This article presents research that investigated how a school year‐long letter‐writing project between kindergarten students and extended family members could facilitate literacy development in students, as well as provide a way to build inter‐generational bonds through correspondence focused on family history and stories. Analysis centered on the body of correspondence between the students and their family members, and used a comparative analysis technique. Themes that emerged include how the project helped improve literacy skills, how letter‐writing encouraged students to write more, with longer thoughts and multiple ideas, and how the project helped develop stronger family bonds.

This study examines how critical literacy read-alouds can be facilitated in an early childhood setting. More specifically, it describes how books allow young children to connect with experiences that help them identify and challenge inequality and envision social change. A classroom teacher and two university-based researchers collaborated to conduct this qualitative study that took place in one suburban Midwestern U.S. kindergarten class. Discussions and students' responses to read-alouds over a seven month period of time were analyzed. The findings demonstrate that, with support, children can develop more nuanced understandings of social class within and across texts. This research holds significant implications for how young children might be guided to examine critical social issues through the literacy curriculum and how such instruction can deepen students' engagement with texts.In a kindergarten classroom, the students sit together on a large rug, gathered around the teacher, who is reading aloud a story. This particular story, Rich Cat, Poor Cat (Waber, 1963), narrates the lives of two very different cats. As the students listen to the pages of the book describe the contrasts in the lives of a "rich cat" and a "poor cat," they pause to discuss a page showing the rich cat dining at a fancy restaurant and the poor cat scavenging for food in a garbage can. Teacher: Do you think it's fair that some cats eat at restaurants and some cats eat out of the garbage? Marisa: This cat, she not really want to eat out the garbage, but she has to, or she might die. Olivia (pointing to the pages): That cat eating out of the garbage doesn't have an owner, and that cat has an owner. She's a street cat, and she's with a person. Teacher: I wonder why some cats have owners and some cats don't? Carter (also pointing): Well that cat, well, that cat is rich and that cat isn't. The cat that's rich could stop being rich, because he got enough food to eat, and the other cat could be rich too, and then they could both be friends. Teacher: So you're saying that this rich cat is rich, but the poor cat could be rich too? Carter: When that poor cat is rich and that other one is enough rich they could be friends. Teacher: Do you think that's going to happen? Ali: No, because they don't. Arun: The rich cat doesn't want the poor cat to have a lot of dollars. The rich cat isn't nice. Keisha: I think the rich cat isn't being rich as in money, I think he has a lot of good stuff happening . . . He doesn't have any money but he has good stuff. Teacher: I was thinking that about the poor cat, maybe he doesn't have money but he is rich in other ways.In this vignette, we foreshadow ways in which a group of multicultural and multilingual kindergarten students engage with literacies as they develop the language of social analysis, cultural critique, and relationships necessary for a humane world. Young children have ideas about social class, and many books used in elementary schools give students subtle hints about characters' social class even when i...

One of the tensions in conducting participatory literacy research with young children is finding the balance between protection and voice. In this paper, we describe how we sought to create participant-centred research techniques within the evolving design of a yearlong action research study with kindergarten students. Through weekly classroom read-alouds of social class-themed children's literature, the larger project explored how children connected and critically responded to issues of poverty, privilege and inequality. How did our research techniques simultaneously balance 'protecting' children as ethical guidelines ask us to do, allow us to report our findings in ways that describe the rich data we collected, and create space for children to express and develop their voices and perspectives? We identified three issues that were salient to us in our research project with kindergarten students: using participant-centred research techniques, treating assent as an ongoing process and capturing the complexity of context while protecting children's identities. We look beyond the minimal requirements of research review boards as we explore some of the ethical issues that arise for us as teachers and researchers when we conduct literacy research with young children. We conclude with a discussion about how literacy researchers are uniquely poised to contribute to the scholarship on ethics with young children.

The increase of graphic novels in libraries and schools and on award lists illustrates one way that children's literature is changing. This article explores the relation between words and illustrations in a popular graphic novel. The multimodal format of graphic novels requires readers to consider the words, graphics, panel sizes, and uses of color and line. Thus, the authors propose that (a) students need explicit instruction on how to read graphic novels, (b) graphic novel reading requires slow reading to attend to the details, and (c) opportunities to talk about text are necessary to explore the complexities of graphic novels.

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