Children’s Encounters with Natural Selection During an Interactive Read Aloud

Abstract

Previous studies have shown that children as young as 5 years of age are able to form a basic understanding of evolution after listening to a storybook about natural selection. This study offers a semiotic exploration of children's meaning making during an interactive read aloud of the same storybook by investigating what children focus on and negotiate during the read aloud. Video data from eight interactive read aloud sessions (N = 24 children) were analysed using a multimodal approach and contrasted with seven biological concepts intentionally described in the storybook. During the interactive reading, the children focused on all biological concepts at some point. However, apart from the biological concepts, the children also paid attention to other topics during the read aloud. These topics comprised Death, Change in behaviour, Realism, Babies, Milli bugs, and Aesthetics. Throughout the read aloud, a child-centric view of life influenced how the children made meaning about evolution. The findings highlight that through interactive reading, instructional storybooks also become a tool for discussing other aspects that children find important. Overall, the findings contribute with knowledge about the role of interactive read aloud as a pedagogical tool for introducing evolution in early childhood education.

Making a fictitious animal: 6-7 year-old Swedish children’s meaning making about evolution during a modelling task

“…On one hand, this finding suggests that young children's reasoning about variation within a population remains an enormous challenge, a finding that resonates strongly with the literature (Emmons, Lees, and Kelemen 2017). However, discussions about variation frequently emerged during the interactive read-aloud that preceded the modelling activity (Frejd, 2019b), which indicates that it is not necessarily the actual concept of variation that is challenging for children, but rather the context or the mode of delivery that plays a significant role in children's meaning making (cf. Evans 1999).…”

“…Emmons, Lees, and Kelemen 2017;Emmons, Smith, and Kelemen 2016;Kelemen et al 2014;Shtulman, Neal, and Lindquist 2016). A study by Frejd (2019b) has revealed that children are able to discuss and make meaning about evolutionary concepts from an interactive read-aloud. This exchange represents an unstructured and authentic classroom setting as opposed to a one-on-one read-aloud.…”

“…The children and the reader were seated on the floor or on a couch, and all children could easily see and point at the book's pictures (see Figure 1). Further details of the interactive reading activity are described in Frejd (2019b).…”

“…The book presents a narrative that focuses on the evolution of an animal foraging trait, namely the evolution of a skinny nose ('trunk') that enables the fictional pilose mammal species to access their primary food source, the milli bug. 1 The currently reported study follows on from a previous companion study (Frejd, 2019b) that explores how preschool class children make meaning when listening to an interactive read-aloud of the pilose book. This follow-on work investigates how the same children engage in a modelling activity involving crafting a clay pilose that inhabits a fictitious future environment different to that articulated at the close of the book.…”

“…In this study, we adopt a meaning-making perspective to explore children's understanding and learning about biological evolution. Our approach draws on social semiotic views when considering children's creation and communication of meaning as they negotiate various tasks using different materials as semiotic resources in small groups (see Frejd, 2018Frejd, , 2019b. The adopted meaningmaking perspective involves the intersection between various representational and relational practices that rely on social and material aspects in the production of knowledge (Mulcahy 2013;Evans 1999;Tang 2011).…”