A forest‐based environment as a site of literacy and meaning making for kindergarten children

Abstract

This study analyses the valued school experiences of 15 fiveand six-year-old Canadian children, through their creation of multimodal texts. Throughout the school year, the students spent a large portion of each school day in the expansive forest on the school grounds, and their texts revealed their significant interest in this natural outdoor environment. Specifically, the data revealed that the outdoor space provided a context where the children could engage with each other and the environment in meaningful, creative and collaborative ways. This research has the potential to contribute to our understanding of the capacity of young children to share their thoughts on their school experiences by drawing on a range of modes and to contribute to our understanding of the power of alternative learning spaces, such as forest environments, on children's literacy learning and development.

Nature-Based Early Childhood Education and Children’s Social, Emotional and Cognitive Development: A Mixed-Methods Systematic Review

“…The majority of the studies were conducted in the USA (n = 11) [26][27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40], Australia (n = 5) [41][42][43][44][45] and Canada (n = 4) [46][47][48][49]. Three studies each were conducted in Norway [50][51][52], Sweden [53][54][55], and the United Kingdom [56][57][58].…”

“…Of the qualitative studies, the majority of studies (n = 4) used observational methods only [40,44,45,51] or (n = 2) observation and interviews (structured or semistructured) [39,52]. One study used interviews and teacher case studies [58], n = 1 used a combination of focus groups, interviews, observation, and artefact collection [49], n = 1 used a combination of interviews and surveys [61] and n = 1 used a combination of photo preference, drawings from children and interviews [37].…”

“…Figure 5 presents the findings of the trustworthiness of the included qualitative studies. On one occasion research questions (1) [58], sampling (3a) [49], data collection (3b) [44], and analysis (3c) [44] were not clearly described, analysis (4c) was not appropriate to the research question [44], and claims were not supported by sufficient evidence (5) [40]. It was also unclear if, sampling (4a) [49] and data collection (4b) [44] were appropriate to the research question on one occasion.…”

Early Childhood Education Teachers’ Perception of Outdoor Learning Activities in the Spanish Region of Extremadura

“…Thus, the acquisition of competencies and the ability to learn constantly require a correct interaction with the environment to be able to construct one's knowledge [17]. Streelasky's [22] revealed that outdoor space provided a context in which children could interact with each other and the environment in meaningful, creative, and collaborative ways, as well as contributing to our understanding of young children's ability to share their thoughts and the power of alternative learning spaces.…”

Bosquescuela. Un modelo de escuela sostenible en la naturaleza

“…cl. Competencia en comunicación lingüística: Fomentando las destrezas y estrategias comunicativas para la lectura, la escritura, el habla, la escucha y la conversación a través de las diferentes modalidades que ofrece el juego cooperativo con temática de respeto y cuidado por el medio ambiente (Lieberman y Hoody, 1998;O'Brien, 2009;Streelasky, 2019).…”