Early Childhood Curricula and the De-pathologizing of Childhood

Children as Co-ethnographers of their Plurilingual Literacy Practices: An Exploratory Case Study

“…At the same time, Ontario's three main public schooling models each have distinct linguistic mandates: mainstream English schools use English as the language of instruction for both anglophone and English-language learners; French-immersion schools aim to support students' French-as-a-second language development by using French as the language of instruction across the curriculum; and, French-language schools provide education in French (as a first language) to francophone minority students. Research over the last decade has highlighted the increasing need to support CLD students within each specific school model: mainstream English schools (Cummins, 2001;Goldstein, 2003;Heydon & Iannacci, 2008;Smythe & Toohey, 2009); French-immersion schools (Dagenais & Berron, 2001;Dagenais & Moore, 2004Swain & Lapkin, 2005;Taylor, 2009); and French-language minority schools (Prasad, 2012;Farmer & Labrie, 2008;Gérin-Lajoie, 2003Masny, 2009). Although researchers have examined perspectives and practices within specific school models, there is a gap in Canadian scholarship comparing CLD children's language learning across English, French and French-immersion schools within a province or territory.…”

‘Every day he has a dream to tell’: classroom literacy curriculum in a full-day kindergarten

“…For instance, a highly prescriptive literacy curriculum might require different resources and create different dynamics than more emergent types of curricula, which might more easily respond to CLD children (e.g. Heydon & Iannacci, 2008). Despite the need for local discretion, as the persons closest to the situation might be in the best position to make informed and ethical decisions (e.g.…”

Rethinking Difference in the iWorld: Possibilities, Challenges and ‘Unexpected Consequences’ of Digital Tools in Literacy Education

“…Additionally, in the autobiographical realm, as parents we have observed our own children and their usage of digital devices in home and school environments. This mode of inquiry values working across levels, from the 'general' to the particularity of individual examples, located alongside one another in a larger research bricolage (Johnson, 2010;Lévi-Straus, 1966), piecing together smaller and larger-scale data and autobiographical examples in new ways, using complexity theory (Davis & Sumara, 2010, 2008 as a methodological frame. Complexity enables us to look at broader patterns as a whole, noting that gaining an understanding of learning and social systems requires "considering all-at-once, the many layers of dynamic nested activity that are constantly at play" (Davis & Sumara, 2006, p. 28).…”

“…Rheingold, 2013). We also note that various school and district policies towards touch screen devices and assistive technologies create additional impacts on the "lived literacy" curriculum (Heydon & Iannacci, 2008), aspects which we have both witnessed in our research contexts as well as experienced as parents. Concerns about control and ownership (i.e.…”

“…Educational researcher Ben Whitburn, legally blind from early childhood, writes about such a "deficit discourse," referring to it as "the indelible ink of the special stamp" (p. 624, 2013a), noting that in his own educational experience, he was often more easily granted accommodations that would set him apart (e.g., use of a noisy Perkins Braille machine that disrupted others, so that he was then relegated to a corner of the classroom), or required him to be dependent on others-"on the hip of my minder" or "in mainstream with a chaperone," (2013b)-than adaptions that enabled "autonomous access to information" (p. 11), such as access to an electrical outlet for a computer. Heydon and Iannacci (2008) suggest that issues of 'normality' and 'abnormality' can often be used as colonizing forces in school environments, through the "lived literacy" curriculum and the discursive practices of schooling. Contemporary arguments made against the use of such tools in early primary classrooms are often, similarly, related to how such devices may disrupt existing hierarchies, or interfere with compliance (see, e.g.…”