Within the context of literacy instruction, the process of becoming focuses on students' literate identities, or the identities that learners take on and construct in the social and cultural context of learning to read and write (Wagner et al., 2024). In this article, the author explores identity with the purpose of using it as an organizing…

This column examines research studies that foster children to explore the relationship between text and images. The collaboration of an engaging picturebook and a good teacher unlocks rich discussion and interaction among the students. Through visual literacy, children are active participants while making meaning and strong connections. The cited…

This column responds to a recent push in education policy toward a curriculum that requires students to read and write more informational texts. Most evident in the now well-known Common Core State Standards, these policy moves echo, in some ways, a call by researchers for more informational texts, particularly in primary classrooms. In this…

Teacher research has a long, rich history. However, teacher research is primarily limited to practicing teachers and those pursuing graduate education. It is only beginning to be used as means of understanding the instructional needs of English learners. In this article, a preservice teacher and her university instructor describe the role of…

A teacher study group explores issues of home and community literacies with a goal of utilizing out-of-school literacies to support in-school literacy learning. The result was the beginning of a new mindfulness that allowed them to begin to recognize the existence and legitimacy of home and community literacies. They explored how their own biases…

This column explores the research that investigates teaching children with informational texts, which is a growing concern and focus in Common Core State Standards (CCSS.) The authors highlight empirical data that study the use of informational texts with young learners. The article is foregrounded in four key findings: make the texts available…

Utilizing a New Literacies Studies framework, this article presents critical lessons in film production from a multiple site case study. Examples of children's classroom experiences demonstrate how filmmaking and play come together in a process of storying--a collaborative and multimodal approach to text composition. Students in both preschool and…

This article draws upon the cinematic, fictional portrayal of Avatars as a metaphor to show how young children are positioned in similar ways in relation to technology and nature. The authors discuss children as digital natives growing up in brave new virtual worlds, but also as vulnerable innocents who are specially attuned to--and in need…

Randy Bomer and Beth Maloch take a look at the Common Core Standards and the ways they are presently shaping the curriculum offered to young children in school. They suggest that the Common Core Standards in early literacy and early childhood classrooms represents a restricted image of college or academic literacy. Mainly, the standards' authors…

In this article, we report on our own inquiry, and others', into young children's use of, understanding of, and skills related to the Internet. We found that the overwhelming majority of children at this age are already using the Internet, mostly for playing games, and already showing substantial gaps in Internet skill level. Most children we…

Through this article, we describe an instructional strategy termed "Beautiful Books." This strategy involves the creation of images and texts to be used in the development of oral and literacy skills. We explore the historical roots of the strategy in Language Experience Approach (LEA) and Whole language and consider how dictation and early…

Standards can aid educators as they work to produce strong student writers who can create meaningful and skillfully crafted authentic pieces of writing. This once-a-month, yearlong professional development program, conducted during the school day, shifted a district's kindergarten writing program to a writing workshop model that enabled the…

This article presents a case study of a kindergarten girl from a Bangladeshi immigrant family who demonstrates her multiliteracies as she negotiates the multiple demands of the mandated literacy curriculum. The case is drawn from a year-long ethnographic inquiry of the literacy practices and cultural models in a balanced literacy curriculum where…

This article examines sociocultural research on early literacy development in the digital age. The last decade has witnessed a proliferation of informational technology that has fundamentally shifted how we think about language and literacy in the early childhood years. Despite these trends, narrow and reductive views of literacy continue to…

Playing the Play describes the experiences of a storyteller and teacher of literature who created a literature-based literacy program at Concourse House, a homeless shelter in Bronx, New York, for women and their young children. This program is based on the belief that pleasure is the primary reason children want to learn to read, and that where…