Research & Practice for Persons with Severe Disabilities2008, Vol. 33, No. 3, 103-121

copyright 2009 byTASH

Joining the Literacy Flow: Fostering Symboland Written Language Learning inYonng Children With Significant

Developmental DisabilitiesThrough the Four Currents

of LiteracyChristopher Kliewer

University of Northern IowaThis article is both an ethnographic and an action-based

description of how excellent early childhood teachers inseven inclusive preschool and kindergarten classrooms fos-tered the developing literacy profiles of young childrenwith significant developmental disabilities alongside theirtypically developing peers through active, engaging, socialmeans. I have developed four broad themes, describedhere as currents, that support the meaning-based literacy-learning of children still commonly cast as intrinsicallyincapable of literate citizenship, using participant obser-vation; in-depth interviews with teachers, therapists, andparents; the implementation of increasingly responsive, sys-tematic literacy-based themes, opportunities, and activitiesinto certain incltÁsive classrooms; and the development ofprocess-oriented portfolio documentation. Important find-ings irtclude the following: (a) children with significant de-velopmental disabilities can join the early childhood literacyflow; (b) they do so through interactive mearts; and (c)spoken language need not serve as the foundation of writtenlanguage learning.

DESCRIPTORS: early childhood inclusion, literacy,severe disability

Two conceptual models have over the past four de-cades dominated scholarly and policy debates regardingyoung children's early literacy. The first, initially articu-lated by the late Marie Clay (1966), is a developmentalmodel described as emergent literacy. As a descriptiveframework, emergent literacy was initially composed onthe Piagetian duality that children are active constructorsof their knowledge and that this process of construc-tion unfolds from birth across stable, naturally occurringstages (Teale & Sulzby, 1986).

Address all correspondence and reprint requests to Dr.Christopher Kliewer, Department of Special Education, Univer-sity of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA 50614. E-mail: kliewer@uni.edu

Emergent literacy theorists posit that written lan-guage learning is intrinsic to normal development andoccurs naturally in a symbiotic relationship with orallanguage development when children are provided withdevelopmentally appropriate opportunities, environments,and models (just as spoken language requires appropri-ate opportunities, environments, and models; Ra2far &Gutiérrez, 2003; Sulzby, Branz, & Buhle, 1993; Teale &Sulzby, 1986). Although more recently there has been atempering of this position (International Reading Asso-ciation & National Association for the Education ofYoung Children, 1998; Sénéchal, LeFevre, Smith-Chant,& Colton, 2001), the conceptual model of emergent liter-acy deemphasizes direct instruction in basic literacy skills.Rather, young children's literacy is promoted throughtheir immersion in print and symbol-rich environmentssupporting thoughtful opportunities and activities thatfoster active engagement and experimentation with spo-ken and written language. In this model, there is no pre-üteracy or readiness phase as children are consideredactive, albeit idiosyncratic, literacy learners from the start(Morrow, 2005).

In contrast to the framework of emergent literacy isthe conceptual model described as reading readiness,which has, in early childhood literacy research and pol-icy, become wholly conjoined with phonemic-based de-coding (Shannon, 2000). Thus, the framework might bestbe labeled decoding readiness. Decoding readiness, likeemergent literacy, is grounded in decades-old scholarship(e.g., Chali, 1967), but its efflorescence as the currentdominant model within both early childhood policy andpractice is most aptly traced to Marilyn Jager Adams'(1990) report to Congress that was subsequently pub-lished under the title Beginning to Read. Adams' surveyof research on early literacy led her to conclude that lit-eracy acquisition on the part of young children, includ-ing kindergartners, required an emphasis on systematic,direct instruction in skills associated with phonics.

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Beginning to Read (Adams, 1990) initiated the as-cendency of decoding readiness as the singular entrypoint to early literacy including now in the preschool(Dickinson, McCabe, & Essex, 2006). Adams' views werelargely reiterated in the Report of the National ReadingPartei: Teaching children to read (National Reading Panel,2000), another report commissioned by Congress. Al-though ostensibly presenting a view balanced betweendecoding and meaning making, the Congressional Panelheavily emphasized what it termed alphabetics (i.e., pho-nemic awareness instruction and phonics instruction) inthe primary grades.

Within the decoding-readiness paradigm, written lan-guage development is not considered to be intrinsic tothe child but is described as a relatively recent (in evo-lutionary time), contrived, arbitrary, and cultural crea-tion (Ashby & Rayner, 2006). Thus, written languageis considered wholly nonintrinsic and must be taughtthrough direct instruction and drill along a trajectoryof sequenced, mechanized skills adhering to four com-ponent areas: (a) phonemic awareness—the consciousawareness on the part of young children that words aremade up of a variety of sound units or phonemes andthe skiüs involved in breaking words into componentsound bits; (b) alphabetic principle—the general knowl-edge about the alphabet including that phonemes canbe orthographically represented in the form of letters andletter combinations (called graphemes) and vice versa;(c) oral language—vocabulary development and correctEnglish usage; and, in certain programs, (d) orthography—spelling and the rules associated with spelling (Adams,1990, 2001; Adams, Foorman, Lundberg, & Beeler, 1997;Whitehurst & Lonigan, 2001).

Of the four component areas, the first—phonemicawareness—is considered primordial to all further earlyliteracy skills. Adams (2001) noted, "In any complex en-deavor children must learn to walk [i.e., decipher pho-nemes] before they run [i.e., make meaning of text]"(p. 68). She then rhetorically asked, "Learning [to read]must start somewhere: if not with letters and phonemes,then where?" (p. 68).

It is an unfortunate, yet revealing metaphor, in thatmany children do not "learn to walk" but still can be-come successful at navigating valued terrains including,I assert, the inclusive early childhood literate community(Kliewer et al., 2004). Indeed, there is a growing aware-ness in the arena of disability and inclusive schoolingthat young children with significant developmental dis-abilities associated with communication and intellec-tual impairments are able to dramatically develop intheir literacy profiles (Browder et al, 2006; Katims, 2000;Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003). In an unfortunatelysporadic fashion, this reahzation is slowly beginning toimpact on the applied fields of inclusive education anddisability studies (Kliewer, 2008). However, a perusal ofannual conference presentations over the past 3 yearsat the International Reading Association, the National

Reading Conference, and the National Association forthe Education of Young Children suggests that the widerfield of early literacy is unaware of, or disinterested in,the literate lives of young children with significant devel-opmental disabilities.

This dearth in focus may in part be explained by thetwo early literacy conceptual models around which lit-eracy scholars and policymakers rally. Both emergentliteracy and decoding readiness emphasize spoken lan-guage as central to literacy development. Certainly, inthe emergent paradigm, there is a recursive design inwhich the child's developing speech affects the devel-opment of other sign and symbol systems and is in turnaffected by those other systems (Teale & Sulzby, 1986).However, because the model is based on what is con-sidered normal development, spoken language, as themost prominent symbolic communication system, re-tains a privileged status. This is also, quite obviously,true in programs focused on decoding readiness in whichspoken sounds are considered the very basis of any fur-ther literacy development.

Communication impairments (meaning, at a funda-mental level, extreme difficulties first and foremost withspoken language), whether considered core or periph-eral, are ubiquitous for individuals cast as severely de-velopmentally disabled (Kliewer, 2008). Young childrenwith significant developmental disabilities, supported ineither developmentally appropriate or readiness modelsof literacy, may struggle to find a foothold within theclassroom's orally based literate community. That strug-gle is then compounded by an array of professional dis-positions that conspire to maintain the child outside theliterate realm. These include, among many, the follow-ing: (a) chnical attitudes that suggest that other develop-mental needs take functional precedence over writtenlanguage learning (Kliewer & Biklen, 2001); (b) lack ofknowledge about and experience with assistive technol-ogy (AT) and augmentative and alternative communi-cation (AAC) systems (Foley & Staples, 2007); and (c)ensconced professional beliefs that children measuredto be significantly disabled are intellectually incapable ofattaining literacy (Mirenda, 2003).

We might speculate that young children with signifi-cant developmental disabUifies could, to whatever degreepossible, insert silent speech in place of their peers' spokenroute to reading. Of course this requires the field to movebeyond anachronistic, albeit deeply entrenched, attitudesthat suggest not being able to speak is synonymous withhaving nothing to say. As an example, in a harsh critiqueof the literacy demonstrated by people whose typed com-munication was physically facilitated (e.g., facilitatedcommunication), Jacobson, Muhck, and Schwartz (1995)ignored amazing advances in the field of AAC and ATas well as what we know about the relationship betweenexpressive and receptive communication, to assert, "Thatthere is a strong presumptive relafionship, in general, be-tween overt [i.e., nonaugmented] production [of cotnmu-

Literacy Flow 105

nication] and actual ability is a cornerstone of psycho-logical assessment methodology, statistics, and psycho-metrics" (p. 757).

Indeed, some studies have demonstrated that the writ-ten language development of children with severe dis-abilities do benefit from either an emergent literacyenvironment (Erickson & Hatton, 2007) or explicit soundto letter instruction (Joseph & Seery, 2004). However,particularly with regard to the now dominant decoding-readiness frame, the accumulating body of evidence sug-gests routes alternative to a strict phonics regimen may bemore appropriate for the literate development of youngchildren with significant developmental disabilities (Basil& Reyes, 2003; Kliewer et al, 2004). Current policy aside,this is also true for many typically developing children(Kress, 1997). Research overwhelmingly documents thatyoung children without disabilities build and access writ-ten language lexicons not just through decoding but alsothrough multiple paths associated with word (and mor-pheme, syllable, and even phrase) recognition (Beard,2003). Word recognition is, of course, an importantfacet of reading. It connotes the capacity to move withautomaticity from textual form to meaning without thelaborious, and often ineffective, need to first translatestrung-together letters representing sounds and soundblends into their spoken counterparts and only as a laststep arrive at meaning (Stanovich, 1991). In fact, quiteopposite of current early literacy programs that have byand large made decoding an end in itself̂ decoding shouldinstead be approached as one tool that may be useful inthe child's active efforts to make text mean (Egan, 2006).

Preschool children, who naturally have limited knowl-edge of the alphabet, are very capable of constructingquite complex written language lexicons by way of non-alphabetic, visually salient features of words and wordparts (Ehri, 1995). These sight word lexicons are de-veloped and accessed in multiple ways including, forinstance, through rote memorization and recognition, anal-ogizing to known morphemes and whole words, makinguse of contextual clues, initial letter recognition, etc. Thechild is not working at the level of sound to letter butrather at the level of visual form to meaning.

Capacities associated with word recognition begin earlyin the lives of children who, we know, are naturally in-clined to make sense of the surrounding symbolic world(Gardner, 1991). The young child who recognizes theGolden Arches as her favorite restaurant is throughlogographic functioning turning an abstracted symboldirectly from form to meaning (Stainthorp, 2003). This isnot unlike that which is asked of countless individuals withsevere disabilities, including preschoolers, who are ap-proached with prefabricated pictographic symbol boardsas their primary mode of expression. In this commonsituation, the person making use of the alternative formof communication is required to make visual (or, depend-ing on the case, tactual) sense of an array of symbols.Granted, the pictures used, whether picture commu-

nication symbols (Mayer-Johnson, 1981), Blissymbols(Hehner, 1980), etc., are meant to look like that whichthey represent but are in actuality highly abstracted im-ages that cannot capture the breadth, the complexity, orthe highly personal, immediate, and individualized formof the activities, ideas, emotions, etc., meant to be com-municated by an actual person.

The symbols on a communication board in effectact as metaphors. They do not mirror any actual formof reality but only capture that which is considered bytheir designer (who most likely has no prescient knowl-edge of the individual user) to be a particular criticalfeature of the represented idea. It is, for instance, as ifthat stick figure holding out what appears to be a cup isseeking "more to drink." The expectation, then, is forthe communication-aid user to turn the metaphor intomeaning.

The construction of metaphor as a way of developingmeaning underlies all children's development of literacyas chains of linked signs come to symbolize, mean, andrepresent critical qualities of objects, actions, and ideas(Gardner, 1991). Kress (1997) noted that "Signs [i.e.,symbols] are the result of metaphoric processes in whichanalogy is the principle by which they are formed. Anal-ogy is a process of comparison or classification: x islike y (in criterial ways). Metaphors are classificatorystatements" (p. 12).

Certain educators and researchers, recognizing thatabsolutely no evidence exists suggesting that makingmeaning of the visual form of written language is anymore intellectually taxing than making meaning of, forinstance, Blissymbols (see Smith, 1999), have conscien-tiously included written captions on communicationsymbols and have, in certain instances, moved entirelyto text. British language scientist Susan Buckley, for in-stance, has spent nearly three decades developing theliterate profiles of preschoolers with trisomy 21 (e.g.,Buckley, 1984, 1985, 1995, 2006). Her work describesdozens of toddlers and preschool children, all of whomhave been identified as having moderate to severe cog-nitive delays, and some as young as 2 years old, learningto read alphabetic print at levels far beyond what is gen-erally conceived to be possible for typically developingpreschool children.

Many of Buckley's young research participants arelearning to read before demonstrating recognizable orseemingly useful spoken language. She noted that thechildren were not learning to read as a language systemsecondary to speech, but as a first language (much asspoken language is considered to be the "first language"of nondisabled children; Buckley, 1985). Rather thanfollowing three stages beginning with seeing the printedword, translating the printed word into its spoken form,and finally comprehending the word, the young childreninvolved in her studies were instead going straight fromseeing the printed word to its meaning. Evidence ofthis first occurred when certain of Buckley's preschool

106 Kliewer

research participants who had the ability to articulateone word utterances demonstrated logical semantic er-rors when reading flash cards. For instance, when shownthe word "shut," a 3-year-old child said, "closed." Whenshown the word, "ship," a child said, "boat." These chil-dren were going straight from the visual image of theword to its meaning. Buckley (1985) hypothesized thatfor many children with significant developmental dis-abilities, "Mastering a written language is in some wayeasier than mastering a spoken language.... Words thatare seen in their written form are retained more readilythan words heard in spoken form" (p. 322). Further,although agreeing that phonics may play a useful role insome reading instruction, Buckley (1985) pointed outthat "It is not essential for learning to read" (p. 327).

Cossu and Marshall (1990), Cossu, Rossini, andMarshall (1993), and Cossu, Shankweiler, Liberman,Fowler, and Fisher (1988) reported findings similar toBuckley's from their experimental investigations of thereading development of children who had been iden-tified as having moderate to severe cognitive impair-ments in conjunction with communication disorders.Their research came out at a time when many otherswere beginning to make absolute causal links betweenphonemic awareness and abihty to read. In response.Cossu et al. (1993) stated.

We simply wish it to be accepted that not all childrendepend on phonological awareness in order to learnto read. If it is agreed that different children leam toread in different ways and that phonological aware-ness may play little or no role with some children,then we have no quarrel with assigning some im-portance to phonological awareness in the readingdevelopment of other children (p. 135).

A modest but growing body of evidence now suggeststhat literacy development for young children with signifi-cant developmental disabilities is optimized not throughdecontextualized drill but when written language oppor-tunities and activities are contextually embedded in in-clusive, meaningfully motivating, communicatively based,interactive activities and opportunities (Koppenhaver,Hendrix, & Williams, 2007). BasU and Reyes (2003), indescribing an experimental study using a computer-basedliteracy program for six children labeled with severe in-tellectual disabilifies, noted that the participants' dramatic(and sustained) literacy learning occurred because theinstructional approach applied strategies that were "sim-ilar to those that typically occur during spontaneous dia-logues and co-construction of language ... Creatinginteresting problems for students to solve rather thangiving them instructions to follow" (p. 29). The research-ers concluded that, for their participants.

Poor reading skills cannot be explained by cogni-tive deficits and impaired underlying processes alone.

When reading has a purpose or meaning for the stu-dent, the relevant processes vvill be activated and theunderlying abilities developed. One may speculatewhether a lack of what was, for them, meaningfulexperiences with letters and written words, had con-strained the children's development and hinderedthem in realizing their potential for acquiring hteracy(p. 42).

Koppenhaver, Pierce, and Yoder (1995) noted that"Research suggests that in cases where literacy is in-corporated into daily routines and interventions, manyindividuals with severe disabilities make good progressin learning to read and write" (p. 7). They describe afascinating situation in which one of their graduate stu-dents with expertise in AAC and AT took over a seg-regated summer school program for seven children,aged 7-11 years, labeled with severe autism. Six of theseven students were considered to have profound in-tellectual disabilities thought by the program's regularstaff to largely preclude their participation in literacylearning opportunities.

The graduate student thought otherwise. She incor-porated a systematic literacy curriculum into the regularroutines involving highly interactive, generative use ofsymbols and text. Certain of the multitude of opportu-nities included the following: (a) daily written journalingbased around motivating pictures; (b) oral storytellingusing wordless picture books (involving, amazingly, stu-dents who previous to the summer program were de-scribed as nonverbal); (c) popular media (e.g., Beavisand Butt-Head) as motivators to word recognition; (d)modified assessments that allowed the students to dem-onstrate knowledge through pointing to textual formatsrather than through voice; (e) motivating puzzles andgames; and (f) simple, systematic exposure to writtenlanguage throughout the school day. By the end of the6 weeks, "All [seven students] were able to use printto accomplish classroom tasks after literacy had beenintegrated into their daily classroom activity" (p. 12). Wecan only speculate on what occurred for the childrenwhen the graduate student left the program to returnfull time to her studies. Indeed, that these students pre-viously had experienced virtually no opportunities withliteracy may largely be a reflection of their lack of access toinclusive environments (Coleman, 1991; Kliewer & Biklen,2001; Khewer, Biklen, & Kasa-Hendrickson, 2006).

Through my research, I have come to define literacyas the construction (which includes interpretation) ofmeaning through visually or tactually crafted symbolsthat compose various forms of text (Kliewer, 2008).Children in language- and symbol-rich environments be-gin to develop literate profiles soon after birth as theyengage with surrounding images and texts and begin tocraft their own narratives in their efforts to make meaningof the surrounding world (Dickinson, McCabe, & Essex,2006; Morrow & Schickedanz, 2006).

Literacy Flow 107

This article is both an ethnographic and an action-based description of how excellent early childhoodteachers in inclusive preschool and kindergarten class-rooms foster the developing literacy profiles of youngchildren with significant developmental disabilities along-side their typically developing peers through active, en-gaging, social means. I have developed four broad themes,described here as currents, that support the meaning-based literacy learning of children still commonly cast asintrinsically incapable of literate citizenship, using partic-ipant observation in dozens of inclusive classrooms (fo-cused here on just seven since 2005); in-depth interviewswith teachers, therapists, and parents; the implementa-tion of increasingly responsive, systematic literacy-basedthemes, opportunities, and activities into certain inclusiveclassrooms, and the development of process-oriented port-folio documentation.

MethodsSince the mid-1990s, after my tenure as an inclusive

preschool teacher at the pioneering Jowonio School,Syracuse, NY, I have used qualitative methods to studythe literate experiences of young children aged 2 to6 years who have significant developmental disabihtiesand who are schooled in fully inclusive early childhoodprograms. Since 2001, my research has been supportedthrough grants from the U.S. Department of Education,allowing me the fiexibility to conduct intensive studiesin 21 toddler through kindergarten classrooms spreadacross seven center-based sites in three different states.Although the ideas presented herein certainly reflect onthe experiences I have had in all of these environments,for this article I specifically conducted in-depth analyseson data collected in seven classrooms since 2005 whenthree changes in my research approach occurred.

First, I began to systematically videotape, digitize, or-ganize, and catalogue many of my field-based observa-tions. This has proved invaluable in terms of deeperanalysis of the data. Second, I had grown troubled withthe conceptual models available for explaining earlyliteracy in hght of how I saw typically developing chil-dren in these inclusive settings actively, purposefully,and imaginatively engage various symbol systems in-cluding text. In 2005, I began to systematically collectcareful data on children without disabilities as well astheir peers with significant developmental disabilities.Ultimately, these data led me to hypothesize that chil-dren do not so much acquire literacy as they create it.Third, based on my previous studies and in cooperationwith my participating teachers and families, we beganto systematically incorporate increasingly responsiveliteracy practices into what already were strong literacyenvironments.

Table 1 presents a snapshot of the seven classrooms.In the far left column are the numbered classrooms andthe general age of the children. For each column rep-

resenting an academic year or summer program, I havecreated three subcolumns. The first describes the totalnumber of children in the class followed in parenthesesby the number of children who qualify as significantlydevelopmentally disabled. The second subcolumn de-scribes the number of children with significant develop-mental disabilities in that class whom I had in previousyears observed, either in that same classroom or in adifferent, younger-aged room. The third subcolumndescribes the numbers of hours I spent observing in theclassroom and interviewing teachers and parents asso-ciated with the class. The total number of hours spent inobservation or interview is 431.

Settings and ParticipantsI chose to focus my attention on these seven class-

rooms for a variety of reasons. First, each classroom isfully inclusive. This means, by my criteria, that childrenwith significant developmental disabilities are consid-ered full members of the setting and spend no less than90% of their school hours with typically developingpeers. Second, each of the classrooms was assessed usingthe Early Language and Literacy Observation Toolkit(Smith, Dickinson, Anasatopoulos, & Sangeorge, 2002).On each of the three component parts, (a) the Class-room Observation and Teacher Interview (with a topcomposite score of 5), (b) the Literacy EnvironmentChecklist (with a top composite score of 40), and theLiteracy Activities Rating Scale (with a top compositescore of 11), each classroom scored no less than 80%.Third, each demonstrated (as indicated by the EarlyLanguage and Literacy Observation scores and qualita-tive evaluation) an active, programmatic-wide commit-ment to a recognizable literacy curriculum that includedvarying degrees of child discovery, teacher-led instruc-tion, alphabet skills, story reading and writing, pretendplay, art, dance, and music, symbol-rich environments,etc. Table 2 presents a brief list of regularly scheduled,common teacher-initiated and child-initiated literacyactivities and opportunities across the classrooms in-volved in this study.

Fourth, Individual Education Plans (IEP) and IndividualFamily Service Plans (IFSP) refiected recognizable literacygoals for students with significant disabilities and demon-strated teacher commitment to the hterate developmentof children with significant disabilities. Fifth, in interviews,parents of students with significant developmental disabil-ities confirmed heir child's active participation in the gen-eral community of the classroom. And sixth, data weremaintained by the school in the form of portfolios andvarious developmental assessments (including specific lit-eracy assessments) tracking student change.

These are obviously excellent environments in whichto study high-quality early literacy. Clearly, in the tra-dition of quahtative research, I rehed not on randomsampling but on what is termed theoretical sampling(Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). I sought environments that

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Literacy Flow 109

Table 2Consistently Scheduled Common Teacher-Initiated and

Child-Initiated Literacy Activities

Teacher-initiated literacy activitiesGroup picture book readingCollaborative language experience story writingReaders' theater dramatizing storiesCollaborative classroom-made booksFelt board and puppet storiesEngagement with literacy-based Internet Web sitesDevelopment of books using Microsoft PowerPointMusic and rhythm activitiesOral storytellingWord walls (arrays of meaningful words on wall)Centers organized with opportunities to rhyme, to label, todevelop stories, etc.

Child-initiated literacy activitiesDramatic and fantasy playWriting and art centersListening center with books and stories on CDIndividual and collaborative story timePuzzles and gamesExploration of literacy-based Internet Web sites

recognized the literate capacity of all young children andthat could further my theorizing about how to expandand deepen those competencies. In addition, these wereenvironments organized by teachers who sought out myinput to further enhance their strong literacy-based teach-ing practices.

Primary participants for this study included youngchildren in preschool and kindergarten with significantdevelopmental disabilities. All children defined hereas such were students who qualified for significant lev-els of special education resources in relation to statedisbursement patterns because of the presumed degreeof disability. Many, but not all of the children, hadspecific disability diagnoses (e.g., autism spectrum dis-order, trisomy 21, cerebral palsy, Rett syndrome, etc.).Preschool children, and now older students, however,may receive services with a nonspecified disabihty label.In addition, every participating child defined as havingsignificant developmental disabilities had scored on for-mal developmental instruments in the domains of cog-nition and language communication at approximately nomore than half their chronological age.

Although I retained extensive data on all the childrenwith significant developmental disabilities and many oftheir typically developing peers, I also created in-depthportfolio documentations (described below) of one spe-cific child with disabilities in each setting observed dur-ing an academic period. In a somewhat crude sense, howI initially arrived at the particular child was to simplychoose the one who on developmental assessments earlyin the year performed lowest across the domains asso-ciated with cognition, language, and communication.However, once I had begun a portfolio on a particularchild, if I had the opportunity to continue observing himor her in subsequent academic periods, I continued de-veloping that portfolio no matter how the child per-

formed in relation to other peers. I have a total of 12such portfolios from these seven classrooms, 3 of whichdescribe a single child older than 3 years, 4 describe asingle child older than 2 years, and 5 describe a singlechild older than 1 year.

Other important participants in this study includedthe following: (a) typically developing classroom peers,(b) classroom peers with less severe disabilities, (c) leadteachers, (d) classroom paraeducators, (e) therapists, (f)administrators, (g) volunteers, and (h) immediate andin some cases extended families. In combination withmaterials and resources, these people constituted theliterate milieu surrounding the children with significantdevelopmental disabilities.

Data Collection and AnalysisThe findings are based on data from two interrelated

sources: traditional ethnographic methods and action-based intervention. In terms of traditional qualitativemethods, I conducted participant observations (oftenusing a videocamera) in the classrooms and (withoutvideo) in certain homes, in-depth individual and groupinterviews with adults, and systematic collection ofdocuments associated with the contexts under study. Iwrote field notes after observations and, with graduateassistance, digitized video that was analyzed and cata-logued according to emergent themes, certain of whichare presented here. Although commonly evoked, con-stant comparative analysis of data is poorly defined andthus poorly understood (Bogdan & Biklen, 2007). Themanner in which I proceeded began long before 2005when I first observed in a single, extraordinarily high-quality preschool classroom, described in Table 1 asClassroom 1.

From data collected in these early observations, Ibegan to metaphorically sketch a picture of how youngchildren with significant developmental disabilitiescrafted their own, or made meaning of others', symbols.Initially, I was interested only in those symbols con-nected to traditional text but quickly came to see theinterconnection of three-dimensional visual-tactile sym-bols (used in play and academics), pictorial symbols, andtextual symbols. Gallas (2003) describes this as thechild's movement from the symbols of "play to picturesto writing" (p. 42). I observed and dialogued with teach-ers and parents as they introduced ever more complexsymbols into the children's daily experiences and ob-served children as they gained sophistication with sym-bols as tools for communication, play, and academics.

As my initial sketch took on clearer form, I began toform substantive themes related to the question, "Whatdoes it mean to be literate in this specific context?" Ithen began to expand data collection into other high-quality classrooms. I of course maintained substantiveconcerns (e.g.. What does it mean to be Uterate inthis particular next environment under scrutiny?), butthrough comparative analysis, my substantive concerns

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began to shift toward theoretical abstractions: Whatdoes it mean for a young child to be a literate citizen?How is citizenship fostered in young children tradi-tionally excluded from valued statuses? This shift inqualitative research from the actual to the abstract isreferred to as the formal generation of grounded theory(Bogdan & Biklen, 2007).

Including a wider array of settings confirmed, ex-tended, and refined my emergent themes. For instance, Ibegan to see a trend that many of my young participantswith significant developmental disabilities more activelydemonstrated symbol recognition and use when thosesymbols were closely linked to daily experiences. On thebasis of this theme, I worked with several teachers toexpand such opportunities. In one classroom, wherecurricula were organized around a weekly thematic unit,it became a Friday ritual for all the children to producea shared classroom book on the theme using digitizedphotos, text, and drawings. I also assisted in having chil-dren participate in co-constructing messages for theirhome-school notebooks, a task that previously was purelyan adult effort. As such, I strayed from traditional quali-tative efforts in an action format to impact on the en-vironments under study.

In addition to field notes, interview transcripts, andvideo, data also took the form of developmental screen-ing and various other assessment scores, IEPs and IFSPs,and curricular artifacts produced by the children. Indeveloping the specific in-depth portfolio documenta-tions described above, I took regularly scheduled videoof the child in both natural and contrived situations. Bycontrived I mean that in coordination with classroomstaff, we organized specific literacy-related tasks thatserved both to evaluate and to demonstrate various lit-eracy capacities. One such activity included having achild indicate a topic around which to type a simplesentence. The sentence was then printed and cut apart,and the child was asked to recreate the original sentencethrough gesture, eye-gaze, etc. Portfolios also containedweekly e-mail posts from classroom staff regarding thechild's literacy-related successes and struggles. I alsoassisted in planning and supporting pori/b//o children's(for lack of a better term) symbol-based communicativeengagement with scheduled activities and maintaineddetailed records of the level and form of support thechildren required. Finally, because a child's literacy isconstructed in meaning-based, interactive fashion, Imade use of sociogram methodology (Barnes & Isaacson,1982) to systematically analyze the child's level ofengagement with peers in structured and unstructuredmoments of the day.

Findings

Table 3 describes a multitude of literacy-based dynam-ics young children accomplish to varying degrees as theyweave their way from constructing three-dimensional.

Table 3Literacy-Based Dynamics Accomplished to Varying Degrees

as Children Engage the Construction of Visual-Tactile,Pictorial, and Text-Based Symbols

• Experiences, objects, factual and fictional ideas, emotions,and desires may be expressed as narratives making use ofmetaphors and visual symbol systems.

• Symbols link meaning to a particular form that is eitherthree or two dimensional.

• Meaning may be translated from symbol to spokenlanguage and from spoken language to symbol.

• Meaning may be translated from three dimensions to two(and back again).

• Using two-dimensional symbols, one expresses on aparticular surface (making decisions about how to constructthat space), using various media, and using particular designsthat may strive to visually reproduce reality (e.g., a picture)or represent a symbol in place of realism.

• Drawing two-dimensional letters of the alphabet capturesmeaning and sound.

• Realize that text is important.• Understand that text can be made to mean.• Comprehend that groups of letters, clustered and

arranged from left to right, are purposefully patternedand can convey information or be meaningfullydeciphered.

• Realize that particular repeatable, relatively simple shapescan capture the complexities of thought and emotion.

• Develop the orthographic sense that certain importantelements (including its sound) are attached to particularletters and arrangements of letters.

• Recognize that text occurs in lines or organized blocks.• Recognize that writing is organized visually and set in space

unlike speech, which has an ephemeral existence in time.• Realize that complex clauses from main to subordinate may

be layered and retrieved through written language suchthat complex ideas and stories may be told in a mannerquite distinct from speech.

• Construct the sense that marks, which are closely connectedor linked have meaning.

• Recognize that written language has spatial qualities, layout, and directionality.

• See that written language is often linear.• Realize that patterns of letters and individual letters may

be wrenched from one situation to a new situation tomake new form and meaning.

• Begin to recognize forms of patterned letters as actual,interpretable words.

visual-tactile symbols in play to two-dimensional pictorialsymbols and finally to text-based symbols when par-ticipating in the symbol- and print-rich, high-quality earlychildhood programs under study:

Children actively constructed these elements and dy-namics in collaboration with one another and surround-ing adults and in interaction with available resourcesand materials forming what I refer to as the inclusiveearly childhood literate community. This is not a linearprocess built on hierarchies but is better envisioned as aflow. The metaphor of flow conjectures a certain seam-lessness, albeit one filled with eddies, vortexes, rapids,turbulence, bogs, and the occasional hurricane.

Extensive ethnographic data gathered in the sevenclassrooms described documents that young children

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measured with significant cognitive and communicationdisabilities may actively participate as full citizens ofthe inclusive early childhood literate community whenvarious symbol systems are thoughtfully introducedas interactive, social tools for the meaningful engage-ment of thought and emotion. This occurs in the formof four currents that run through the literacy flow ofhigh-quality and symbol- and print-rich early childhoodprograms.

Current 1: Making Meaning of theVisual-Tactile, Pictorial, and Text-Based

Narratives of Others

On a September Monday in the preschool jungleroom, described in Table 1 as Classroom 1, the humanesociety served as the thematic unit of the week aroundwhich curricula was then organized. Nyla, a typicallydeveloping 4-year-old, had her mom bring their family'sterrier for sharing (e.g., show and tell). The jungleroom's lead teacher, Shayne Robbins, consistently drewher students' hves from outside of the classroom into theclassroom experience in an effort to promote a commonsense of holistic relevance regarding the curriculum. Inthis instance, Nyla's family had just celebrated thepuppies' flrst birthday, although the actual date of birthwas uncertain because the dog had in fact been found atthe local humane society. At teacher Robbins' request,Nyla's parents had sent as attachments several photos ofthe dog, including one taken at the humane society theday the family met the terrier.

Robbins arranged and captioned on a single page fourphotos including a picture of the outside of the humanesociety taken from the Web (captioned Humane So-ciety), a photo of Nyla and her brother in the humanesociety with the dog (captioned Meeting Maggie), aphoto of the puppy's flrst meal at Nyla's house (cap-tioned Maggie eats), and a picture of a much largerMaggie at her own birthday party (captioned Maggie'sfirst birthday). Robbins then made 16 copies of the page,one for each child in the class, including her four stu-dents with signiflcant developmental disabilities.

Robbins explained in a research interview, "This[page of captioned photos] is really more about, I guessyou could say, Jo, Lewis, Evan, and Jackson [the fourstudents with the most signiflcant disabilities], but really,every kid—I mean, look at Nick! He really beneflts too[referring to a typically developing peer]. It gives all thekids something visual to hold, make sense of, rememberby." Robbins was expressing her efforts to formulateactivities within the conceptual model of universal de-sign (Thousand & Villa, 2000). This meant that class-room experiences were designed in an inclusive formatfrom the ground up and in a manner that benefittedall participating children rather than introducing spe-cific adaptations for certain students only after the ac-tivities were created (although further individualized

modifications were commonly a part of Robbins and herteam's efforts).

After Nyla and her mother's presentation of Maggie,Shayne Robbins placed on a board each captionedphoto she had created in chronological sequence whilereiterating Nyla's earlier description. Built naturally intomost of Robbins' lessons were hteracy facets such as left-to-right orientation, stories might be captured in sym-bols, symbols can be arranged in logical order, etc. Jo,then 4 years, 1 month, and labeled with autism, sat nearNikki Lent, one of the program's language therapists.Jo's primary modes of communication then includedbody language and gesture, sounds, and some gesturetoward captioned symbols and photos. As Robbins'went from picture to picture. Lent tried to direct Jo'sattention to her own sheet. Jo took quick glances thenfrequently stood, clapped her hand on the sheet, andwould return to sitting only with the touch of Lent'shand on her back.

Later that Monday, teachers set up a Maggie's storystation as one of several centers time locations for smallgroups of children. Each day at a consistent time, allchildren in the classroom rotated through the availablecenters. At the Maggie's story center, the students wereto paste the cut-apart captioned pictures in correct se-quence. A paraeducator, Joyce Connor, supported Jowhile at the same time two friends worked alongsidelargely without adult guidance. After retelhng the storyin correct order while pointing to the pictures and text,Connor laid the four pictures in front of Jo and asked,"Which happened flrst?" Jo grabbed at the birthdayparty picture and, with a shriek, immediately crumpledit up. Connor flattened the picture and asked again.Again, Jo tried to grab the birthday party picture.Connor responded, "That is such a funny picture. Youare a party girl, Jo. I know how much you like to party! "Connor then removed the two middle pictures, justleaving the photo of the humane society and the birth-day party. "Which comes first?" she asked, "Going to thehumane society to meet Maggie or throwing her abirthday party?" Connor gently held Jo's hand in aneffort to help control Jo's impulsivity. Jo's arm shotthrough Connor's hand and she slapped the correct pic-ture with force letting out what those around her per-ceived to be an angry cry. Connor continued to supportJo using just two options at a time until the story se-quence was laid out. Of interest, when leaving the cen-ter, Jo grabbed a copy of the birthday photo and carriedit with her, crumpled, the rest of the day.

In the above data vignette, Jo, along with all her peers,was exposed to her friend Nyla's spoken and photo-graphic narrative about her dog, Maggie. Jo experiencedthe idea that the spoken narrative could be turned intopictorial and textual form and retold through left-to-right sequencing of the symbols made available to her.Fundamental to literate citizenship is the developingunderstanding that others have meaningful narratives to

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express and can do so making use of visual symbols(Morrow & Schickedanz, 2006). Young children withsignificant developmental disabilities must be exposedto, and actively connect with, others' meaning makingthrough narrative and symbol construction. This re-quires that children be in environments swirling withstories expressed by peers, heard on tape and CD, runon the computer, read, coUaboratively created, playedand acted, told by teachers, danced, drawn, retold, re-membered by visiting grandparents, etc.

Later in the week, Shayne Robbins repeated the four-sequence story of Maggie before a field-trip to the hu-mane society depicted in the photo used. Here, the class,including Jo, turned text and pictorial symbols intoactions when they left the page to actually experiencethe real life setting. On Friday of that week, at myrequest, Jo was again asked to sequence the story withall four pictures in front of her. She did so using gesturesquickly and correctly, although seemingly with someresentment.

In a second example of Current 1, making meaning ofthe symbol-based narratives of others, 3-year, 11-month-old Jason brought in his well-used copy of the book JtistMe and My Dad from the Little Critter series (Mayer,2001). Every week, certain children were asked to sharea favorite book. Jason's summer program, described inTable 1 as Classroom 3, was focused on the upcomingFathers' Day celebration. Jason had a chromosomalanomaly resulting in severe physical and communicationdisabilities, and evaluation instruments suggested sig-nificant cognitive delays. Much to Jason's delight, atmorning circle time, his teacher, Paula Rush, read thebook to the entire class with Jason seated on her lapassisting in showing the pictures. When she had finishedreading the book. Rush asked Jason, "Do you have afavorite part?" He arched on her lap indicating an af-firmative. With several children shouting out theirfavorite parts. Rush turned through the pages of thepicture book whereas Jason stared with rapt attention.When they got to the pages depicting a bear stealingthe Little Critter character's fish, Jason bent forwardtouching his face to the book.

In this data sequence, young children were of courseexperiencing the textual and pictorial narrative of apicture book, including that stories in books have par-ticular structural features, that stories are told from frontto back, left to right, etc. Although the teacher turnedtext into spoken language, the children augmented thatwhich was captured in the text by making meaning of theillustrations. Relying on the text alone would render thatparticular story senseless. Relying on the illustrationswithout text might allow a story to be built, but not theone experienced by the children. After Rush's questionregarding the favorite part of the book, Jason and hispeers also experienced that, unlike with speech, one mayreturn to previously viewed symbols or text to find, toreview, or to clarify a particular meaning.

In addition, Paula Rush introduced Jason later thatday to a Little Critter Web site (www.littlecritter.com),which contained an animated version of the book readin the morning. While Jason and three peers watched theshow, classroom paraeducator Sonia Temple flippedthrough the book showing the children correspondingpages. Here the children were experiencing the narra-tive in an animated symbolic format and contrasting it toits pictorial and textual version. I watched Jason's peers,who had varying degrees of familiarity with the story, tryto out shout one another with predictions as to whatscene would occur next. I was struck by Jason's inabilityto join the verbal fracas due to his lack of spoken lan-guage. At my next observation in the classroom thefollowing week, I brought with me several photocopiedpages of the book doctored with simplified one- or two-word captions. Jason and I, with one other child,watched the video. Using the pause icon, the two boystook turns predicting what would occur next. Jason didso by gesturing and/or gazing among three- or four-pageoptions. Of six opportunities, Jason was correct fivetimes. His typically developing friend was correct threeof seven times although he did not use the pictures.

A final description of Current 1 occurred duringChoose-and-Do time (e.g., free play) at the Bethel Nurs-ery School described in Table 1 as Classroom 2. Using avariety of centers, activities, readings, etc., the teachingteam had introduced the class made up primarily of4-year-olds (some turning 5 years old) to the concept ofthe solar system. I observed as several typically devel-oping children swirled in, out, and about a large box thatthe class had crafted into a spaceship. The teachingteam, in interaction with the children, generally devel-oped a large art-based project related to each classroomtheme. In this observation, the children together con-structed a fiowing narrative of space exploration thatebbed and surged in various complex trajectories. Allthe children donned some form of headgear available inthe classroom in an effort to represent space helmets.For instance. Jasmine wore a coveted plastic hardhat. Inaddition, the children had helped one another to tapesheets of article to their backs as oxygen tanks. In sodoing, the children were in effect crafting visually sym-bolic metaphors out of materials available to augment,to enrich, and to deepen the action and orally basedstory line. A plastic hardhat is not a space helmet, but toJasmine and her peers, it held enough critical helmetqualities to serve as if it were an astronaut's helmet andsignal to one another their common purpose. Further, adouble metaphor was created in that astronauts aremore than a space helmet and oxygen tank, but to thechildren, these were the critical features required tosymbolize their astronaut-ness.

Jodi, then 4.6 years old, appeared to be watching theplay as she sat at a nearby table where she had beensnacking. Jodi, tiny for her age, used a rolling walkerto maneuver about the classroom. She had significant

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physical disabilities, had been labeled on the autismspectrum, and was described as nonspeaking. Noticingthat Jodi had finished her snack, a physical therapistassistant, Yvette Plummer, who was in the classroom towork with Jodi, asked, "Do you want to be an astro-naut?" Dramatic play was considered by this teachingteam to be fundamental to all children's learning; thus, atremendous amount of adult energy was expended onsupporting the participation of children who otherwisemight be excluded. Plummer positioned Jodi in front ofthe first page of her symbol book that contained thewords "yes" and "no." Plummer stabilized Jodi's arm atthe elbow, and it appeared that Jodi quite deliberatelybrought her hand down on the word "yes." Plummeremphasized, "You said, 'yes,'" and assisted Jodi to herwalker and aided her in moving into the dramatic play.

A peer, Nadine, said directly to Jodi, "You gotta get aspace hat and one of these," pointing to her back onwhich was taped the article symbolizing an oxygen tank.Plummer found a fishing hat and put it on Jodi. Jodiplopped to ground and threw the hat. Jasmine noticedand said, "That's not a space helmet. She needs a spacehelmet." Plummer searched, then left the room, andreturned with a plastic knight's helmet, complete with avisor. Ben, involved in the space narrative, said, "Whoa,can I use that, Jodi?" Plummer said, "Let's let Jodi havea turn," and Jodi kept the helmet on. Plummer thenwrote the word, "Captain," on a sheet of article anddrew a quick rendition of the American flag. She tapedthe sheet to Jodi's back. The other children then wantedwords and flags on their tanks. Plummer maneuveredJodi into the rocket and sat her in front of a controlmade out of a plastic stick stuck through a small hole inthe box and reinforced with duct tape. Jasmine followedJodi into the rocket meaning Plummer had to squeezeout. Jasmine sat beside Jodi and said, "You got to drivethe ship up. Here," and she grabbed Jodi's hand pushingthe stick in various directions as she made Jodi sway andbob. Other children outside the rocket started pushingthe box back and forth. Ben yelled out, "Oh no, weheading at the moon!"

In this scenario, Jodi was an active participant in theswirling, complex narrative crafted initially by her peers.The story line, although largely orally based, was deeplyenriched through the children's construction of three-dimensional visual-tactile symbols (e.g., the helmets) aswell as pictorial and ultimately textual symbols as thechildren followed Plummer's lead to decorate theoxygen tanks. We cannot know the extent to whichJodi comprehended the full meaning of the narrative,but her engaged participation in the story line of othersindicated dramatic social growth in contrast to her be-havior just months earUer when she largely avoided anyinteraction with peers and adults apart from the class-room's lead teacher, Marilyn Moore. Moore told me in aresearch interview, "Look how far she's come! Andwe've only had her for, like what? Four months now?"

The importance of actively engaging in the symbolicnarrative structures of others cannot be overstated inrelation to a child's developing literacy capacities. Over-whelming documentation exists that young children withsignificant developmental disabilities experience farfewer such opportunities than do their typically devel-oping counterparts (Erickson & Hatton, 2007; Klieweret al., 2004; Koppenhaver et al, 2007; Light & Smith,1993). Research beyond this study demonstrates thatproviding young children with thoughtful interactiveopportunities to participate in the stories of others hasextremely positive implications for young children's orallanguage development; written language development;effective AAC use; predicting, labeling, and sequencingskills; alphabet recognition skills; social skills; andgeneral curricular and developmental levels (Erickson& Koppenhaver, 2007; Koppenhaver et al., 2007).

Current 2: Making and Expressing One'sOwn Meaning Throngh Narratives Crafted

From Visual-Tactile, Pictorial, andTextual Symbol Systems

As young children with significant developmental dis-abihties are immersed in the discovery of symbol-basednarrative structures and models, they must also be sup-ported to express their own narratives, no matter howbrief, using a range of symbol systems. In the data vi-gnettes so far provided, I have already presented a num-ber of examples. Jo, for instance, in Shayne Robbins'jungle classroom, was described working at a center se-quencing a story related to a friend's dog. Joyce Connor,a paraeducator in the class, had Jo point to captionedpictures (with increasing degrees of success) to completethe task.

I had observed Jo, one of my portfolio children, theprevious academic year, which she had also spent in thejungle room with teacher Shayne Robbins. Robbins hadevaluated Jo, who had just turned 3 years old, at thebeginning of the year using, among various instruments,the Battelle Developmental Inventory (original version;Newborg, Stock, & Wnek, 1984). "She really wasn'ttestable," Robbins told me the year before my observa-tion described above, "She's like at infant-levels oneverything, but it doesn't mean anything." Specifically,in the domains of cognition and (receptive) communi-cation, Jo demonstrated a developmental age range from11 months to 1 year, 2 months.

Robbins ignored the low language and cognitionmeasurements. In coordination with her team that in-cluded Nikki Lents, the speech and language therapist,Robbins immediately opened up a range of symbols,photographs, and written words to support Jo's commu-nicative participation in the inclusive environment. Theteam firmly believed Jo had narratives to express. Forinstance, in her communication notebook was a pagewith two rectangles labeled "yes" and "no." An adult

114 Kliewer

would pose appropriately worded questions to Jo thenadd (with gesture), "Point to yes or no." Within a monthof school starting, Jo appeared to reliably make use ofthe written words yes and no. Although certainly rudi-mentary, this breakthrough offered Jo an opportunity tovoice her own choices—the beginning of narrative!

In another example, Jo demonstrated a particularaffinity for the children's song I've Been Working on theRailroad. Robbins told me, "The first time we sang thatin here she went nuts. I've never seen her so excited." Johad a small tape player at her home, and her mother toldme she had learned at the age of 2 years how to get tothat particular song on a children's tape (perhaps jus-tifying to the team's skepticism toward the assesseddevelopmental scores). "Sometimes she'll play it like50 times a day," Jo's mother said, "It drives you crazy."In the classroom, Robbins had created a box of cap-tioned symbols representing 16 possible song choicesfor group time. By the second month of school, whenteachers asked Jo which song she wanted to sing to endcircle time, Jo was able to dig through the box of symbolsand retrieve her favorite one, represented by text anda picture of a steam engine. Again, the symbol allowedher to express the narrative, "This is what I want."Although most of Jo's classmates were able to voice thetitle of a song, all of them made use of the song box whenchoosing a selection for the class to sing. In this way,although the song box was essential for Jo's participa-tion, all of her friends were also learning about howinformation might be encoded and made use of in termsof making selections.

At the end of the academic year, Jo, who was then3 years, 10 months, demonstrated receptive languageskills associated with children of approximately 2 years,4 months. Jo attended the summer program and at thebeginning of the next academic year scored a develop-mental rating at approximately 2 years, 10 months to3 years, 1 month. Apart from the assessment, she rec-ognized all 26 letters of the alphabet and was able torecognize more than 20 words, albeit she may have hada much larger sight word vocabulary.

Jo's growth in her use of symbols reflected in part heraccess to symbol use at all. Rather than waiting on Jo'sattainment or exhibition of particular developmentalskills associated with symbol use, the team simply movedforward, opening symbols to her in meaningful, inter-active fashion. In a seminal article that appeared morethan 20 years ago, Kangas and Lloyd (1988) demandedthe fields associated with early childhood special edu-cation end the then-dominant practice of delaying orentirely denying AAC interventions until the chud dem-onstrated particular asstimed cognitive prerequisites—anexceedingly difficult task when one is denied symbols tocommunicate.

Kangas and Lloyd (1988) noted that building com-munication requires beginning communication andthat this should occur "in natural settings" (p. 218).

Similarly, in reporting on two earlier studies (i.e.,Skotko, Koppenhaver, & Erickson, 2004; Marvin, 1994),Koppenhaver et al. (2007) described providing parentsof young girls with Rett syndrome instruction to supportthe use of picture communication symbols, eye-gazeframes, and one-to-three voice-message-output devicesin interaction around story books. As the girls gainedexperience with the symbol systems, their communica-tion and narratives gained in fluency and complexity:"That is," noted Koppenhaver et al, "the girls neededto communicate more to learn to communicate moresuccessfully" (p. 83).

Enacting Current 2 requires that the surroundingadults presume the child to be competent. Elsewhere Ihave described this presumption as local understanding(Kliewer & Biklen, 2007)—a three-pronged process inwhich teachers (a) develop a deep sense of the indi-vidual learner as rightfully belonging, intelligent, andimaginative; (b) craft responsive, universally designedcontexts within which the child's competence is demon-strated and fostered through full access and partici-pation; and (c) promote full citizenship through anon-going democratic dialogue that includes the family,the paraeducators, the therapists, the other educators,and the child himself or herself. Local understandingis, of course, not a literacy methodology, but it serves asthe basis for opening the child's own construction ofnarrative.

In an example of local understanding, I observedKevin beginning with his first center-based school ex-perience in the bunny room described in Table 1 asClassroom 5. He entered the program at the age 2 years,6 months. Kevin had, just a few months earlier, beendefined as severely autistic. In the bunny room, histeacher, Kimberly Simms, in coordination with speechand language therapist, Myra Wilhams, ignored devel-opmental scores that, as with Jo, suggested the preclu-sion of a symbolic understanding of the surroundingworld. They immediately developed an array of inter-active symbols accessed through a MiniMo voice out-put device (built, and now discontinued, by DynaVoxTechnologies). Kevin was immediately supported inboth natural and contrived therapy situations to use hisdevice. He demonstrated highly impulsive, erratic point-ing skills, and so surrounding adults slowed his gesturesby supporting his pointing at the hand. "We knew he hadstuff to say," explained Simms, "but he just couldn't getit out. So we had to slow things down."

When Kevin was 2 years, 10 months old, I observed achoice situation where children could go either outsideor to the program's kitchen for a cooking activity. Tworelevant symbols were displayed on his device (whichallowed for up to 9 options at once). With an adult'shand on his forearm, Kevin pointed to the symbol forplayground and the device said, "Playground" in achild's voice. When Kevin turned 3 years old, therapistWilliams had a growing suspicion that Kevin's intense

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focus on print was more than a simple obsession. "Am Icrazy or is he reading?" she asked in a team meeting.We created 40 flash cards based on familiar text fromthe classroom environment, including physical objects,names of friends, written words used at circle time, etc.With a peer at his side, Williams placed three words at atime in front of Kevin and asked him to point to aparticular one. Over the course of three sessions, Kevindemonstrated recognition of 35 words. The teachingteam immediately began to incorporate word-buildingskills into Kevin's daily activities. They also began to usewhite boards to quickly write key words and ideas atany moment of the day. This greatly enhanced Kevin'sability to remain with the group and seemingly stayfocused, areas that had been problematic for the activechild. Although most of Kevin's classmates only dem-onstrated a tangential interest in this new focus onwritten word and sentence construction, a small groupof typically developing peers became actively involvedin the effort. For instance, Michaela, 3 years old, wascommonly seen at group times sitting beside Kevin witha white board on her lap approximating the letters anadult was writing on Kevin's board and sounding out theword approximation with exaggerated emphasis as sheran her hand from left to right across the text.

As with Jo, Kevin required access to symbols to beginconstructing symbol-based narratives. Allowing himaccess to symbols required a teaching team who be-lieved that Kevin could grow in his communicative andlanguage capacities. The team, of course, had no ideawhere its efforts might lead and certainly did notconsider that print would so quickly become a viableoption—if ever! Yet, members of the teaching teamlooked for Kevin's competencies and crafted ever moreresponsive educational and communicative contexts toallow for his full participation.

Current 3: Developing Complexity WithVisual-Tactile, Pictorial, and Textual

Symbol Systems to Construct NarrativesAs young children with significant developmental

disabilities are immersed in the discovery of the visual-tactile, pictorial, and written-language narrative construc-tion of others and as opportunities to craft symbol-basednarratives are opened to them, teachers must alsosupport movement toward increased complexity andsophistication with symbol systems. Importantly, oppor-tunities with text must be a part of the child's inclusiveexperience.

Research has demonstrated that all too frequently, therare opportunities offered a child with significant de-velopmental disabilities to engage symbols and text (atall) are limited to extremely brief, adult-designed, andimposed expressions of bodily needs (Kliewer & Biklen,2001; Koppenhaver & Erickson, 2003). The expectationis that a child with significant disabilities has nothing

to symbolize beyond those few expressions of bodilyfunction. The resulting inhibited skill with communica-tion and literacy is then blamed on what are consideredto be the children's intrinsic deficits rather than rec-ognized as a manifestation of the stagnant opportunitiesoffered to the children.

In the data vignettes so far provided, I have alreadypresented a number of examples of Current 3. Jo, forinstance, in Shayne Robbins' jungle classroom, was de-scribed sequencing a story related to a friend's dog, atask rife with symbolic literacy skills and opportunities.Although this activity was in response to another child'soriginal narrative, by sharing the story with the class,each student, in the process of interpretation, made thestory individually meaningful, thus transforming theoriginal narrative.

Young children, when interacting with the narrative ofanother, are not passively nor objectively interpreting ormirroring a detached story line. Rather, the act of in-terpretation should instead be viewed as an active pro-cess where children make the other's story mean (Fox,2003). Children must link what is said, read, painted,danced, etc., and connect those symbols to their ownsymbolic lexicons crafted from personal experiences.Gallas (2003) described this as "projecting ourselvesinto another space, another time, another framework"(p. 20). She continued, "To read [or hear] a text withunderstanding and insight, we must move inside the text,pulling our life along with us and incorporating the textand our lives into a new understanding of the world"(p. 20). Thus, interpretation should itself be defined asnarrative construction as the child actively makes theexpressed tale individually meaningful.

Certainly, within the sequencing activity described,there was an agenda which suggested that Jo might bemore correct or incorrect in her retelling of the tale ofMaggie the terrier. As such, her first effort to grab thephoto of the dog's birthday party was deemed to beincorrect, albeit we cannot know Jo's actual motivationor narrative intent. From the observational evidence, itseemed likely that Jo understood, or at least quicklycame to understand, the task at hand but was resistantto the imposed demands and wished instead to focuson what she appeared to view as a motivating picture.Nonetheless, the gestures ultimately allowed Jo to be-grudgingly express her own narrative that we mightfacetiously title, "This is how the teacher wants me toexpress Maggie's story."

On Friday of the same week, as described, I workeddirectly with Jo having her recreate the story in thecorrect sequence. She did so without mistake. I thenused this regularly scheduled time to suggest to Jo,"Would you like to journal about what we learned aboutMaggie? Which picture should we write about?" All thechildren in the class maintained a journal. Most "wrote"through drawing around specific topics but many werealso including letter and phrase approximations in the

116 Kliewer

drawing. Jo was already holding the birthday partyphoto and she slapped it several times. I wrote the words"Jo" and "Maggie" on a white board and asked, "Whosebirthday should we write about? Jo's [pointing to thename] or Maggie's?" With my hand stabilizing Jo's arm,she pointed with conviction to the word "Maggie."

On a keyboard, I typed while stating the letters thenthe whole word, "Maggie had a birthday party." Jo gotup from her chair, clapping and squealing, and com-pleted a small pirouette then, with my hand on her back,sat back down. I quickly wrote the numbers 1, 2, and3 on the board. I asked, "Do you remember how oldMaggie was on her birthday? [While pointing] Was sheone, two, or three?" Jo slapped at the photo. I read thecaption, "Maggie's first birthday." What number goeswith first? Jo gestured toward the 1 on the white board. Ityped, "Maggie turned 1." I printed out two copies of thejournal, one for Jo, which she crumpled and carried withher the rest of the school day. Although my influenceover this highly structured journaling was obvious, Jowas actively engaged in co-constructing a visual narra-tive from pictorial and textual symbols. This was accom-plished in interactive fashion weaving together literacyand communication.

After lunch on that same day, again after a routine wehad established, I asked Jo to read her journal entry to afriend. She chose the name Ashton, a typically devel-oping friend, from a group of three written choices. At asmall table, I read Jo's two sentences to Ashton while Jopaced excitedly behind me. (As an aside, this wouldhave been a more thoughtful activity had I allowed Jo touse a voice output AAC device.) Ashton offered, "Mycat is, like, 20 years old" (demonstrating the principlethat interpretation is in fact narrative construction). Ithen cut the two sentences apart into single or doublewords. Ashton mixed them up and I read the new sillysentences he constructed. Ashton laughed heartily andJo, as always, seemed excited by this activity. Ashton leftthe table to return to his play, and I picked out the wordsto the flrst sentence, placing the word "Maggie" on thetable. "What comes next?" I asked Jo, putting "birth-day" and "had a" in front of her. Jo picked up the "hada" phrase and I placed it next to "Maggie." In this waywe reconstructed both sentences.

Increasing complexity must focus not just on the storyline itself but on the child's capacity to make use of andunderstand conceptual and procedural aspects of thesymbol systems available. In this sense, as related towritten language, skills associated with decoding mustbe a part of the child's experience if he or she is to growin hterate sophistication. Jo's teaching team wantedto support her knowledge about printed language. Todo so, we introduced activities that demonstrated howsentences were constructed from words in a left-to-right visual orientation and that words were constructedfrom morphemes, graphemes, and letters, all of whichcould be linked to sound. Importantly, these efforts.

which did involve direct instruction, always flowed frommeaningful experiences (whether, for instance, the storyof a friend's dog or a narrative produced by Jo her-self). Opening opportunities for narrative constructionand using that which is produced as the basis for de-veloping an understanding of convention is the child'snatural path into hteracy as she or he actively andimaginatively works to make sense of the surroundingsymbolic world.

In another example of developing a child's sophisti-cation with symbol-based narrative construction, I ob-served Sean, a 5.5-year-old student in the kindergartendescribed in Table 1 as Classroom 6. Sean had trisomy21 and had very limited, understandable spoken lan-guage. Sean had earlier in the day been supported atseveral different learning stations involving some highlystructured teacher-led activities (e.g., constructing longvowels using the silent "e" based on words from a storyread) and some child-directed activities (e.g., journahngand illustrating the entry).

Toward the end of the school day, paraeducatorTiffany Stahl worked with Sean to co-construct a note inhis notebook that was sent to and from home. Stahl laidout four cards, each labeled with one of the earliercenter activities. She asked, "Which center do you wantto write about?" Sean picked up the card and vocalizedan approximation of the word "computer." Stahl wrotethe phrase, "Mom, Today I worked on the computer."She read it to him as she wrote. She asked, "Who didyou work on the computer with?" Sean nodded towardStahl and vocalized what, given the context, could beunderstood as "Ms. Stahl." Stahl responded by slidinga written list toward him with the names of his class-mates. She said, "Yes, you worked with me and whoelse?" He bent over the sheet almost touching his noseto it. Ms. Stahl looked toward me and said, "Definitelygot to get him to the eye doctor." Sean pointed to afriend's name and said, "Tim." Stahl responded, "Nicereading, Sean, but I don't think Tim was at the com-puter with us." Sean laughed then uttered a string ofsounds in a manner of feigned exasperation. Stahlsaid, "I know, I know—I'm making you work. Who satwith us at the computer?" Sean again bent over thesheet and pointed to Sarah's name, articulating what,again given the context, could be understood as "Sarah."Stahl wrote in the notebook, "I worked with Sarah andMs. Stahl." She then handed Sean the open notebookand said, "Read your note." Sean bent over the twosentences and using a pointer finger ran his hand fromleft to write, top to bottom, vocalizing as he read.Although difficult to discern all his sounds, it appearedhe read the two sentences correctly. Stahl said, "Nowsign your name," which Sean did making recognizableletters.

Sean's teacher, Vivian Steinbrook, showed me Sean'smost recent evaluation information using the Phonolog-ical Awareness Literacy Screening (Invernizzi, Sullivan,

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& Meier, 2001; most often used in preschools, butSteinbrook felt the instrument would assist in guidingher instruction for Sean). Subcomponents addressedincluded name writing, alphabet knowledge, beginningsound awareness, print and word awareness, and rhymeawareness. The tool was accommodating to Sean's par-ticular strengths because in many instances it allowedhim to respond using a gesture and provided him withpictorial cues. His developmental approximation scat-tered from 4 years to 4 years, 6 months, suggesting a6-month growth in the span of just 3 months. "Now weknow he can do it," Steinbrook told me, referring toSean's total literacy development, not just the screeningscores. She continued, "Now we know the sky's reallythe limit [in relation to his literacy]. I think all hisreading is actually improving his speech."

A body of research demonstrates that for typicallydeveloping children, regular opportunities to make useof multiple symbol systems (e.g., speech, drawing, alpha-betic text, drama, etc.) to express personal narrativesheighten both their capacity to comprehend the nar-ratives of others and their own capacity to generateincreasingly sophisticated narratives through varioussymbol formats (Fox, 2003; Gardner, 1991; Morrow,2005; Shannon, 2000). In effect, expression begets in-creasingly sophisticated comprehension as comprehen-sion begets increasingly sophisticated expression in anupward spiral of greater symbolic complexity.

Not surprisingly, my data in conjunction with otherresearch suggest that the principle is also true for youngchildren with significant developmental disabilities. Nu-merous studies have demonstrated that when childrenusing AAC are systematically supported to composeoriginal narratives around motivating topics (e.g., animportant photograph, a favorite TV character, games,etc.), the children expand sight word vocabularies, abil-ities to construct words from letters, and capacities tosymbolically generate richer and increasingly complex nar-ratives (BUschak, 1995; Erickson, Clendon, Abraham, Roy,& Van de Carr, 2005; Erickson, Koppenhaver, Yoder, &Nance, 1997; Kliewer & Biklen, 2001; Koppenhaver,Erickson, & Skotko, 2001).

Current 4: Deriving Joy and OtherAffective Forces From EngagementWith Visual-Tactile, Pictorial, and

Orthographic Symbol SystemsDeveloping sophistication with symbol systems for

children with significant developmental disabilities ap-pears to be most effective when children experience thetremendous intellectual and emotional thrill that occurswhile discovering the ideas and stories of others and insharing and connecting their own stories (Kress, 1997;Lancaster, 2003). For children without disabilities, theemotions and the cognitive energy associated withgetting lost in a story (or art or play) are recognized

and valued in terms of promoting general developmentand specific literacy skills (Gallas, 2003). This must be apart of all children's experience.

The data vignettes provided demonstrate how highlyqualified teachers meaningfully and in motivating fashionweave the literacy skills described in Table 2 through-out the children's day-to-day inclusive classroom experi-ences. For instance, I described Paula Rush readingJason's copy oiJtist Me and My Dad (Mayer, 2001) to thepreschool class with Jason seated on her lap. She thenasked Jason to tell his peers which part of the book heliked best. Jason was able to do this using the symbolsprovided by the book. In this simple sequence, Jasonwas recognized by his teachers and before his peers asa book owner, as having a favorite story, as having afavorite part of the story, and as being able to express hisopinion in an understandable, symbol-based fashion. Hisfull citizenship in the classroom's literate community wasaffirmed through a manner and process that broughthim obvious enjoyment. Similarly, Jodi's participation inthe dramatic space flight play with her peers, making useof symbols that furthered the play, affirmed her fullcitizenship.

Certainly, in a teacher's awesome and humbling chargeto promote all children's learning, not every activity wülevoke glee. That truism was demonstrated in Jo's ini-tial resistance to the sequencing task. Despite her effortto seemingly express a narrative apart from that whichwas deemed more correct, her teachers felt the skillsaddressed in their planned activity were of use to Jo andall her peers; thus, Joyce Connor persevered in her effortto draw out Jo's effective participation. Although Jo mayhave wished to be doing some other activity, it is im-portant to note that the sequencing task grew out of apeer's narrative that Jo had appeared to find highlyengaging. The activity itself opened to Jo an opportunityto interact with a photograph she seemed to find veryinteresting, and it led to further important literacy eventsthat seemed to capture and sustain Jo's interest.

In an era of educational high stakes testing, whereformalized drill in a rigid version of literacy has nowburst into the kindergarten and preschool, the real-ization of the importance of joy and other affectiveforces to all young children's learning may be dissolving(Shannon, 2000; Smith, 1999). This is an extraordinarilydestructive trend. Children's literacy begins with theirprimordial drive to form a coherent understanding ofthe surrounding world. Children construct meaningthrough narratives crafted from a vast array of symbolsystems when made available. These early efforts hingeon motivation and drive that erupts forth from chil-dren when they are a part of thoughtful, engaging con-texts (Gardner, 1991). The inclusive early childhoodclassroom inherently involves information, ideas, andcommunication contained in a variety of visual-tactile,pictorial, and textual symbol systems. Children par-ticipating therein are self-actuated to transform these

118 Kliewer

systems into their own to make ever deeper and moresophisticated sense of the surrounding world.

Conclusion: Into the Flow

Young children's developing sophistication with sym-bol systems including text is most aptly captured in theform of flow with rapids, lulls, and the like (Kliewer,2008). The findings of this study in conjunction with theresearch of certain others point to three critical con-clusions about this flow. First, young children with sig-nificant developmental disabilities can be part of theflow and benefit from thoughtfully structured literacyopportunities and activities (Erickson & Koppenhaver,2007; Mirenda, 2003). This should come as no surprise topractitionersand researchers who have participated inthe literate lives of young children in inclusive educa-tional environments. Yet, mass numbers of young chil-dren continue to find themselves in segregated programs(US. Department of Education, 2006) with little or nocritical literacy opportunities based on the perniciousmyths that they cannot be supported in the lively swirlof the inclusive early childhood setting and that theirmeasured cognitive development precludes their capac-ities with text (Kliewer et al., 2006). AU the children withsignificant developmental disabilities involved in thisstudy were formally assessed at one point or anotheras having significant intellectual impairments. Despitethis, teachers with local understanding of the childrenopened opportunities for the communicative engage-ment of literacy which appeared to then foster the chil-dren's developing capacities in a Vygotskian movementtoward increasing sophistication.

Second, hteracy did not simply spring forth from myparticipants, nor was literacy optimized through directinstruction of decontextualized subskills originatingwith adults. Rather, teachers interactively immersed allchildren in the narrative structures of others. They pro-moted the expression of children's own narratives inmultisymbolic form. They pushed, prodded, and pulledthe children toward increased sophistication in bothnarrative construction and procedural conventions ofsymbol systems. In addition, they accomplished all thisthrough motivating, highly engaging modalities. Teach-ers provided children thoughtful opportunities and guid-ance to make the symbohc mean, and children activelytook on those opportunities as their own.

Third, oral language need not serve as the basis forjoining the hteracy flow. The children involved in thisstudy all shared severe struggles with speech, many tothe extent that they were described as nonvocal ornonverbal. However, all demonstrated the develop-ment of symbol or word recognition skills, moving withautomaticity from form to meaning. Teachers made useof their expanding symbol-based lexicons to supportever more complex understanding of symbol systemconventions.

If there exists only a singular point of agreementamong influential thinkers in the psychological arenaof child development, it is that young children aremotivated and driven to coUaboratively make meaningof the surrounding symbol-based world: "Such other-wise disparate scholars as Jean Piaget, Heinz Werner,Alexander Luria, and Jerome Bruner would all concur,"noted Gardner (1991, p. 58). Unfortunately, a commoncaveat among child developmentalists has been thequalifier that children's symbol-based constructivism isascribed only to those who are "normal," "healthy," orsome other euphemism for "nondisabled." Gardner, forinstance, when describing the preschool years as the ageof symbols, explained that he was talking only about"normal children the world over" (p. 56).

Eliminating from young children with significant de-velopmental disabilities a basic sociointellectual drive isfundamentally dehumanizing and is based on myth, notevidence. When the majority route to language, domi-nated in the early years by speech, is somehow impededfor particular children, we need not believe that thechildren's social drive to construct meaning stagnatesand languishes. Rather, children appear capable of ac-tively altering the symbol-based manner through whichnarratives may be fashioned. For instance, deaf infantsin rich environments of sign language begin to babble ingesture just as hearing infants babble vocally (Petitto &Marentette's, 1991).

Babbling is the unfortunate term applied to infants'diligent and systematic inclination and effort to beginbuilding social connections and constructs of meaningthrough the symbols of language. In their babbling, babiesare recreating the rudimentary structures, rhythms, andpatterns of the language surrounding them. Thus, hear-ing infants babble in particular vocal patterns andrhythms, whereas deaf infants form the rhythms and pat-terns of sign language as they attempt to build socialconnections and make sense of the world. Interestingly(and related to the physical complexity involved insign versus speech), on average, deaf babies in sign-language-rich environments begin to babble throughgesture, to form actual words, and to construct wholesentences at earher ages than do their vocal counter-parts (Marschark, 1993). Deaf children only begin to fallbehind on average when they leave sign-rich environ-ments and confront a world that is ignorant of, or evenintolerant toward, their first language.

These findings fit neatly alongside the elegant re-search of Sue Buckley, described in the introduction tothis article, who has for decades fostered the readingdevelopment of toddler and preschool children withtrisomy 21. She posited that her young participants,affected with speech and motor struggles (and all ofwhom were defined as cognitively delayed), interactedwith text as a first language.

For the young children described in this study, per-haps immersion into the American Sign Language might

Literacy Flow 119

have been a route out of their communication struggles,and indeed most teachers in the seven classrooms in-volved here did make use of some signed English. How-ever, given the absence of rich American Sign Languageenvironments in conjunction with motor-planning con-cerns exhibited by nearly every child involved, sign lan-guage as a generative symbol system was only minimallyfunctional. However, nearly all the participants grew upin print-rich homes. Every one of them traveled througha symbol-rich community to arrive at an extraordinarilysymbol-rich inclusive preschool or kindergarten. Eachwas approached by excellent teachers and therapistswho through local understanding saw in the childrenwith significant developmental disabilities the potentialand the capacity to make sense of the narratives ofothers and construct their own narratives through mul-tiple sign systems. Through the four currents, many ofthe children began to make meaning of the written formof words and began to build written language lexiconsthat served as the basis for increasingly sophisticatednarrative construction and more complex understandingof the conventions of print. Not every child with sig-nificant developmental disabilities will develop into aJoyce Carol Oates or Langston Hughes, but of coursethe same is true of typically developing peers. We havereached a point where we must recognize the accumu-lating evidence, suggesting at the possibilities of literatecitizenship for young children with significant develop-mental disabilities, and accept that, for any individualchild, we can never know the limits of those possibihties.All we can do is thoughtfully teach.

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Received: January 15, 2009Final Acceptance: April 20, 2009Editor in Charge: Roberta Schnorr