The Potential of Picture Books in Multilingual Primary School Classrooms: Approaches of Meaning Making and Literacy Learning
Submitted by:
Catarina Schmidt
Abstract:
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