Language and Literacy Education in the Early Years: Practices and Principles for Dynamic and Diverse Contexts

Dear Colleagues,

This Special Issue of Education Sciences will focus on early childhood language and literacy education principles and practices that address the needs of children and communities in diverse and dynamic contexts, with an emphasis on ensuring high quality, inclusive literacy learning opportunities for all children. In particular, this Special Issue aims to further knowledge and debate around the current opportunities, challenges and tensions that arise in the field of early childhood literacy education and how they might be navigated. Empirical research papers are particularly welcomed but high-quality conceptual papers will also be considered.

Topics of interest for this Special Interest include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Responsive and personalised learning in early childhood language and literacy education;
• Learning ecologies for inclusive and equitable literacy learning in the early years;
• Threats to inclusive and equitable literacy learning in the early years;
• Harnessing the funds of knowledge and funds of identity that young children bring to literacy learning;
• Inclusive early literacy learning in a technology rich world;
• Literacy education for children in crisis and conflict zones;
• Critical literacies in the early years.

Dr. Grace Oakley
Guest Editor

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• early literacy
• early reading
• early writing
• digital literacies in the early years
• responsive literacy teaching in the early years
• equity in literacy learning

Title: Mum, Dad and the kids: Where are the diverse families in Australian Children’s Literature?

Abstract: To facilitate high-quality literacy learning for young children, educators make frequent use of quality children’s literature. In recent years across the world, ongoing attention to diverse representation in children’s literature in recent years has resulted in a gradual increase in reflections of diverse races and cultures in children’s books. However, other important aspects diverse representation receive somewhat less attention in the literature, these include representation of diverse family structures as well as gender and sexual identity. Children’s literature is crucial in the development of children and their perspective of the world around them. Books can play an important role in supporting children to develop a positive sense of identity and belonging when they see themselves and their family represented in books. However, a lack of representation of children and their family and identity can affirm insecurities and contribute to a sense of “otherness”. Furthermore, children’s books are crucial in affirming or dismantling prejudice, racism, sexism and other forms of discrimination. Thus, the books children are exposed to can facilitate the development of children’s awareness of diverse ways of living and being. This study reports on the representation of family gender and sexual diversity in award listed Australian children’s pictures books in 2019 and 2020. Ninety award listed books were selected as a representative sample of Australian children’s picture books. A critical theoretical framework was employed to analyse both texts and images. This study found there is a lack of diverse family structures and gender identities in children’s books and this lack extends to: LGBTQI+ parents with children, single fathers raising children, children or family members with disabilities, and intergenerational families raising children or living together. This paper argues that to ensure high quality, inclusive and equitable literacy learning opportunities for all children, there is a need for increased publication and availability of children’s books that portray the authentic and full diverse range of families, family structures and gender diversity in our society.

Title: Enhancing Literacy Through Gamification: Evaluating ABRACADABRA's Two-Year Impact on Third-Grade Students in Hong Kong

Abstract: This longitudinal study assessed the impact of ABRACADABRA (ABRA), an interactive, game-based literacy program, on the literacy development of third-grade students in Hong Kong. The study involved 2 schools with a total of 250 students participating in a rigorous two-year game-based learning study. Participants in both the experimental and control groups were evaluated using pre- and post-intervention assessments.The outcomes revealed that the experimental group significantly outperformed the control group in key areas of reading achievement, with effect sizes of 0.218 for phoneme-grapheme knowledge and 0.337 for phoneme segmentation skills. These results indicate that ABRA's game-based approach is an effective method for enhancing literacy in environments where English is taught as a second language and where there may be a scarcity of learning resources. The study supports the inclusion of game-based literacy programs like ABRA in the broader educational syllabus to foster the use of ICTs in teaching and learning.

Title: Computational Thinking and Digital Literacies in the Early Childhood: A Case Study

Abstract: The purpose of the case study (Dyson & Genishi, 2005) is to examine the home-based digital literacy experiences of a three-year-old Chinese American girl. In particular, the study analyzes her multimodal navigations and literacy creations within two iPad apps: Toca Builders, a three-dimensional block building app, and ScratchJr, a visual coding program. Both apps are open-ended without step-by-step instruction or in-app leveling: Toca Builders provides an open construction space through the use of visual blocks with the assistance of six robot builders, while ScratchJr serves as the early childhood version of Scratch, the official open-source visual coding software developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. As a motherscholar, I collected data on the toddler’s digital meaning-making with/in the two apps in her home environment, including the child’s auto-saved, on-screen “building” and “making” literacy events, photos spontaneously taken by the child via an in-app camera in Toca Builders, digital artifacts from both apps, observation notes, as well as informal child interviews over the course of six months. The theoretical framework of the study draws on perspectives of computational thinking (Kafai & Proctor, 2022), digital play (Marsh, et al., 2018, 2020), and the sociocultural understanding of literacy and multimodality (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2001; Siegel, 2006; Street, 1997). After initial open and axial coding of data, I examined the toddler’s digital literacy events, including her bilingual, multimodal meaning-making of using in-app visual and aural modalities (e.g., visual constructions in a 3D space, voiceovers in her home language), how she (un)consciously applied computational thinking (e.g., tinkering, debugging, decomposition, pattern recognition) into her design choices and problem solving, as well as how she navigated multiple digital spaces as a form of play. Data analysis demonstrates recursive processes of the toddler’s fluid digital meaning-making, as featured by her nonlinear tinkering in creating multiple 3D visual texts with her “robot friends” in Toca Builders and her moments of animated storytelling in ScratchJr. The study further reveals that driven by digital play, the focal child engaged herself in text creations with/in the apps, across her on-screen and real-life informal learning spheres. Findings shed light on understanding young children’s creative digital play in the contemporary society of new technological opportunities and suggest the use of open-ended digital literacy apps of computational thinking to cultivate young children’s composing of creative literacies and to cater to their diverse learning needs for creativity and inclusivity.