scales for early writing
development. Writing & Pedagogy, 13(1), 1-34.
Christensen, M., Kabel, K, Bremholm, J., Bundsgaard, J. & Andersen, L.K. (in process). Automatic
identification of linguistic features for tracking early stage literacy.
Kabel, K., Bremholm, J. & Bundsgaard, J. (2022). A framework for identifying early writing
development. Writing & Pedagogy, 13(1), 1-38.
Kabel, K., Bremholm, J. & Bundsgaard, J. (In process). Elevers tidlige skriveudvikling – En
tekstorienteret model med potentialer for differentieret skriveundervisning. Special issue in
Cursiv.

Jesper Bremholm (Denmark)
TEST 2

Test 2 - content

Elissavet Chlapana & Antonia Koniou (Greece)
PROMOTING PRESCHOOL CHILDREN’S NARRATIVE ABILITY THROUGH PLAY-BASED LEARNING

Narrative ability is one of the most essential goals of language comprehension, given its significant short-term and long-term contribution in children’s reading and academic performance (e.g. Babayiğit et al., 2021; Bianco et. al., 2012; Pinto et al., 2016; Suggate et al., 2018). The use of appropriate teaching approaches in kindergarten is very important for helping young children develop their narrative ability from the beginning of their school life. As far as preschool education, play-based learning is one the most well-documented and developmentally appropriate practices which is used to promote children’s early learning (Pyle et al., 2017).
Considering the above, the purpose of the present study is to examine the effect of a two-month intervention program, which is based on play-based learning, on the development of preschool children’s narrative ability. To investigate the purpose of the present study, a semi-experimental study having an experimental group (N=16) and a control group (N=16), was carried out. For examining groups’ equivalence, children’s receptive and productive vocabulary and their verbal memory were evaluated with standardized criteria at the beginning of the intervention. Before and at the completion of the intervention, sample children participated in two oral language tasks which required from them to retell a story read to them in small group settings and produce individually a new story. Morrow's (1990) and Petersen et al.’s scales (2008) were used to analyze children’s oral language texts and estimate their narrative ability.
For designing the intervention program activities and in relation to the main purpose of the present study, instruction of targeted language comprehension skills was embedded through appropriate activities in the spectrum of play-based learning. Specifically, the classroom teacher was trained by the researcher into the intervention program practices which aimed at helping children: (a) develop comprehension skills, such story structure recognition, inference making, self-monitoring, visualization, and (b) retell and produce narrative texts. The proposed practices included literacy activities, such as story reading, and different types of games, such as dramatic and constructive game, which were conducted with and without the support of ICT. The teacher’s personal notes kept in the classroom diary alongside with the recordings of selected activities were used as additional tools for describing children’s response to the intervention program activities.
The results of the present study, as assessed through quantitative and qualitative criteria, highlighted the significant contribution of the intervention program to the children's narrative ability. At the same time, they are considered useful, as they are expected to provide kindergarten teachers useful guidelines for using different methodological approaches which can help preschool children enhance their narrative ability, building through this way a strong foundation for the development of their future literacy skills.

Babayiğit, S., Roulstone, S., & Wren, Y. (2021). Linguistic comprehension and narrative skills predict reading ability: A 9‐year longitudinal study. British Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(1), 148-168.
Bianco, M., Pellenq, C., Lambert, E., Bressoux, P., Lima, L., & Doyen, A. L. (2012). Impact of early code‐skill and oral‐comprehension training on reading achievement in first grade. Journal of Research in Reading, 35(4), 427-455.
Morrow, L. (1990). Assessing children’s understanding of story through their construction and reconstruction of narrative. In L. Morrow, and J. Smith (Eds.), Assessment for instruction in early literacy (pp. 110–134). Prentice-Hall.
Petersen, D., Gillam, S., & Gillam, R. (2008). Emerging procedures in narrative assessment: The index of narrative complexity. Topics in Language Disorders, 28(2), 115–130.
Pinto, G., Tarchi, C., & Bigozzi, L. (2016). Development in narrative competences from oral to written stories in five-to seven-year-old children. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 36, 1-10.
Pyle, A., DeLuca, C., & Danniels, E. (2017). A scoping review of research on play‐based pedagogies in kindergarten education. Review of Education, 5(3), 311-351.
Suggate, S., Schaughency, E., McAnally, H., & Reese, E. (2018). From infancy to adolescence: The longitudinal links between vocabulary, early literacy skills, oral narrative, and reading comprehension. Cognitive Development, 47, 82-95.

Elissavet Chlapana, Assistant Professor
Department of Preschool Education, University of Crete
chlapane@uoc.gr

Antonia Koniou, preschool teacher
Greek Ministry of Education and Religious Affairs
antkoniou@gmail.com

Kristina Danielsson & Ann-Charlotte Rohman Roth & Marina Wernholm (Sweden)
AMONG WITCHES AND DRAGONS - YOUNG CHILDREN’S INTERACTION AND NEGOTIATIONS WHEN CREATING FAIRY TALES WITH DIGITAL TOOLS

The use of digital tools, such as tablets and smartboards, is rapidly becoming part of literacy practices in early years of schooling (e.g., Hultin & Westman 2013). Hence, teachers need to find ways of integrating such resources in their everyday classroom practice in ways that support students’ possibilities for learning and participation (cf. Beam & Williams 2015). Thus, an important question is what potential digital tools and digital resources have – when integrated in educational practices – to support, e.g., young pupils’ text creation. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore ‘what’s happening’ and ‘what’s possible’ when 6/7-year-old pupils jointly create a digital fairy tale with the use of an application in a tablet. This is done by investigating how a group of children in a Swedish school interact with each other and the digital tool, which was new to them at the time of the activity, when exploring the application and creating their fairy tale. To enable fine-tuned detailed analysis of the pupils’ multimodal interaction, the three pupils were video recorded during this classroom activity. Also, the pupils’ digital fairy tales in the form of animations were collected. The children’s actions, interaction, and negotiations through different semiotic modes (speech, gestures, bodily action, etc.) were analysed through tools developed within Goodwin’s theory of interaction (e.g., Goodwin 2007, 2018).

Preliminary results indicate that i) the children position themselves mainly through bodily action in relation to the tablet and to each other, but also through words (sometimes resulting in a mismatch between words and bodily action), ii) the child with the highest writing skills takes the power position, iii) the children jointly explore the digital resource in playful ways and, while exploring the digital application, they create different version of a fairy tale, iv) the children clearly focus on the task to create a digital fairy tale and to adhere to the frames given to them by the teacher. The results are discussed in relation to implications for research and education.

References
Beam, S. & Williams, C. (2015) Technology-Mediated Writing Instruction in the Early Literacy Program: Perils, Procedures, and Possibilities, Computers in the Schools, 32:3-4, 260-277, DOI: 10.1080/07380569.2015.1094320
Goodwin, C. (2007). Participation, stance and affect in the organization of activities. Discourse & Society,
Goodwin, C. (2018). Co-operative Action. Cambridge University Press.
Hultin, E., & Westman, M. (2013). Early literacy practices go digital. Literacy Information and Computer Education Journal (LICEJ), 4(2), 1005-1013.

Desirée Fristedt (Sweden)
CRITICAL LITERACY IN PRESCHOOL CLASS – PLANNING, IMPLEMENTING AND EVALUATING TEACHING

Critical literacy explores interactions of language and power. To be able to deconstruct and interpret text as products as well as in specific social practices, critically speaking, reading, and writing is necessary. This study builds on Luke and Freebody’s (1997) four-resource model which suggests that four dimensions of literacy should be taught and learned simultaneously. In accordance with the model, students should learn roles as code breakers, text participants, text users and text analysts. There are several studies approaching early years literacy education and code breaking skills including systematic phonics and grammar (e.g. Swedish Research Council, 2018; Torgerson et al., 2006; National Reading Panel, 2000). This alone, however, is not enough for early years students to become efficient readers and writers. Considerations should also be taken to how students as text participants understand what texts mean, and as text users know why they write and for whom. In relation to studies about discrete skills like teaching about phonics, few studies are found focusing on students in primary school being text analysts exploring what texts do with them. The aim of this presentation is to present and discuss the planning, implementation and evaluation of a combined research and professional developmental project aiming to develop teaching practices in preschool class that promote students’ critical literacy, more specifically how to become text analysts. In planning, implementing, and evaluating the project the interdependent framework for critical literacy education (Janks, 2013) will be used. The framework elucidates the mutually dependent parts: power, identity/diversity, access, and design/redesign. An interactive approach is used where joint learning between the researcher and the participants is emphasized. Data for the evaluation phase is gathered through workshops and interviews with teachers, and video recordings from the classroom.

References
Janks, H. (2013) Critical literacy in teaching and research1, Education Inquiry, 4(2). S 225-242.

Luke, A. Freebody, P. (1997). Shaping the social practices of reading. In: Muspratt, S. Luke, A. Freebody, P. (eds) Constructing Critical Literacies: Teaching and Learning Textual Practices. Creskill: Hampton Press.

National Reading Panel. (2000). Report of the National Reading Panel: Teaching children to read: an evidence-based assessment of the scientific research literature on reading and its implications. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education.

Swedish Research Council. (2018). Kunskapsöversikt om läs- och skrivundervisning för yngre elever. Delrapport.

Torgerson, C. Greg, B. & Jill, H. (2006). A Systematic Review of the Research Literature on the Use of Phonics in the Teaching of Reading and Spelling. Research Report No.711. Notingham: DfES Publications.

Merja Kauppinen & Juli-Anna Aerila (Finland)
TEACHERS APPLYING EMOTIONAL AND HOLISTIC LITERATURE PEDAGOGY

Emotional identification and empathized reading are elements of social-emotional development and wellbeing in the context of early childhood and primary school education (McCreary & Marchant, 2017). Hands-on experiences of empathized reading allow teachers to engage in holistic literature education (Kauppinen et al., 2020). This study considers teachers as meaning-makers of fiction and focuses on the emotional processes in a reading community. The research questions are next: 1) What features characterize empathized reading in the interactive reading process of teachers? 2) What sort of pedagogical applications did the teachers lead from their own experiences of empathized reading processes?
Nine early childhood and primary school teachers took part in the ©StoRE in-service education , which aimed to use literature in reading and writing pedagogy in innovative ways (Aerila & Kauppinen, 2021). Three sessions involved different literature assignments and genres - a novel, a fairy tale and poetry – but progressed according to the same order. The interactive poetry therapy model (McCarty Hynes & Hynes-Berry, 2012) with four phases were applied in the interactive reading process, namely identification, catharsis, insight, and integration. The data of the current study is collected from the reading process of the novel. It concerns 13 teacher group’s dialogues under the novel, which were formed in the guided reading according to the phases of interactive poetry therapy model. The dialogues were analyzed via qualitative, data-based content analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2013).
Empathized reading implied in three levels in the interactive reading process of the teachers: story level (immersive elements concerning a plot, main characteristics and perspective choices); individual level (expressed emotions under the texts); and communal level (emotional, meaningful themes aroused by and via the group dialogues). Several ideas of holistic literature pedagogy were expressed: Issues of closeness, caring and care are the most crucial elements in book talk. In the immersive book talk, the teacher is able to express the same feelings as children and sympathize their experiences. Emotional interactive reading process offers a way to strong emotional experience and close encounter. Literate meaning making (writing, drawing, multimodal expressing) under the reading experience and returning to the (textual) product in a group enhance meaningful reading. The meaning of mother tongue becomes evident to express inner, emotional stances of oneself in book talk. The results indicate that the teachers used the group’s dialogues to reflect freely on their own experiences and emotions. Many-sided elements of emotional, holistic literature education were formed under the empathized reading process by the teachers.
Keywords: holistic literature education, empathized reading, poetry therapy, in-service teacher education
References
Aerila, J.-A., & Kauppinen, M. (2021). Kirjasta kaveri. Sytykkeitä lukijaksi kasvamiseen.
[Having book as a friend. Inspiration to becoming a reader.] PS-kustannus.
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2013). Successful qualitative research: A practical guide for
beginners. Sage.
Kauppinen, M., Kainulainen, J., Hökkä, P., & Vähäsantanen, K. (2020). Professional agency and its features in supporting teachers’ learning during an in-service education programme. European Journal of Teacher Education, 43(3), 384-404. https://doi.org/10.1080/02619768.2020.1746264.
McCarty Hynes, A., & Hynes-Berry, M. (1986/2012). Poetry therapy. The interactive
process: A handbook (3rd ed.). North Star Press of St. Cloud.
McCreary, J. J., & Marchant, G. J. (2017). Reading and empathy. Reading Psychology, 38(2),
182-202. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702711.2016.1245690.

Stavroula Kontovourki & Theoni Neokleous & Stelia Demetriou (Cyprus)
SPACE AND MATERIALITY IN EARLY LITERACY PEDAGOGIES: EXAMPLES OF PRACTICE IN KINDERGARTEN CLASSROOMS

Space and Materiality in Early Literacy Pedagogies: Examples of Practice in Kindergarten Classrooms

In this paper, we explore the ways in which material objects and physical spaces can be central in the design and enactment of early literacy pedagogies. We specifically aim to discuss how objects, spaces and materials may be utilized to create conditions that destabilize and re-construct established conceptualizations of early literacy learning and re-define the ways young literacy learners contribute in the learning process. To do so, we provide examples of practice from kindergarten classrooms of teachers who had participated in a professional development (PD) program that aimed to familiarize them with a newly introduced early years curriculum that relied on notions of play, inquiry, and communication. Against this background, we organize the presentation in two sections: (a) the presentation of the theoretical grounding of the PD program in sociocultural and sociomaterial approaches to early literacy, and (b) a sociomaterial analysis of classroom practice that affords the recognition of early literacy practices as open, intra-actional meaning-making processes.

The theoretical grounding of the paper in sociocultural and sociomaterial approaches to literacy allows us to extend beyond language (in its oral and written form) and conceptualize literacy classrooms as spaces where practice emerges at the assemblage of humans, material objects and immaterial forces, including established understandings of literacy and literate identities (e.g., Anders et al., 2016· Beucher et al., 2019· Burnett, Merchant & Neumann, 2020· Author1, 2022). In this view, objects-artifacts, spaces, and human actors not only interact but, simultaneously, shape literacy, regardless of imbalances in the extent to which each contributes to such shaping (Burnett et al., 2020· Ehret & Leander, 2019). We, Authors 1 and 2, had drawn on such understandings to design the PD program we implemented. Namely, teachers were encouraged to notice and capitalize upon the materiality of artefacts and human bodies, and to redesign classroom spaces to make room for varied literacy enactments. In this presentation, examples of practices are shared by Authors 3 and 4, who present how “kidwatching” (Oworcki & Goodman, 2002) of children’s clothing and play with everyday materials and pop culture media provided the basis for the expansion of inquiry-based curricula and for the physical transformation of their classrooms.

We analyze thematically photographs from the teachers’ classrooms, reflective notes and notes from anecdotal conversations among the Authors in order to identify how texts, objects and materials were used to delineate particular notions of literacy; how children and adults utilize language, as well as texts, materials, and spaces to present themselves as literate beings; and how such re-presentations reestablished and/or destabilized long-held assumptions about early literacy learning. Based on this analysis, we conclude that a focus on materiality expands the pedagogical resources we can use to transform practices, spaces, as well as humans as acting/active subjects in early literacy classrooms. The presentation thus invites researchers, scholars, and practitioners into a discussion of the potentialities of early literacy in school given that it foregrounds how (new) meanings and identities emerge in the mundane everydayness of classroom practice.

References
• Anders, P. L., Yaden, D. B., & Da Silva Iddings, A. C. (2016). Entanglements, intensities, and becoming: Non-representational perspectives on literacy research. Journal of Literacy Research, 48(3), 255-257.
• Author 1
• Beucher, R., Handsfield, L. & Hunt, C. (2019). What matter matters? Retaining the critical in new materialist literacy research. Journal of Literacy Research, 51(4), 444-479, https://doi.org/10.1177/1086296X19876971.
• Burnett, C., Merchant, G., & Neumann, M.M. (2020). Closing the gap? Overcoming limitations in sociomaterial accounts of early literacy. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 20(1), 111-133. DOI: 10.1177/1468798419896067.
• Ehret, C., & Leander, K. M. (2019). Introduction. In K. M. Leander & C. Ehret (Eds.), Affect in literacy learning and teaching: Pedagogies, politics and coming to know (pp. 1-19). Routledge.
• Owocki, G., & Goodman, Y. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting children’s literacy development. Heinemann.

Contact information:
Stavroula Kontovourki, University of Cyprus, kontovourki.stavroula@ucy.ac.cy
Theoni Neokleous, University of Cyprus, neokleous.theoni@ucy.ac.cy
Stelia Demetriou, University of Cyprus, dstelia@yahoo.com
Andri Aristodemou, Ministry of Education, Sports, and Youth, aristodemou.androulla@ucy.ac.cy

Maria Kreza (Greece)
THE DEVELOPMENT OF PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS IN KINDERGARTEN: PRESCHOOL TEACHERS' VIEWS AND PRACTICES

Research finding suggest that the development of phonological awareness in preschool children supports reading and writing and the development of their literacy skills and knowledge (e.g. Aidinis & Nunes, 2001; Diamanti et al., 2017; Manolitsis & Tafa, 2011; Mesmer & Williams, 2015). Preschool teachers employ practices that aim to promote phonological awareness but they do so less often compare to practices supporting other literacy skills and knowledge (e.g. Alghazo & Al-Hilawani, 2010; Bingham & Hall-Kenyon, 2013; Sandvik, van Daal & Adèr, 2014; Tafa, Chlapana & Loizou, 2013). Nevertheless, there are no studies that describe in detail the specific practices they implement across the different periods of a school year.
The aim of this study is to explore preschool teachers’ practices targeting the development of phonological awareness. More specifically the aim of this study is to explore the units of oral language (e.g. words, syllables, rimes) that teachers ask the children to identify and to manipulate, the activities they implement for each unit, and record the different practices that the teachers implement for the development of phonological awareness each semester of the school year. Moreover, the study examines teachers’ views regarding the importance of developing preschool children’s phonological awareness and their perspectives on the teaching approaches than can be applied.
The sample consisted from 70 kindergarten teachers from different regions of Greece. Data were collected via an online questionnaire and quantitative analysis was performed.
It was found that all the preschool teachers implement practices of phonological awareness for all the units of oral language, but they varied regarding the order they asked children to manipulate the various units during the school year. Moreover, for each unit of oral language, there were differences in the frequency the teachers implemented relevant activities in each semester and these differences were statistically significant. The majority of teachers stated the importance of phonological awareness to promote the learning οf reading, writing and the development of oral language. They also stated that the activities of phonological awareness should be playful and should be integrated into activities that are not directly related to language development.

References

Aidinis, A., & Nunes, T. (2001). The role of different levels of phonological awareness in the development of reading and spelling in Greek. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 14, 145-177.
Alghazo, E. M., & Al-Hilawani, Y. A. (2010). Knowledge, skills, and practices concerning phonological awareness among early childhood education teachers. Journal of research in childhood education, 24(2), 172-185.
Bingham, G. E., & Hall‐Kenyon, K. M. (2013). Examining teachers' beliefs about and implementation of a balanced literacy framework. Journal of Research in Reading, 36(1), 14-28.
Diamanti, V., Mouzaki, A., Ralli, A., Antoniou, F., Papaioannou, S., & Protopapas, A. (2017). Preschool phonological and morphological awareness as longitudinal predictors of early reading and spelling development in Greek. Frontiers in psychology, 8, 2039. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02039
Manolitsis, G., & Tafa, E. (2011). Letter-name, letter-sound and phonological awareness: Evidence from Greek-speaking kindergarten children. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 24, 27-53.
Mesmer, H. A. E., & Williams, T. O. (2015). Examining the Role of Syllable Awareness in a Model of Concept of Word: Findings From Preschoolers. Reading Research Quarterly, 50(4), 483–497. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43999136
Sandvik, J. M., van Daal, V. H., & Adèr, H. J. (2014). Emergent literacy: Preschool teachers’ beliefs and practices. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 14(1), 28-52.
Tafa, E., Chlapana, E., & Loizou, E. (2013, August). Kindergarten teachers' emergent literacy views and practices. Paper presented at the 18th European Conference on Reading. Jönköping, Sweden.

Natalie Lavoie & Jessy Marin & Joane Deneault (Canada)
PROVIDING YOUNG PUPILS OCCASIONS TO WRITE AND REVIEW THEIR TEXTS TOGETHER: IS THIS HELPFUL AND MOTIVATING?

Writing is a difficult task and it is important not to leave the student alone with it. The scientific literature highlights the many benefits of teaching practices that promote social interactions, where students share their knowledge and ideas with their peers (Colognesi & Lucchini, 2018; Plante , 2012) and highlights students' motivation to work with a peer (Guay et al., 2014; Hidi & Boscolo, 2006).However, collaborative writing seems to be little used with young writers. Other studies focus on the educational context surrounding collaboration and highlight the need to structure these activities (Dolz et al., 2016; Lavoie et al., 2011).
Our study aimed to: 1- describe the content of interactions when writing in a dyad and 2 - evaluate and compare the motivation to write alone and in dyad. Twenty-eight pairs of students (7-8 years old) participated in the study (n= 56). The pupils wrote a story individually and in pairs, and responded to a motivation questionnaire (self-efficacy, interest, task-value). They were filmed to capture their interactions. They were given only one sheet of paper to write on to encourage discussion and they were also each given a different coloured pencil, making it possible to determine who had written which part of the story. A coding grid was used to record the number of interactions and their content (centered on the text and others). For the motivation, T-tests for matched groups were performed.
The results show, among other things, that during the planning the pupils concentrated on the development of the story and during the correction, they discussed a lot about the lexical spelling. For the motivation, writing in pairs is neither more nor less interesting for students than individual writing. Those results will be discussed and different actions to properly frame collaborative writing in class will be presented.

Eleni Ntente & Nektarios Stellakis ()
THE CONTINUUM OF EMERGENT LITERACY AND FISRT SCHOOL LITTERACY

This bibliographic study analyzes the principles of continuity and discontinuity between emergent literacy and first school literacy. Transitions between types of school and social structures require consideration since problems can arise in the field of literacy if educators do not apply the continuum of literacy. According to Unesco literacy is defined as a continuum of learning and proficiency in reading, writing and using numbers throughout life. The path to literacy is continuous, it starts and develops very early in the individual’s life and family is undoubtedly the first and most essential environment on which literacy develops (Stellakis & Kondyli, 2005). The first continuity of literacy is viewed between family and kindergarten and the next one occurs between pre-school and first school education, where the effects of the pedagogical use of literacy follows the students through their academicals career. As a result, pre-school and first-school educators should acknowledge ways and principles to support continuity in learner’s literacy development. The research focuses on Greek educational policy, comparing data from other countries. In a Greek research it was found that although pre-school education is now on institutionally part of compulsory education with a curriculum, there is no connection or continuity between preschool and first school education (Aidinis & Dalakli, 2019). Such research results arise questions about the necessity of establishment of continuity and a unified approach to the acquisition of literacy by students. In 2000, Vygotsky mentioned that the knowledge of ´the prehistory of children’s written language’ is very valuable and important to be taken into account by school. The present work aims at providing both to researchers and educators a bibliography considered to be useful for progressing in teaching implications as well as theoretical evidence about literacy development between preschool and first school education, under the light of continuum.
Key words: emergent literacy, first school literacy, continuity, discontinuity, education policy

Bibliography
Aidinis, A, Dalakli, C., 2009, Εmergent literacy first reading and writing: a framework for connecting preschool and first school age. Τhesis , University of Thessaloniki, available at http://ikee.lib.auth.gr/record/113200/files/GRI-2009-2868.pdf
Kondyli, M., Stellakis, N., 2005, Contexts For Learning To Be Literate: Some Evidence From Greek Pre-Primary Education Setting, L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature 50
Apostolou, Z., Stellakis, N., Koustourakis, G., 2020, Pre-primary and first grade primary school teachers’ perceptions on the integration of pre-primary and first grade primary school curricula in Greece, L1-Educational Studies in Language and Literature 20
Unesco Institute for Lifelong Learning . What you need to know about Literacy, https://www.unesco.org/en/literacy/need-know

Arne Olav Nygard & Atle Skaftun (Norway)
'KNOWERS' IN EARLY YEARS LITERACY EDUCATION

This paper examines how 2nd grade students are positioned as 'knowers' in early years literacy instructions (Maton, 2013). Drawing on a large case-study of 47 L1 lessons in year two across 6 different classrooms, we analyze the data to explore the extent to which student participation is encouraged and supported, and the ways in which students are positioned in relation to disciplinary knowledge.
Using a model of practice that consists of four interrelated elements - roles, activities, setting, and resources - we conceive of the classroom as a social field in which students are positioned according to their epistemic and social relations to knowledge (Ivanic, 2009; Van Leeuwen, 2008). We also draw on the specialization dimension from Legitimate Code Theory (LCT) to further explore how students are positioned in relation to their social and epistemological relations to knowledge (Maton, 2013; Maton & Doran, 2017; Doran, 2020).
Our findings suggest that there is limited room for student participation in the classrooms, but we find some opportunities for dialogue around texts. We focus on one example that illustrates both the dominance of traditional teaching practices and the potential for small adjustments to position students as 'knowers' in the disciplinary field (Doran, 2020; Maton, 2013)
Through our analysis, we demonstrate that students can be positioned as knowledgeable participants in disciplinary classroom talk. However, this requires a shift in the traditional teaching practices that dominate many classrooms, and a greater focus on encouraging and supporting student participation and engagement with disciplinary knowledge.
Overall, this paper contributes to our understanding of how students are positioned in the classroom, and highlights the importance of creating opportunities for students to engage with and develop disciplinary knowledge. In particular, we discuss various entrances to different but equally valid knowledge positions in the field of disciplinary knowledge through the various types of relations to knowledge in L1 Norwegian (Doran, 2020; Maton, 2013).

References
Doran, Y. J. (2020). Cultivating values: Knower-building in the humanities. Estudios de Lingüística Aplicada, 37(70), 169-98.
Ivanič, R. (2009). Bringing literacy studies into research on learning across the curriculum. I M. Baynham & M. Prinsloo (Red.), The future of literacy studies. Palgrave Macmillan.
Maton, K. (2013). Knowledge and knowers: Towards a realist sociology of education. Routledge.
Maton, K., & Doran, Y. J. (2017). Systemic functional linguistics and code theory. In The Routledge handbook of systemic functional linguistics (pp. 629-642). Routledge.
Van Leeuwen, T. (2008). Discourse and practice: New tools for critical discourse analysis. Oxford university press.

Katerina Papadimitriou & Nektarios Stellakis ()
WHAT ARE PRESCHOOL TEACHERS’ ATTITUDES ABOUT INFORMATIONAL BOOKS?

Informational books, as a distinct kind of children’s books, give to children of very young age the chance to get in contact with scientific knowledge, academic language, complex syntactic forms, technical-special vocabulary, and various ways of meaning making. Informational books are usually referred to physical sciences, technology, engineering, art, and social life. The use of informational books in preschool education is very beneficial for children, because it gives them the chance to gain knowledge about the world around them, to expand their literacy experiences and to develop their critical and academic thinking. Regarding the above mentioned of informational books, teachers should use them as a strong tool to familiarize children with science, academic language, and multimodal ways of communicating the meaning of this kind of texts. However, recent research highlights that the time that preschool teachers choose to dispose to informational books reading is in comparison much less than this one to fiction books. In this paper we present a research on Greek preschool teachers’ attitudes about informational books and their use in their classrooms. Data were collected through in-depth interviews from 10 persons. The results indicated that the participants had a puzzlement regarding informational books and their use at kindergarten classrooms. They also reported that they were not familiar with informational books, they do not use them often as a source of knowledge in their classroom activities and they do not equip the children’s library at their classroom with this kind of books.

Papadimitriou Katerina, Phd Student
katerinalpap7@gmail.com
University of Patras,
E.S.E.C.E. (Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education)

Stellakis Nektarios, Associate Professor
nekstel@upatras.gr
University of Patras,
E.S.E.C.E. (Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education)

Helin Puksand & Tiiu Tammemäe (Estonia)
WHICH IS MORE COMPLICATED, READING OR LISTENING?

We live surrounded by various texts that we read or hear. To get by in life, you need to understand texts, regardless of how they are presented, so listening and reading skills are equally important in everyday life. At school, however, teachers usually pay more attention to developing reading skills and less attention to listening skills (Aruvee, 2022; Diakidoy et al., 2005). Listening is considered one of the most challenging skills in foreign language learning, but there needs to be more research done about listening in the mother tongue. Comparatively, even less research has been done on understanding native text when reading and listening.
The children's listening skills develop unconsciously in the mother tongue even before school, but the development of reading skills is mainly dealt with at school. Douglas Fisher and Nancy Fray (2014) state that students understand the text better by listening until they are 13-14 years old, and only then will both skills reach the same level. Therefore, it is also one reason why researchers (e.g., Wagner et al., 2020) recommend listening to these texts instead of reading long texts when teaching children with reading difficulties. Therefore, teachers must pay attention to developing both skills at school.
In our presentation, we give an overview of the research, the aim of which was to find out whether 4th-grade students understand the meaning of the text more by reading or listening, and if one skill has better or worst developed, what is the other skill level. The study included 46 students whose text comprehension we tested with listening and reading tasks. The results are like those of the Fisher and Fray (2014) research and indicated that 4th-grade students better understood the information in the listening text than in the reading text.
References
Aruvee, M. (2022). Sissejuhatavalt koolidiskursusest: tekstid ja kirjaoskus neljas õppeaines [’Introduction to school discourse: Texts and literacy in four subjects’]. Eesti Rakenduslingvistika Ühingu aastaraamat, 18, 55–74. https://doi.org/10.5128/ERYa18.04
Diakidoy, I. A. N., Stylianou, P., Karefillidou, C., & Papageorgiou, P. (2005). The relationship between listening and reading comprehension of different text types at increasing grade levels. Reading psychology, 26(1), 55–80. https://doi.org/10.1080/02702710590910584
Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2014). Speaking and listening in content area learning. The Reading Teacher, 68(1), 64–69. https://doi.org/10.1002/trtr.1296
Wagner, R. K., Zirps, F. A., Edwards, A. A., Wood, S. G., Joyner, R. E., Becker, B. J., ... & Beal, B. (2020). The prevalence of dyslexia: A new approach to its estimation. Journal of learning disabilities, 53(5), 354–365. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022219420920377

Catarina Schmidt (Sweden)
THE POTENTIAL OF PICTURE BOOKS IN MULTILINGUAL PRIMARY SCHOOL CLASSROOMS: APPROACHES OF MEANING MAKING AND LITERACY LEARNING

This paper draws on an intervention study focusing on the use of picture books. The study is carried out in collaboration with principals and teachers at two Primary Schools in Sweden, which are characterized of diversity regarding languages and cultural belongings among its students and their families. The ongoing study started in January 2023 and will continue until June 2024. The project is theoretically grounded in Cummins’ (2001) framework for language- and knowledge development, in the sense that fiction content is continuously made comprehensible and used for active communication, striving for the enhancement of vocabulary and meaningful text production. The words and phrases, on and between the pages, are processed in various ways, in line with Langer’s (2011) understanding of envisioning literature. As known, crucial tasks for early literacy education are to give young students opportunities to take part in practices supporting their functional reading, i.e., automatized decoding, and practices giving them opportunities of immediate and perceptual experiences of reading together with practices supporting their reflective and critical reading (Schmidt, 2020). The ongoing project seeks to integrate these practices of reading, while at the same time motivating students’ agency and reading engagement. Via dialogic reading, in the sense that the teachers are reading a picture book aloud in whole class, while continuously inviting the students to think about and act in relation to the written and visualized content, the strive is to develop the quality of classroom teaching, and the equality of education.
The research project has an iterative approach with three interventions, each spanning a period of 4-6 weeks. Drawing on intervention 1, and the use of the picture book This is not my hat (Klassen, 2019) preliminary findings will be presented in this contribution. The aim is to identify pedagogies embracing the multifaceted mission of literacy education in the Primary School years, and how these pedagogies are put into practice. This aim is formulated by the following research questions:

• In what ways does the identified pedagogies support functional literacies, and from what kinds of teaching resources?
• In what ways does the identified pedagogies support immediate and experiencing literacies, and from what kinds of teaching resources?
• In what ways does the identified pedagogies support reflective and critical literacies, and from what kinds of teaching resources?

The empirical data draws on teachers’ logbooks (n=8), in which they have documented, described, and reflected on their teaching and their students’ learning, and one meeting where the designed teaching is reflected on collaboratively with the participating researcher, school leaders and teachers. Preliminary results will be presented which might highlight the importance of young students bodily, orally, and multimodally active participation while envisioning literature, and further clarifying when and how specific dimensions of literacy are supported, or not.
Cummins, J. (2001). Negotiating Identities: Education for Empowerment in a Diverse Society. California Association for Bilingual Education.
Langer, J. (2011). Envisioning Liteature: Literary Understanding and Literature Instruction. Teachers College Press.
Schmidt, C. (2020). Librarians’ book talks for children: An opportunity for widening reading practices? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 0 (0), 1–23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468798420964941

Ingvill Krogstad Svanes (Norway)
SPONTANEOUS WRITING IN NORWEGIAN AFTER-SCHOOL PROGRAMME

In Norway, all primary schools offer an after-school programme for children from grades 1 to 4 ("Skolefritidsordning" or “aktivitetsskole” in Norwegian), and 92 % of Norwegian first graders attended their school’s after-school programme in autumn 2022. Each school organizes the after-school programme individually, based on a framework plan that stresses play, culture and physical activities (Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training, 2021). The after-school programme does not include formal instruction in school subjects. We thus assume that children’s writing in this context may have another character and function than writing during the school day, which we know often focuses on formal aspects as letter instruction, handwriting and filling-out tasks (Bjørnestad, Dalland, Hølland, & Myrvold, 2022; Håland, Hoem, & McTigue, 2019). In the after-school program, however, writing probably have a voluntary and informal character. In this project we will study the texts written in the after-school programme contexts and ask:
What characterizes the texts children write spontaneously in the informal setting of an after school-programme?
The study builds on theory of writing as a situated and social literacy practice (Gee, 2004) dependent on context (Barton, 2007). Included in this is a broad text concept, including multimodal texts as tool for communication.

The sample consists of 18 texts gathered by the leader of the after-school programme at one school in Oslo. The students are from first and second grade. The texts are written inside the school building and were gathered during autumn 2019 and spring 2020, before the pandemic spoiled our plans. We are now gathering more texts on two other schools. The leader has taken pictures of the texts with a mobile phone and sent it on e-mail to the researchers. In addition, she has noted the context for the writing.

Our preliminary findings show that writing in the after-school programme may be characterized as spontaneous, in the sense not planned by an adult (Frost, 2001). Writing is voluntary and often a part of play. The students’ texts are multimodal combining verbal text, drawings, symbols, emojies etc. They are thematically varied and has several functions and materialities. The texts are linked to the children's experiences and shows agency, as they are written on the children’s initiative. The children's texts, however, also imitate the adults' texts, for instance they are making lists based on the adults’ use of lists to check the children in and out of the after-school programme.

References
Barton, D. (2007). Literacy: An introduction to the ecology of written language (2 ed.). Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishing.
Bjørnestad, E., Dalland, C., Hølland, S., & Myrvold, T. M. (Eds.). (2022). "Hit eit steg og dit eit steg" - sakte, men sikkert framover? : en systematisk kartlegging av premisser for og trekk ved førsteklasse : delrapport I (Vol. 2022/7): OsloMet - storbyuniversitetet.
Frost, J. (2001). Phonemic awareness, spontaneous writing, and reading and spelling development from a preventive perspective. Reading and Writing, 14(5-6), 487-513.
Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated language and learning: a critique of traditional schooling: Routledge.
Håland, A., Hoem, T. F., & McTigue, E. M. (2019). Writing in First Grade: The Quantity and Quality of Practices in Norwegian Classrooms. Early Childhood Education Journal, 47(1), 63-74.
Norwegian Directorate for Education and Training. (2021). Framework plan for SFO. Retrieved from https://www.udir.no/contentassets/1d8a92df5874407bbb87cdea215cc832/rammeplan-sfo-engelsk.pdf

Athina Spyridoula Tsezou (Greece)
VISUAL LITERACY AND THE DEVELOPMENT OF NARRATIVE LANGUAGE: A CASE STUDY USING DIGITAL ANIMATION PRODUCTION TOOLS IN EARLY CHILDHOOD EDUCATION

During their early years, children come across all kinds of images (digital, printed etc) both in school and outside school, which highlights the importance of visual literacy. Animation, a rather new attractive graphic devices, has the potential to be used as a learning tool in education, being a pleasant one at the same time, as it improves one’s understanding, especially children’s understanding, who have not fully developed their literacy skills contributing to the improvement of the expected learning outcomes. In this context, the aim of the study was to explore the impact of the use of animation images on preschool students’ development of narrative speech. The participants of the study were 12 preschool children from a kindergarten class in an urban area of West Greece; particularly, 6 students were four to five years old, while the rest six were five to six years old. The research was implemented in five stages. Firstly, a narration of three carefully-selected familiar stories was carried out while the researcher was showing relevant images from the books. In the second stage, the students were asked to draw four pictures in groups capturing the flow of the story without revealing the end. In the third stage, the members of each group were asked to provide their own idea about the plot and ending of the story, though it seemed that they had difficulties in imagining a different ending of the story. Thus, during the fourth stage some key words were provided to children by the researcher to offer them some help. Finally, the children watched the animation of each story made through the clipaflip.com application; each story ending was structured in such a way that young children could narrate it. The findings of the study indicated that the animated images, when they are intentionally used in the educational procedure, contributed to young student’ development of narrative speech in terms of sequence and description, as all of them were able to accurately understand the expected finale, 10 of them narrated the stories, while 6 developed a different ending of the story by adding possible extensions. The findings of the study highlight the contribution of visual literacy, particularly, animation images, to young student meaning-making, narrative speech and vocabulary development attracting, at the same time, their interest, cultivating their imagination, boosting their creativity, reducing their stress and activating even the poor students to participate in the educational procedure. The

present study aspires to contribute to the relevant research and draws implications for the educators and policymakers highlighting the importance of adopting transformative methodologies in the teaching process to make learners active agents and meaning-makers and design learning experiences that rely on various semiotic resources.

Key-words: Visual literacy, multimodal texts, narrative speech, Early Childhood Education

Chrysoula Tsirmpa & Nektarios Stellakis (Greece)
"AT FIRST, I WOULD BECOME AN EVEN BETTER MOTHER, A BETTER PERSON FOR THE SOCIETY": MOTHERS’ NEEDS AND EXPECTATIONS FOR PARTICIPATION IN A FAMILY LITERACY PROGRAM (FLP).

The family plays a decisive role in children’s education, which starts very early in the children's life and has to do with all the dimensions of their development. Family Literacy Programs (FLPs) aim to support parents in realizing their important role and help them create a conducive home learning environment. The purpose of this study is to investigate mothers’ needs and expectations for participation in a FLP. The research was carried out in 3 state kindergartens in Pyrgos, in Western Greece, during the school year 2021-2022 and 24 mothers of preschool-aged children (4 years old) participated. Data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews, which were analyzed through content analysis. According to the results, all the mothers were excited about the idea of participating in a FLP. They are mainly interested to know what the children should learn at this age, how they can attract children's interest for the written language, and in what literacy practices they could involved with children at home . All the mothers also agree that their participation in a FLP would have benefits for both children and themselves. Mothers would not only learn the appropriate way to properly guide the children at home, but they would also have the chance to gain new knowledge, to discuss, to reflect and exchange ideas on literacy issues.
In conclusion, the results show that parents need training and guidance, so that they understand how to strengthen literacy from a very young age and how they can help children at home. However, the field of family literacy has not received the due attention in Greece and remains on the sidelines. The results of the research can contribute to the design of a FLP based on parents’ needs, so that all parents develop an active role in children’ education.

Key words: Mothers, Preschool-aged children, Literacy, FLP, Needs, Expectations.

Angela Wiseman ()
IMAGINING THE WORLD: YOUNG CHILDREN’S ENGAGEMENT WITH PICTUREBOOKS ABOUT FAMILY DIVERSITY

Angela M. Wiseman, Ph. D.
Bethany P. Lewis
Corrie Dobis
North Carolina State University

In this presentation, we share data from a qualitative research study that documents young children’s responses to picturebooks that depict family diversity. Our work is informed by critical approaches to consider ways to humanize the literacy practices and identities of children and families (Paris & Alim, 2017). Critical literacy provides a lens for inclusivity and for dismantling deficit perspectives regarding the social, cultural, and historical perspectives of families' experiences (Compton-Lilly et al., 2012); but the notion of humanizing relates to the way of representing the experiences of communities that are marginalized through societal inequalities related to factors such as race, ethnicity, and gender.

Our presentation will focus on five readaloud sessions conducted with young children (ages 5-7 years) where we engage in interactive readalouds with picturebooks that reflect family diversity. After reading the books, children sketched pictures and labeled their images. Sessions were audio recorded and children’s artifacts were collected. Visual qualitative research methods (Serafini, 2022) and thematic analysis (Braun & Clark, 2022) were used to develop findings. Findings reflect how responding to children's literature has the potential to affirm family diversity while providing opportunities for children to consider their own experiences and also understand each other. An important starting point for humanizing families from different backgrounds is to incorporate children’s literature that reflects their experiences. While we are not claiming that representation solves larger-scale issues in our society that result in these problems (and that is beyond the scope of this presentation), we advocate that hearing and seeing children and adults (Dutro, 2019) and using stories that reflect “windows and doors” (Sims Bishop, 1990, p. xi) can provide humanizing experiences for the many families. Ultimately, children need to see themselves in the books they read. We advocate for using picturebooks to humanize - to promote equity, solidarity, and social justice for children, families, and communities - by cultivating supportive and inclusive approaches with young children.

References
Paris, D., & Alim, H. S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally sustaining pedagogies: Teaching and learning for justice in a changing world. Teachers College Press.
Compton-Lilly, C., Rogers, R., & Lewis, T. Y. (2012). Analyzing epistemological considerations related to diversity: An integrative critical literature review of family literacy scholarship. Reading Research Quarterly, 47(1), 33-60. https://doi.org/10.1002/rrq.009
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2022). Thematic analysis: A practical guide. Sage.
Dutro, E. (2019). The vulnerable heart of literacy: Centering trauma as powerful pedagogy. Teachers College.
Serafini, F. (2022). Beyond the visual: An introduction to researching multimodal phenomena. Teachers College.
Sims Bishop, R. (1990, March). Windows and mirrors: Children’s books and parallel cultures. In California State University reading conference: 14th annual conference proceedings (pp. 3-12).

Mari Ylenfors (Sweden)
LITERACY TEACHING FOR MULTILINGUAL STUDENTS FACING DIFFICULTIES WITH LITERACY DEVELOPMENT - A CASE STUDY

The case study highlights literacy teaching among multilingual students in an introductory class and in a regular class in Sweden. The study is theoretically framed in a sociocultural perspective and the starting point is the literacy model “The Four Resources Model (Luke and Freebody 1997) and Cummins transfer hypothesis (Cummins, 2000). The literacy model includes four teaching practices: The meaning-making practice, the code-breaking practice, the text-using practice, and the text-critical practice. The model is based on an assumption that there is an interaction between the teaching practices and that they are contextually embedded. The transfer hypothesis states that linguistic in one language benefit linguistic abilities in another language, which is an important precondition regarding literacy learning for multilingual learners.
The aim of the study was to investigate how schools´ literacy practices regarding multilingual students who encounter difficulties with reading and writing work in one school that has received praise for its Swedish as a second language teaching for multilingual students. The data is based on participant observations, interviews, and document analyses. The results indicates that the school leader’s different organisational initiatives and pedagogical approaches seem to create rich opportunities for literacy teaching. From teachers’ perspective several methods and approaches emerge which shows that teachers are working from a holistic literacy perspective where meaning-making, code-breaking, analytical, and critical aspects are intertwined and show how texts are used in practical situations (cf. Luke and Freebody, 1997). The result also show that teachers make use of students´ different linguistic competences as a resource in literacy development. However, the results also show that students’ different multilingual abilities are not mapped when identifying reading and writing difficulties. Knowledge of the importance of mapping in students’ different languages seems to exist to some extent, but organisational reasons become an obstacle. Results from the students' perspective show the difficulties they face in reading and writing, but also point to support interventions that they mean develop their literacy skills. The observations as well as other empirical data support their experiences. The results also point to other relational aspects, such as good teacher-student relationships, support in relation to challenging tasks, and teachers' high expectations and commitment towards students that seem to be of great importance and interact with literacy development. It is argued that this school provides learning opportunities that not only are beneficial for the students, but also agree with research that emphasise the importance of teaching using students’ different linguistic competences in teaching.

References:
Cummins, Jim. 2000. Language, Power and Pedagogy: Bilingual Children in the crossfire. Multilingual Matters Ltd.

Luke, Alan, and Peter Freebody. 1997. ‘The social practices of reading.’ In S. Muspratt, A. Luke, & P. Freebody (Eds.), Constructing critical literacies: Teaching and learning textual practices, edited by Sandy Muspratt, Alan Luke, and Peter Freebody, 195-225. Cresskill: Hampton Press

Konstantina Zachariadi & Georgia Lampropoulou & Nektarios Stellakis ()
THE READING HABITS OF CHILDREN WITH HIGH READING MOTIVATION AND THEIR PARENTS' CONTRIBUTION

Research demonstrates that reading enhances children’s development and fosters impactful educational experiences. However, studies conducted over the past several years in Greece and in the European Union demonstrated that compared with other countries, children in Greece performed poorly on reading assessments. According to the literature, the more children's intrinsic motivation is enhanced at an early age, the more likely they are to continue reading books as they grow older. Parents can play a crucial role in shaping children’s intrinsic reading motivation. Thus, these findings necessitate a study of the factors within the home context that influence children’s intrinsic reading motivation to facilitate the design of an intervention aimed at enhancing this motivation. The primary aim of this study was to identify the common reading habits of children with high motivation for reading. The secondary aim of this study was to highlight the habits and beliefs of parents that contribute to the development of these reading motives.
The survey was conducted in the spring of 2022 in the prefecture of Achaia. Initially, kindergarten teachers assessed students who showed high interest in reading activities. Then, through semi-structured interviews with the children, those with high motivation for reading were highlighted and their common characteristics were recorded. In addition, semi-structured interviews were conducted with the children’s parents to identify the home reading experiences that positively influenced the children's attitudes towards reading. The final sample consisted of 10 five-year-old students and their parents, respectively. The analysis of the qualitative data was based on the technique of thematic analysis, in order to create an analytical and systematic record of the codings and themes that emerged from the participants' interviews.
Regarding the students with enhanced reading motivation, most of them enjoyed reading books because it allowed them to experience pleasant emotions. After reading a book, the children often either re-enacted the story and/or discussed it with their family. In addition, these children enjoyed going to bookstores and choosing books on their own. Finally, they stated that someone who does not read books misses out on knowledge, joy, and beautiful emotions. Regarding the parents' habits that fueled the children’s intrinsic motivation to read, it appeared that they themselves were frequent readers. In fact, at home, they chose to have two bookcases, one in a common area and the other in the child's room. In addition, it was common that all the parents read very often with their child, especially in the evening while holding their child in their arms. Finally, while reading, the parents often stopped and talked with their child about the book.
In conclusion, it is important to highlight the factors that influence children's motivation for reading. By evaluating common characteristics of children with high intrinsic motivation for reading, as well as the common reading characteristics of their parents, this research provided important information regarding the factors that influence children’s reading motivation within the home context. Future studies could expand on these findings by investigating the role of school in enhancing children's intrinsic reading motivation.