Multimodal texts in kindergarten rooms

Abstract

This article provides an overview of the results of our project "The Kindergarten Room: A Multimodal Pedagogical Text". Our major initiative was to investigate what the multimodal texts in kindergarten represent and the extent to which they reflect and provide attributions to the children's activities. In addition, we wanted to investigate whether kindergarten walls and floors can be called 'pedagogical texts', and the extent to which texts on walls and floors establish a particular text culture. The study is being carried out in Norway. Our analytical approach is situated within the theoretical framework of Michael Halliday's social semiotics and systemic functional linguistics. A kindergarten room is a composite design that spatially utilises the co-deployment of various semiotic resources, such as architecture, language and visual images, and is thus viewed as a multimodal text. Our multimodal analysis is primarily based on the work of Kress and van Leeuwen. Our research is a qualitative study of three kindergartens. The material consists of video observations, photographs, field notes, documents and interviews with teachers and children. We believe that our analysis contributes to the body of knowledge regarding texts in the kindergarten room, the purpose of these texts, and thus the factors that influence the composition of kindergarten rooms.

The selection of informants in kindergarten research in Norway: A critical review

“…In Appendix A, 21 of the 149 publications (14.1%), did not make reference to the staff 's professional backgrounds when they were used as informants. In Appendix B, 9 of the publications (N = 43) did not specify the number of assistants used as informants (Bjørgen, 2011;Figenschou, 2017;Granly & Maagerø;Hillesøy, 2016;Hillesøy & Ohna, 2014;Johansson, Emilson, Röthle, Puriola, Broström & Einarsdottir, 2016;Knudsen, Aglen, Danbolt & Engesnes, 2015;Larsen, 2014;Skreland, 2016).…”

Contrasting Systemic Functional Linguistic and Situated Literacies Approaches to Multimodality in Literacy and Writing Studies

“…In the SFL studies, the objects of analysis include features of multimodal artifacts or learning outcomes associated with the use or creation of multimodal texts considered in micro-detail—i.e. the resulting meaning functions from children’s choices of multimodal resources (Bearne, 2009), multimodal features of textbooks or student-produced texts (Chen, 2010; Walker, 2010), genre and the multimodal literacies needed to understand it (El Refaie & Hörschelmann, 2010; Martin, 2009), and rooms as multimodal texts (Granly & Maagerø, 2012).…”

“…The data sources for the SFL studies are all multimodal texts, which I break down into three subgroups: (a) student-generated texts (Archer, 2010; Bearne, 2009), (b) adult-generated texts (Chen 2010; Martin, 2009), and (c) a combination of student- and adult-generated texts (El Refaie & Hörschelmann, 2010; Granly & Maagerø, 2012; Walker, 2010). The students’ texts were all produced for class assignments (primary and university), while the adult-generated texts included textbooks (Chen, 2010) and an excerpt from Nelson Mandela’s autobiography (Martin, 2009) illustratively deconstructed to show genre’s usefulness as a pedagogical tool.…”

A Sociological Approach to the Determination and Implementation of Rules for the Pedagogical Use of Kindergarten Classroom Space

“…Scientific research that focuses on school space in the case of the kindergartens, concentrates chiefly on how kindergarten teachers use the space for teaching and psycho-pedagogical purposes (Berger & Lahad, 2010;Børve & Børve, 2017;Germanos, 2005aGermanos, , 2005bGranly & Maagerø, 2012;Moser & Martinsen, 2010) However, there is a lack of research on the sociological approach to and analysis of the school space of the kindergartens, which constitutes the material element without which the realization of pedagogical work at this level of education is not possible (Koustourakis, 2013(Koustourakis, , 2018. This research study contributes to filling this gap.…”