Toward a Participatory View of Early Literacies in Second Language Contexts

Abstract

This chapter will introduce a pedagogical framework to engage with literacy practices in early childhood contexts and English language learners (ELLs), based on the commonalities across three research studies carried out in three schools in Medellín, Colombia. In this chapter, we argue that developing strong pedagogical proposals for PreK-5 spaces entails breaking the traditional compartmentalization of children's practices between in or out of school and carefully integrating multimodality and critical literacy in our curricula. Besides the explanation of our pedagogical framework and its link to our current research, the chapter also provides some insights for early childhood teachers working with ELLs around the world to draw from these frameworks and transform their curricula. Although language context may differ, there are developmental commonalities across the board that practitioners and teacher educators can draw from, regardless of whether the children are in English-speaking contexts or not.

Centering Children's Voices and Purposes in Multimodality Research

“…Dyson, 1989). These studies frequently include in-depth interviews, observations, and artifactual data to elicit children's voices and viewpoints (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010), and explore how children and their families perceive in and out-of-school literacy practices (Cañas et al, 2018). Through these phenomenological and methodological lenses, we have set out to discover what we can learn about children's understandings of, and purposes for, multimodal design (cf.…”

Bending and Bridging Borders: YAL as a Tool for Healing and Critical Consciousness

“…Only then can we promote and model radical self-love and acceptance. Happiness comes from agency as we empower learners "to use their voices as a tool to express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions" (Cañas, Ocampo, Rodríguez, López-Ladino, & Mora, 2018) and to ultimately recognize their inherent, human power.…”