This paper presents findings from an eleven-year ethnographic study which describes how three children used different sign systems to become literate, to define who they are and to construct their literate identity. They each engaged with literacies in powerful and life transforming ways. Each child used multiple literacies to learn, understand and create meaning more fully; using their motivated interest in a preferred literacy to scaffold their learning of another literacy.In analysing this rich literacies use I have come to understand that literacies are complex in their conception and use and that all sign systems (e.g. art, dance, reading, writing, videogaming, etc.) operate using common semiotic principles.  Sign systems as literacies are multimodal, meaning-focused and motivated; they involve specific social and cultural practices which differ depending on site and community. During every literate act the children in this study made extensive use of the semantic, sensory, syntactic and pragmatic cuing systems to make meaning, regardless of the literacies used.

No abstract

This retrospective is a group effort between my children and me to make sense of their literacies over the past 26 years. Sharing in the authoring of this retrospective, we take a look back at the ways those literacies unfolded across their childhood. Emily, Tristan, and Simon used different literacies to define who they were and to construct a literate ethos. They each engaged with literacies in powerful and life transforming ways. They used multiple literacies together to help them learn, understand and create meaning more fully. Their stories demonstrate the need for young children to engage with multiple literacies to fully develop as literate adults. This retrospective supports the idea that literacies are complex, motivated, multimodal, semiotic, social, discourse dependent, and imbedded in specific practices.

No abstract

This chapter explores the principles necessary to implement an Indigenous early childhood pedagogy and the importance of the land, language, culture, and identity in learning for Indigenous children. This approach sees children in relation; sees them holistically, including the physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual; helps nurture the gift each child has for the community; focuses on the language, traditional teaching, ceremony, and storytelling; and finally decolonizes the curricula and the classroom. To effectively teach indigenous culture we need to teach the language and to teach the language we need to be on the land.