Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship

• Published in: Reading research quarterly Vol. 43; no. 4; pp. 332 - 334
• Main Author: Wohlwend, Karen E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01-10-2008; International Reading Association; International Literacy Association
• Subjects: Awards & honors; Childhood; Children; Children & youth; Childrens literature; Classroom design; Classroom environment; College sports; Culture; Curricula; Data analysis; Data collection; Developmentally appropriate practice; Discourse analysis; early childhood; Early childhood education; Early literacy; Elementary education; Emergent literacy; ethnography; family; Ideology; instructional; IRA Outstanding Dissertation Award for 2008; Kindergarten; Kindergarten education; learner; Literacy; Literary criticism; methodology; motivation; oral language; Social aspects; sociocultural; strategies; Student Participation; Students; Teachers; theoretical; topic; type; Vygotsky; Writing; United States; England; New York; Indiana; United Kingdom > UK; United States > US
• ISSN: 0034-0553; 1936-2722
• DOI: 10.1598/RRQ.43.4.1

To reconceptualize kindergarten as nexus of practice, this dissertation draws upon cultural-historical activity theory and models (Engeström, 1990; Leont'ev, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978) and practice theory (Bourdieu, 1977) supported by critical sociocultural perspectives (Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2007) to (a) frame play as a cultural and transformative force in peer culture (Corsaro, 2003; Marsh, 1999); (b) analyze discourse through close readings of talk, actions, materials, and contexts (Bloome, Carter, Christian, Otto, & Shuart- Faris, 2005; Gee, 1999; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996; Scollon, 2001); and (c) investigate early literacy as ideological practices situated within overlapping social spaces (Leander, 2002). Nexuses of practice in events and spaces that blended children's culture and classroom culture were located to examine the following: * How play and design practices function as meaning-making practices within an expanded definition of early literacy * How nexuses of play, design, reading, and writing practices expand and/or restrict opportunities for diverse learners to mediate materials and meanings and to participate more fully in peer and school cultures Through network sampling, teacher interviews, classroom visits, and classroom environment surveys, I identified a focal classroom in a U.S. midwestern public elementary school: an all-day kindergarten where literacy, play, and design opportunities were integrated in a daily two-hour period.