This paper comes out of a project with my colleagues Dr. Rachel Heydon at the University of Western Ontario and Dr. Luigi Iannacci at Trent University. It has recently been published in the Journal of Early Childhood Literacy. https://doi.org/10.1177/1468798417740788
Abstract: Reading aloud to children is a ubiquitous practice in early childhood settings. While there are many recommendations for how educators should conduct these experiences, little research in the past decade has examined how read-alouds are actually accomplished. Using anthropological and sociological theories of learning, literacy and research, our analysis illustrates how read-alouds are enacted in three kindergarten classrooms. Our analysis highlights similarities and differences in how these phenomena are produced and raises questions about the consequences current ideologies of literacy learning may have for young children’s understandings of reading and themselves as readers. Differences among the research sites are discussed in light of Cummins’ (2000) continuum of coercive and transformational curricula.
A previous paper from this study can be found here:
Helping Out, Signing Up and Sitting Down:
The Cultural Production of “Read-Alouds” in Three Kindergarten Classrooms