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'…

Reforms within science education strive to shift early science instruction (K-2) so students have ample sense-making opportunities to construct scientific explanations. Classroom discussions play a key role in supporting these endeavors. This requires that classroom discussions are shaped in ways that foster scientific instruction and learning. In…

This study investigates the ways in which first graders utilised a variety of semiotic resources when authoring nonfiction compositions during a nonfiction genre writing unit of study. Grounded in social semiotics and multimodality theories, the study uses a case study approach to explore the text, image and design resources used in students'…

This paper focuses on two third-grade students' work on the same statistical question whereby one acts with analogue material and the other with TinkerPlots™. The aim of the research was to find out whether different material influences the actions and, thus, possibly the mathematical interpretations of the learners. To investigate this research…

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…

There is a significant amount of research literature on the importance of identifying and building on students' experiences and ideas for making sense of the natural world, especially when engaging in science practices. Simultaneously, approaches to creating justice-oriented science education promote the need to focus on the diverse sense-making…

Much attention has been paid to the introduction of a culturally responsive curriculum in early childhood education in our increasingly globalized society to support young children of diverse cultural and linguistic (CLD) backgrounds. With the rise of twenty-first century concepts of what literacy means in the digital age, traditional literacy…

The importance of fostering in students the requisite language to understand what is being communicated and how to communicate their understanding requires educators to conceptualize themselves as teachers of language and content. It is possible to engage in activities of the mathematics classroom and through that participation engage in language…

This paper focuses on the actions of learners on digital and analogue materials while dealing with a statistical problem. To investigate the learners' actions, a semiotic perspective of mathematical learning according to C. S. Peirce is used, since in this perspective learning mathematics is described as visible activities on diagrams. Through a…

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…

Background: Globally, teaching practice has been at the heart of teacher education programmes. For quality teaching and learning, literacy student teachers are expected to develop metacognitive attributes and critical thinking to integrate theory and practice. Because of the dominance of autonomous models in literacy teaching and learning…

Background: Several isiXhosa home language (HL) learners are excluded from meaningful mathematics learning because they are taught in English. Not only do teachers lack epistemological and pedagogical confidence in using multiple languages when teaching mathematics, but there are no mathematical registers for African languages that allow for…

This paper adopts a semiotic perspective on mathematical learning according to Peirce, in which the actions on material arrangements are considered the bases for diagrammatic work. The focus is on the learner's actions using digital and analogue material arrangements which are the starting point for the reconstruction of the learner's mathematical…