Beyond words: An enquiry into children’s home visual communication practices

Abstract

This research focuses on young children’s experiences of the visual mode embedded in new multimodal literacy practices. An enquiry was undertaken into the role of visual and digital images in a group of 11 four-year-olds’ out-of-school lives. The children photographed their use of a range of primarily visual-based media at home, to produce a book of images and text that was used as the basis for child interviews and discussion on the topic. The data was further supported by questionnaire results from 28 parents on their four-year-olds’ access and frequency of use of range of primarily visual-based media. The project found a multilingual and ethnically diverse group of children, in an international school in Tokyo, to be using a wide range of media, including cameras, television, DVD, drawing, websites, picture books and comics. These findings enlighten understanding of young children’s use and engagement with the visual mode as one part of wider multimodal literacy practices.

Sharing personalised stories on iPads: a close look at one parent–child interaction

“…In this study, we considered parent and child interaction (both verbal and nonverbal) and also the communicative modes of the object they interacted with, focusing on the iPad's sounds and images. This approach builds on traditional narrative research, which tends to focus on the verbal, on the interplay between verbal and visual elements in children's picture books (Yamada‐Rice, ) or on the functional and compositional elements of children's narratives (Peterson et al, ). Our study also contributes to understandings of how story sharing is mediated in triadic parent–child–story sharing patterns (Fletcher and Reese, ).…”

Sharing Personalised Books: A Practical Solution to the Challenges Posed by Home Book Reading Interventions

“…Thus, personalised books seem to be well suited to challenging the notion of 'universal truth' of knowledge and at the same time, provide an economically sustainable alternative to books gifting schemes relying on donor or government funds. However, if we accept that there are multiple forms of literacy experiences [33], and that knowledge is a socially constructed product of each individual's unique relationships with the world around them, then we also need to acknowledge the varied forms personalized books can take. Illustrative of our broadened agenda is a full consideration of 'truly personalised' books, that is to say including the many and varied forms of literacy which are evident within and across individual families.…”

Literacy practices of primary education children in Andalusia (Spain): A family‐based perspective

“…In particular, writing habits are related to vernacular practices while reading habits relate to institutional ones. The results show that reading, associated with school activity and with an instrumental or epistemic level of language, was viewed by families as having higher social prestige than vernacular Literacy Practices in Primary Education Children 129 practices of a functional nature (Arthur, 2005;Yamada-Rice, 2010). On the other hand, the social value given to writing is related to everyday vernacular practices of a functional nature (Freebody & Luke, 1990).…”