Across multiple age groups and academic disciplines, research has shown that incorporating multimodal signs into instruction can enhance student learning. For instance, gesture might be synchronized with speech or written signs. The present study reports on the semiotic resources used by a teacher-researcher to support kindergarten students'…

This paper presents the findings of aesthetic qualitative research conducted in Israel for the purpose of increasing the understanding of the reception process among kindergarten children (aged 5-6). The paper focuses on the link between Theatrical Communication, personal 'Cargo' young audiences 'carry' upon attending a theatrical event and…

This paper contributes to the contemporary focus on literacy and digital stories in early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions. When a group of young children create an animated story together, they might collaborate, both with their peers and with their teacher. By drawing on social semiotic multimodal perspectives as the theoretical…

The aim of this study was to investigate how pictorial representations with different semiotic characteristics affect additive word problem solving by kindergartners. The focus of the study is on three categories of additive problems (change problems, combine problems and equalize problems) and on representational pictures with different semiotic…

This paper reports from a case study which explores kindergarten children's mathematical abstraction in a teaching--learning activity about reflection symmetry. From a dialectical perspective, abstraction is here conceived as a process, as a genuine part of human activity, where the learner establishes "a point of view from which the concrete…

In this paper, we present an activity to introduce the idea of public-key cryptography and to make pre-service STEM teachers explore fundamental informatics and mathematical concepts and methods. We follow the Theory of Didactical Situations within the Didactical Engineering methodology (both widely used in mathematics education research) to…

In this qualitative, descriptive case study, we examine how elementary emergent bilinguals (EBs) use disciplinary language as they engage in integrated science and engineering instruction. Instruction incorporated language and developmental scaffolds corresponding to EBs' language and content learning needs. Oral production of EB kindergarten to…

Purpose: Our world had always been multimodal, but studying how young children enact and embody literacy practices, especially reading, has often been overlooked. The purpose of this study was to examine how young children respond to nonfiction picturebooks in multimodal ways. This paper aims to answer the question: What multimodal resources do…

This article explores the construction of multilingualism in the semiotic landscapes of two kindergartens, one in Norway and one in Germany. Semiotic landscape is here understood as the visual linguistic environment, including various semiotic resources, such as texts, symbols, drawings or pictures. In kindergarten, semiotic landscapes construct…

Over a three-year collaborative partnership involving university researchers, government curriculum specialists, and school division teams and educators, this post-qualitative study has engaged a diffractive methodology to research pedagogical change in relationship to a renewed provincial curriculum framework in English Language Arts (ELA). In…

Recent educational policy documents have encouraged engaging students in mathematical argumentation via discussion and writing. Most recently in the U.S., the Common Core State Standards recommend that children "construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others." One often advocated means of engaging students in this…

To acknowledge the lasting and increasing influence of Halliday's theory of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) on teacher education, this article outlines Critical SFL Praxis (CSFLP) in teacher education as an activist effort in research and practice. Informed by systemic functional linguistics, the critical approach seeks to push back against…

Integrated science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education is becoming increasingly common in K-12 classrooms, and small group activities are ubiquitous to STEM instruction. This article includes both theoretical and practical descriptions of a microethnographic approach to critical multimodal discourse analysis that we used to…

This literature review analyzes the influences of systemic functional linguistics (SFL) in U.S. teacher education from 2000 to 2019. First, we describe how SFL has been contextualized in United States in response to changing demographics, new technologies, policies, and the impacts of globalization. Second, we outline our methodology, which…

This study examined a novel learning environment in one kindergarten classroom with 90% Spanish-speaking ELLs. The design combined the interactive whiteboard platform and a student-centered, constructionist pedagogy to structure cooperative tasks, academic language and semiotic formations through the engineering design process within a…