Young children read wordless books as an important early literacy learning activity. This study explores oral narrative construction and image reading of a wordless book by six K-2 children. Through a cross-case analysis, the results indicate growth of coherence and cohesion building in the verbal narratives across grade levels, as well as a…

This paper examines literacy as a sociocultural, personal and human practice dependent on and derived through relationships between people, settings and culture. Drawing on a recent empirical research study that combines learner, teacher and author perspectives [Curtin (2023) "Reading and Writing Pathways Through Children's and Young Adult…

Children often prefer nonfiction to fiction books but historically, teachers have neglected nonfiction books during reads alouds. The present study examined how young readers collectively make meaning of nonfiction picturebooks with the help of the teacher and their peers during a whole group interactive read-aloud in one kindergarten classroom.…

Building on AsianCrit, reader response theory, and critical literacy perspective, this dissertation study investigated how second-generation Chinese American students at age eight to twelve respond to culturally relevant texts which portray contemporary and historical Chinese American people's lives and experiences in the United States. In…

To promote independent reading in middle school, teachers must understand why adolescents choose to read or not read a specific book. Yet, there is limited research on the factors that students consider when evaluating books that teachers have introduced them to in class. This study aimed to describe factors that 43 Grade 7 and 8 students noted as…

This paper explores learning to read for minority children who are emergent readers (aged 6-7). The research took place in a multicultural, multi-faith inner city primary school. The research concerned children learning to read and the meanings they made of the books they learnt to read with. The article concludes that using reader-response with…

This article explores the potential for engaging 7 and 8-year-old school pupils in performative literature interpretation through process drama. Inspired by new materialism and affect theory, we focus on how literature interpretations come into being in dramatic fiction, and on how these becoming interpretations merge with the classroom. The study…

Fiction, more than expository text, nurtures intimate connections between text and the reader's life experiences. This dimension of reader response is underexplored in relation to children. Adapting methods from Empirical Literary Studies to educational research objectives, the authors employed the concept of 'remindings', i.e. reminiscing…

What can the affective turn mean for literacy educators who believe their work can lay the foundation for a life filled with meaningful reading pursuits, for students who "become" readers and "do" reading? Because reading occurs across and within an elaborate composite of time, space, relationships, histories, discourses, and…

This study explores virtual, student-author interviews eighth-grade students led with Chris Crowe in response to his young adult novel "Mississippi Trial, 1955." The opportunity to interview the author motivated students to read the novel. Through their text-world development, students connected with the fictional and nonfictional…

Postmodern picturebooks do not follow the established norms of traditional picturebooks and instead invite readers to navigate nonlinear structures and attend to metafictive devices, including counterpoint and multiple narratives, experimental typography, nonlinearity, intertextuality, and ambiguities in meaning. These qualities challenge readers…

This article adopts a Bakhtinian understanding of dialogue to explore the affordances of virtual book clubs, and how they can foster dialogues and encourage dialogic thinking in students. Drawing on a qualitative case study of 11-year-old students participating in an online book club, we explore how digital book clubs open dialogic spaces for…

At the end of a two-year discussion about the value of homework in elementary school, the Seaview district decided to move away from the traditional model of homework, and introduced Wonder, Reading, and Play (WRaP) intended to be more equitable and authentic. A case study was conducted to assess the district's goals for and implementation of more…

Building on sociocultural theories of literacy learning, in this article, we think at the intersection of reader response theory and multimodal literacies to examine how 13 preservice teachers in the course Teaching Social Sciences Through the Arts remediated responses to Francisco Jiménez's "The Circuit: Stories From the Life of a Migrant…

This interpretive study examined how eighth-grade students responded to a multimodal short story introduced to them by their English Language Arts teacher as part of a multimodal literacies curriculum unit. By analyzing fieldnotes constructed from observations, the classroom teacher's voice-recorded reflections, and the students' work, the author…