Amelia Church and Bridie RabanThe University of Melbourne

Early Childhood Australia National Conference30 September 2010

Inspiring storybook reading environments respond to children

Chief Investigators:

Associate Professor Margaret Brown (Principal Investigator), Associate Professor Esther Care, Professor Bridie Raban, Professor Field Rickards, Mr Terry O’Connell (Australian Scholarships Group)

Research team:

Associate Professor Brown (Team leader), Ms Emelie Barringer, Dr Anna Bortoli, Mr Robert Brown, Dr Linda Byrnes, Associate Professor Care, Ms Esther Chan, Dr Amelia Church, Ms Jan Deans, Ms Lucy Jackson, Dr Anne-Marie Morrissey (now at Deakin University), Dr Andrea Nolan (now at Victoria University), Dr Louise Paatsch (now at Deakin University), Mr Derek Patton, Professor Raban, Dr Maria Remine, Dr Janet Scull, Ms Lena Tan, Ms Jessica Taylor and Dr Linda Watson (Birmingham University, UK)

Funding Support:

Australian Scholarship Group (ASG); Australian Research Council (ARC): Linkage Projects funding scheme (Project number LP0883437); Melbourne Graduate School of Education, The University of Melbourne

Aims of the studyhttp://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/younglearners/

• To investigate child characteristics, family and pedagogical practices that support early literacy development in 4-year-old kindergarteners

• To identify how parents and teachers engage with and scaffold children’s early literacy development

• To document the emergence of early literacy

• To develop instruments to assist teachers to understand children’s early literacy capacities

• To identify pedagogical strategies for teacher education programmes

Analytic framework

1. Shared bookreading Print knowledge (Justice et al, 2009)

Extend vocabulary (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001)

Opportunities for decontextualised talk (Hindman et al, 2008)

2. Teacher-child interactionsInitiation/Response/Evaluation (Mehan, 1979)

‘Sustained shared thinking’ (Siraj-Blatchford and Manni, 2008)

3. An emic approach Conversation analysis (Sacks, Schegloff and Jefferson, 1974;

Erickson, 2004; Goodwin & Kyratzsis, 2007; Butler, 2008; Church, 2009; Maryanne Theobald at 3.30pm today in Meeting Room 4!)

ECT: i want [you] to use your sensible thinking

[about what's coming up]=

Eri: [can i sa:y some:thing].

ECT: =okay? (.) what's rhyming.

(0.8)

Eri: [(.hhh-)], ((moving towards book))

ECT: >[(hold on)] you can tell me in a second<. i will not eat them in a hou:se? i- >uh sorry< i will not eat them here or

there i will not eat the:m?=

1. Why focus on child-initiated utterances in reading events?

2. How do teachers respond to child-initiated utterances?

3. What are the implications of these responses in creating inspiring environments for children’s learning?

Overview

Turn transition relevant places

Xav: he's saying "c c c c ".

ECT: he's go- storming o:ff, those are bubbles they're not c's. (0.5)

he's [storming off] with a grumpy look.

Eri: [why there-]

Eri: why there are bubbles.

ECT: would you could you in a ca:r (.) eat them eat them here they are.

Contingency (semantic/pragmatic)

ECT: “I’m drawing a: haterpillar (.) um: I mean a caterpillar” answered Jenny.

Gen: hehhe (0.2) $it’s a haterpillar because she’s got a hat on$.

ECT: hehehum $.hhhh “oh dear” sighed her mother.

Contingency (inference)

ECT: that night (0.3) he had a stomach ache.

( ): [x x ]

And: [from ea]ting all of that.

ECT: yeah (0.7) so: full.

Teacher responses to child-initiated turns

response expansion

Example 1. response

ECT: show me the- pretend you’re a wild thing.

(1.5) ((all children use hands as claws))

ECT: [that’s it.]

Mir: [(I think that] thing is something else.

(0.4)

ECT: but Max stepped into his private boat,

Example 2. response

ECT: a tv antenna?

Kar: that looks pretty¿

(0.3)

ECT: and a shiny pan.

Example 3. response

ECT: it’s just the noise the shell makes when you put it against your ea:r.

(1.0)

Bil: the sea: came out of the shell .hhh (they are) x x.

(1.1)

ECT: but David knew where there had been a sea in his bedroom.

Example 4. response

Xav: he's saying "c c c c ".

ECT: he's go- storming o:ff, those are bubbles they're not c's. (0.5)

he's [storming off] with a grumpy look.

Eri: [why there-]

Eri: why there are bubbles.

ECT: would you could you in a ca:r (.) eat them eat them here they are.

Example 5. Minimal response

ECT: “I’m drawing a: haterpillar (.) um: I mean a caterpillar” answered Jenny.

Gen: hehhe (0.2) $it’s a haterpillar because she’s got a hat on$.

ECT: hehehum $.hhhh “oh dear” sighed her mother.

Example 6. Minimal response

ECT: that night (0.3) he had a stomach ache.

( ): [x x ]

And: [from ea]ting all of that.

ECT: yeah (0.7) so: full.

Example 7. Minimal response

ECT: and a person called Maurice wrote this story,

Tom: hmm?

Jak: [ Maurice! ]

ECT: [and they’ve-] Maurice yeah and >he

[was clever because he-<]

Bec: [ it’s close to ] Hori:ce.

ECT: it is close to Horice (.) and he did the pictures too.

Example 8. Minimal response

ECT: i do not [like them:?]

[‘x’ for m]e::.(0.3)

( ): a:[nywhe:re.]

ECT: [anywhere.]

Xav: but (.) there's a 'xyz''X' for ↑me::.

ECT: an 'X' for you:? (0.7) you do not like green eggs and ↑ham,

Extending - Extract A

Extending - Extract B

Conclusions

1. Children’s contributions to the ongoing activity display communicative competencies in addition conceptual understanding.

1. Teachers typically orient to an existing pedagogic script, privileging of the goals of the task in favour of children’s orientation to the task. Learning how to do institutional interaction in favour of learning about literacy? (see Pike, 2010)

2. Extending child-initiated utterances – while not always possible – provides the very essence of ‘teachable moments’

Acknowledgments

The teachers and children participating in the Young Learners’ Project

Colleagues in the Young Learner’s Project

The University of Melbourne Early Career Researcher Grant

The Vera Scantlebury Brown Memorial Trust Research Scholarship

Email: achurch@unimelb.edu.au