“Estoy haciendo una sopa con mi letters”: Young Emergent Bilinguals Play With Symbols and Language

• In Event: Harnessing Agency: Children and Youth Translanguaging and Playing With Multimodal Literacies

Abstract

This paper examines ways in which young emergent bilinguals' explorations of symbols and text through play supported their emerging literacy skills. The 4-year-olds in this study were in a Head Start classroom that used the HighScope curriculum (Weikart et al, 1971), where the children spent most of the day engaged in play. This particular program took a strong stance against the “push down curriculum” that is seen in early childhood classrooms (Genishi & Dyson, 2012). There was little or no emphasis on “traditional” literacy skills in the classroom, such as letter recognition, concepts about print, phonemic awareness, phonics instruction, reading comprehension, or pre-writing skills. Yet, in their play, the children incorporated symbols and texts that they saw in their everyday experiences: writing on food containers, images on clothing, shapes of toys drawn on paper, approximations of adult handwriting, and symbols in their environment. Through the children’s practices and creation of artifacts we see how the children were developing literacy skills grounded in the practices of their community, developing an understanding of their multiple languages (the contexts within which these languages were used) as well as their identities as young emergent bilinguals.

Sociocultural theory (Bruner, 1986; Holland, Lachicotte, Skinner & Cain,1998; Vygotsky, 1978) grounds and frames my understanding of the social nature of children’s learning, the importance of social context, and the role of play in development. I draw on Lankshear and Knobel (2003) to define literacies; highlighting the complex interrelationship among reading, writing, the social processes that surround these events and the meaning that is given to them by the participants (Heath & Street, 2008).

The data for this paper draws from an ethnographic case study (Dyson & Genishi, 2005) of the language practices of 4-year-olds in a bilingual (Spanish/English) classroom. There were 13 children in this study and were all children of immigrants from either Mexico or the Dominican Republic. All of the children spoke Spanish in their homes and 6 also spoke Mixteco in their homes. Data includes field notes, transcriptions of interviews and artifact collection of children’s work.

Throughout the school year the children incorporated text and symbols into their play and played with symbols and text; their practices shifted and varied throughout the year as the children developed language(s), as well as an understanding of the use and meaning of text. The children learned from each other, mimicking each other’s play, and incorporating in their own understandings of text. In their creations, we see the children make choices about language, translanguaging and demonstrating their understanding of various contexts and uses of language(s).

In an era where we see less play in early childhood classrooms in the name of “improving educational outcomes” and increasing levels of literacy, the children in this study demonstrate that play is key to helping children learn and develop language and literacy skills. The flexibility of this curriculum allowed the children to develop their multiple languages across contexts and read and construct multimodal texts in ways that were authentic and meaningful to them.

Author

• Ysaaca Axelrod, University of Massachusetts - Amherst