Interactive read alouds are important learning opportunities for emergent readers because teachers and peers can actively model and scaffold comprehension strategies, engage readers, and cultivate a community of learners. Using data from a 9 month ethnographic study in an urban kindergarten classroom, this article describes how the teacher's approach facilitated rich interaction in the classroom as students read and made sense of stories together. Findings of this study demonstrate how interactive read alouds were important learning opportunities for emergent readers because they provided opportunities for open-ended responses combined with specific reading instruction. The interactive read alouds created a space where meaning was constructed through dialogue and classroom interaction, providing an opportunity for children to respond to literature in a way that builds on their strengths and extends their knowledge.
In the digital era, students are walking new literacy paths. For this reason, there is a need to explore evolving literacy practices in school pedagogy. This is often addressed by the expanding use of the concept of multiliteracies. This article reviews studies (N = 67) of multiliteracies pedagogy. The main purpose was to explore how the concept of multiliteracies has been used and understood in primary classroom research. The findings indicate that the studies often took into account both the multimodality of meaning-making and the diversity of learners. Recommendations are made for future multiliteracies studies to strengthen the pedagogical practices.
The article presents an interpretive phenomenological approach (IPA) to preservice teachers' experiences of their current secondary teacher education programme (STEP) in Finland. The focus of the study is the millennial generation cohort in which new teachers comprise a key group to be studied because they will contribute to the future of education. Thirteen preservice teachers participated in the study. Their experiences are interpreted through the lenses of generation theory and contemporary teacher education research. The findings include three phenomenological themes that are core elements of STEP: time balance, reciprocal participation and meaningfulness. These themes are discussed and suggestions made for ways to transform teacher education to make it more relevant.
This article explores how two middle school girls told stories of family conflict and trauma through poetry. Situated within literature on critical literacies and trauma studies, the article uses a case study approach to consider what happens when stories of trauma emerge within the literacy classroom. The authors explore (1) how the girls used poetry to understand and represent their trauma; (2) how the classroom contexts supported the development and sharing of trauma narratives; and (3) how classroom relationships were affected by the sharing of trauma narratives. The authors argue that the genre of poetry and the classroom contexts supported the girls in asserting "narrative control" and opened up spaces for deeper and more collaborative relationships among members of the classroom community. They also contend that the girls' writing and experiences can prompt reconsideration of what topics are "appropriate" for school.
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