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In countries such as Australia, the bi/multilingual student demographic is increasing. Bi/multilingual students are commonly learning alongside monolingual students and also Indigenous and first-and-second-generation immigrant students who have a great range of exposure to heritage languages. In this article, we explore how literacies and language variation can be drawn together in order to support teachers' navigation of linguistic diversity in the English classroom. More specifically, we discuss how linguistic variation can be an explicit focus, and how extending students' linguistic repertoire can be an end in itself. If home language resources are solely considered to be a scaffold for standardised English language practices at school, or a way to transition students to English, they are not applicable to monolingual (in English) students nor students who have grown up speaking English as well as another home language. This orientation does not do justice to the learning potential related to linguistic diversity. We propose that the embedding of language variation in literacies and multimodality, digital multimodal composing in particular, is a way to address the intrinsic value of developing students' linguistic repertoire as a whole. Keywords Multimodality * Linguistic diversity * Language variation * Translanguaging, 1 Introduction There has been a growing international call in education to engage with the diverse range of language resources students bring to class. The potential for this engagement is [...]

Science literacy is at the nation's forefront, and the Next Generation Science Standards were revamped with the goal of guiding teachers in an enhanced approach to science teaching and learning [...]

This paper reports on three Victorian early career Foundation to Year Two (F-2) teachers and the impact of leadership on their daily pedagogic decision-making about the teaching of reading. Data sets from each teacher drew on observations of three of their reading lessons and researcher-generated field notes, a semi-structured teacher interview, an online survey of reported teacher practice, teacher planning documents of the observed lessons and classroom artefacts related to reading. Selected from a wider qualitative case study undertaken with 16 F-2 teachers across six government primary sites in metropolitan Melbourne, the teachers in this paper reported on how mandated and non-negotiable principles and practices of reading affected their ability to make daily pedagogic decisions for their students. As a result of leadership directives, the three teachers expressed frustration at the lack of opportunity for teacher voice and autonomy in their craft of teaching. If the teaching profession wishes to continue to renew its numbers and promote the teaching profession as an ongoing career of choice, the focus on the professional development of early career teachers is timely and necessary. Therefore, this paper aims to shine a light on the importance of instructional leadership models which support the development of teacher knowledge, teacher efficacy and teacher satisfaction, ultimately resulting in more targeted outcomes for students and more teachers likely to remain in the profession. Keywords Early reading * Pedagogic decision-making * Reflective practice * Inquiry into practice * Leadership decision-making * Literacy, 1 Introduction Continuous reform is an integral part of the educational landscape, as the role of education has changed over time. Through new thinking, education has moved from providing basic [...]

High-quality children's literature, including picturebooks, are important resources in the classroom for students to engage with complex and sometimes concerning contemporary issues. One strategy to involve students in learning about such issues is through the use of metafictive devices, which are literary stratagems that draw readers into knowing more about a topic and helping them understand and interpret them safely. In this paper, we analyse three selected texts that contain important and deliberate metafictive devices used by award-winning authors/illustrators. First, we share brief synopses of each book and then provide detailed analyses of the literary tools used by the authors, including how they support students' meaning-making practices through language and image. Then we consider how these works were used in a primary school classroom to improve children's critical multimodal literacies so that they became more discerning readers who could effectively cope and engage with complex and troubling world issues through literature. Keywords Children's literature * Metafictive devices * Global issues * Learning and teaching * Critical literacy, 1 Introduction Many children's picturebooks deal with serious contemporary issues, including climate change (Axelrod et al., 2020), politics (Johnson, 2020; Sipe & Pantaleo, 2008), grief and loss (Wiseman, 2013), social [...]

This article describes the learning and teaching approach taken within a Masters level specialism in Literacy Education within the context of learning some basics of undertaking qualitative investigation. Participants working as members of self-selected teams kept informal records of their activity, talk, reading, artefact creation, and archiving of documents in the context of engaging in a craft activity intended to produce a meaningful gift for an intended recipient. This informal corpus of information was generated as a hands-on approach to learning about how empirical qualitative researchers collect good quality data. It was then used as a resource for learning in a hands-on way some basic elements of data analysis. The participants subsequently learned how to refer to a contrived purpose and relevant literature to make sense of the craft process they had engaged in, and to discuss what they think they had learned about their process. The focus is on the work of one team who engaged in knitting a set of fabric 'alphabet coasters' for learners who respond to tactile resources. The first half of the article maps some broad contours of the teaching approach taken by the instructors, who also participated as peripheral members of the team by providing feedback and suggestions within its Google Doc. The second half recounts the main elements of what and how the students worked and learned, drawing on the content of their 6600 word report for the course and their Google Doc. Keywords Teacher research * Literacy education * Distance learning * Social learning * Online learning * Learning by doing, 1 Introduction This paper reports learner and teacher experiences from a course in a coursework M.Ed (Literacy Education) program. The course was designed to introduce participants, overwhelmingly certified practicing teachers, [...]

The dynamic constellation of language, language varieties, and ways with words our children and youth possess continues to thrive. Indeed, a multilingual reality has always persisted outside of school and [...]

In 1965, a Saturday Review article titled 'The All-White World of Children's Books' called attention to the scarcity of diversity in children's books (Larrick, 1965). Fifty years later, Myers (2014) [...]

One of my favorite ways to begin a professional learning session focused on phonics or word study more broadly is by playing with our names. Much is known about the [...]

Initial Teacher Education has been informed by diverse perspectives in recent years; while the debates around what constitutes teacher quality and adequate preparedness focus on the structure and focus of programs, entry and exit requirements, the current era presents new challenges to which teachers must respond such as an increased call for cultural responsiveness. In this context, the way that literacy itself is conceptualised within teacher education requires expansion. We argue in this paper that literacy plays a key role in the ontological and epistemological development of quality teachers, beyond the way it is currently conceived as either a hurdle requirement for the successful completion of an ITE program (Barnes & Cross Teachers and Teaching, 26(3-4), 307-325, 2020) or as a set of skills to support students to develop content knowledge across the disciplines (Scott et al. Teaching and Teacher Education, 73, 1-13, 2018). We contend that literacy is central to teacher's professional becoming (Matusov et al., 2019) and explore how a dialogic approach to teaching can support pre-service teachers' professional meaning making. The paper proposes a dialogic framework to embrace different levels of dialogue not merely as a means of 'doing' in the classroom, but as central in the process of knowing, being and becoming a professional teacher. Keywords Dialogic theories * Teachers' becoming * Literacy practices * Initial teacher education, 1 Introduction The March 2021 announcement by Hon. Alan Tudge, Australian Federal Minister for Education, to review the quality of Initial Teacher Education (ITE) programs nationally, has rekindled dialogue around [...]

In this paper, we discuss the place of plurilingualism in Language and Literacy Education. The article problematises English-only, monolingual-centric assumptions upon which much of Australia's current literacy education policy discourse has been based, to instead advance pluriliteracies as an alternate, more generative lens through which to view literacy learners, literacy learning, and literacy capabilities. The paper begins with tensions inherent in how policy 'imagines' learners in Australian schools, and the problem of imposing English-only, monolingual-centric notions of literacy when multilingualism is increasingly more the norm than the exception in many mainstream Australian classrooms. We consider how a pluriliteracy perspective on literacy education offers a more appropriate approach to addressing learners' developmental literacy needs, with particular attention to students' identity and agency. Finally, we consider effective implementation of plurilingual approaches to language and learning, with a focus on the intersection of ideology, practice, and policy. Keywords Pluriliteracies * Literacy * Language policy * Pedagogy * Teacher agency 1 Introduction, Much of the policy, literature, and broader discourse around Australian schooling acknowledges the student population as having incredible cultural and linguistic diversity, and often in ways celebrating this diversity, positioning [...]

This paper furthers the understanding of literacy being developed through this Special Issue by bringing a pluralistic, complex account of literacy into conversation with assessment. The rise of neoliberalism in education--and its related focus on standards, accountability, and efficiency--has seen literacy positioned as the 'core business' of contemporary education systems and, accordingly, a construct that must be rendered readily measurable, benchmarked, and accounted for. Through a critique of current literacy assessment practices in Australia relying on standardized testing to achieve such accountability using National Assessment Program for Literacy and Numeracy and Literacy and Numeracy Test for Initial Teacher Education as examples, we argue that the resulting dominant account of literacy is both reductive and deficient. On the one hand, we show how standardized literacy testing fails to recognize students' actual potential, in terms of the diverse and varied plurilingual and cultural meaning-making resources that many students now bring to literacy, beyond using Standard Australian English alone (and as a monolingual speaker would use SAE as an isolated language system). On the other, we show how standardized tests can render the assessment of literacy as effectively meaningless, given difficulties discriminating between test-takers' full range of literacy skills in meaningful ways. We conclude by considering alternative practices with potential to more accurately assess learners' literacy capabilities from a plurilingual perspective, and implications for education policy. Keywords Literacy assessment practices * Standardized testing * Plurilingual perspectives * Technological affordances, 1 Introduction: the rise of standardized testing as a substitute for literacy This paper furthers the understanding of literacy being developed through this Special Issue by bringing a pluralistic, complex [...]

The task of English language and literacy education to define citizenship, and shape citizens, has rarely been more compelling or more challenging than it is today. Globally and nationally, our civic response to COVID-19 has catapulted us into a world where our rights as and responsibilities as citizens are being fundamentally re-negotiated at the same time as we come to rely on technologically mediated literate practice to connect a world that is more spatially and temporally separated than many of us have ever known it to be. We are challenged to remake our identities and commit to new kinds of personal and civic relationships--nationally and globally--as we try to navigate uncharted waters. Our focus here is on the role that literacy education plays in understanding and defining active citizenship in a turbulent context in which foundational literacy practices are transforming just as accepted understandings of active citizenship are under challenge. We direct our attention specifically to the distinctive role that literacy practice plays in the production of identities and relationships and consider new ways for literacy education to build active citizenship across the lifespan from early education through primary and secondary education through to workforce education. Keywords Literacy * Citizenship * Technology * School English * Life course education, 1 Introduction Australia's civic response to the COVID-19 virus has propelled us into a world that relies on technologically mediated literate practice to an extent that we could not have [...]

This paper explores how changing digital literacy practices in educational contexts require that we continually revisit conceptualisations of digital literacy education. We begin by analysing the positions taken by stakeholders who contribute to digital literacy discourses in Australia, exploring how competing interests produce effects which manifest in ways that differently consecrate social and cultural practice in the digital age. We advocate the need for pedagogic frameworks that support digital literacy education. Existing approaches tend to privilege the operationalisation of digital technology. By contrast, teaching is needed which focusses on meaning-making and creating. However, the 'datafication of everyday life' (Barassi, 2018, p.170) has included extraordinary interventions into schooling that have significant implications for teachers and students. We argue that preparing young people for digital citizenship must include a focus on critical digital literacies that are responsive to contemporary digital forces (e.g. platformatisation, artificial intelligence, edu-apps, algorithms) as well as those digital technologies that are yet to make their way into formal schooling. Keywords Digital literacy education * Critical digital literacies * Digital citizenship * Pedagogy. Data literacies, 1 Digital literacy It has become a truism to observe that the world has been radically changed by the digital and to note the pervasiveness of digital platforms and technologies [...]

This qualitative, ethnographic research highlights how drama pedagogy using translanguaging-based Readers Theatre supports students learning English as an Additional Language or Dialect (EAL/D) to develop knowledge of language central to their engagement with learning (Authors, 2020). Using socio-spatial theory of Lefebvre (1991) and Soja (Annals of the Association of American Geographers 70:207-225, 1980), we argue that drama pedagogy can shape a creative translanguaging space as reported by Li (Journal of Pragmatics 43:1222-1235, 2011) in which the high-stakes test based pressure to narrow curriculum and pedagogical breadth can be resisted, and classroom spaces remade so that literacy learning is identity-affirming and caters for the diverse needs of students. Keywords Drama * Thirdspace * Translanguaging * EAL/D * Literacy * English, 1 Introduction Urban populations are becoming increasingly multilingual (Chik et al., 2019; D'warte, 2014) with over 350 languages being spoken in Australia (Eades, 2013; Lo Bianco & Slaughter, 2017). In [...]

This timely paper provides empirical evidence on the lived experiences of ten women from eight nationalities in Bosnia & Herzegovina and Germany, who voluntarily taught girls and women digital skills in 2020. I situated this multi-case feminist study within the digital skills gender divide phenomenon. I collected qualitative data through surveys and interviews with the teachers, remote observations of their digital skills lessons, and analysis of programme documents, including curricula. In this paper, I discuss two research questions: (1) 'What motivated the women to teach digital literacy?' and (2) 'Why do the teachers think the digital skills gender divide exists?' The hybrid approach to data coding and thematic analysis indicated that the teachers were motivated to teach digital literacy to support their students' selfdevelopment and use digital skills in their daily lives. The teachers at the school in Germany were also motivated by advancing their social capital and societal integration, as six of the eight women teaching in Germany were migrants. The teachers from Bosnia & Herzegovina were motivated by overcoming the systemic gender inequality that the digital skills gender divide encapsulates. The teachers also identified various personal, community, and societal causes of the digital skills gender divide. On the micro-level, they noted that girls engage in risk avoidance behaviour from a young age, limiting their digital skills development. On the mesolevel, women lack exposure to Information and Communication Technology (ICT) within their families and communities. On the macro-level, the teachers in Bosnia & Herzegovina highlighted that girls living in urban areas could access ICT more often than those living in rural areas. This paper offers resolutions to the digital skills gender divide, concluded from the teachers' evidence, such as educational opportunities, gender diversity hiring in technical roles in the ICT sector, and policy development to underpin solutions and incentivise compliance. This paper is my contribution to centralising in the scholarship the lived experiences and perspectives of diverse women who are at the forefront of the digital skills gender divide. Keywords: Digital Skills Gender Divide, Remote feminist research, Multi-case study, Qualitative study, Women's lived experiences, Introduction In this paper, I share the voices of ten women from eight nationalities and different socio-cultural backgrounds. These women taught digital skills at schools in Bosnia & Herzegovina and [...]

Place-based education has long been relevant in literacy teaching and learning, and practitioners and scholars across the English studies use places to create meaningful and relevant pedagogies. Operating assumptions for how and why place impacts student writing often remain under examined, and this is especially true of particular settings, such as nature-based outdoor settings. This study examines a diverse group of high school writers' experience of writing outside. Participants were adolescents in a 28- or 40-day voluntary literacy and outdoor adventure learning program. This program, Adventure Risk Challenge, serves primarily rural students who use English as a second or other language and provides a literacy-rich curriculum with instruction in language, reading, public speaking, and especially writing. The learning settings are at outdoor basecamps and on backcountry, wilderness expeditions. Using a constructivist grounded theory approach, data was collected through methods of participant observation during a summer program and in 21 semi-structured interviews of program alumni and instructors. Interview transcripts were analyzed and interpreted through multiple cycles of coding. The findings suggest that students' experience of writing outdoors is beneficial for at least three reasons: (1) positive social environments, (2) greater facility in generating ideas and descriptive details, and (3) enhanced concentration while engaged in writing tasks. Additional lines of inquiry and applications to school learning environments are discussed. Keywords Place-based education * Writing * Affect * Nature, The significance of where students learn and how settings can be used to facilitate teaching and learning has always been central to place-based education, which relies on local contexts to [...]

The theme of this issue, fostering joy and recognizing brilliance in literacy classrooms, is at the heart of what it means to be a responsive teacher. As one path toward [...]

I feel like we are testing kids to death. Every two weeks we have a reading assessment that we have to do with our students. We're not allowed to read [...]

Parental pressure to include formalised school-type literacy lessons has been reported as a factor influencing the types of phonics instruction young children encounter in the prior-to-school years. Parents and early childhood teachers support effective phonics instruction through guided play-based learning in the prior-to-school years. Few studies have examined parental beliefs about phonics instruction in early childhood settings. This survey research investigated parental perceptions of phonics instruction and code-related literacy learning in six early childhood services in Queensland, Australia. Drawing on theories about phonics learning as a key predictor for later reading success, and defining parent beliefs about literacy, this study found the majority of parents valued both play-literacy practices and phonics instruction. A one-way ANOVA and descriptive statistics were used to analyse three different independent groups i) early learning centres, ii) long day care and iii) standalone community kindergarten, to identify relationships between the dependent variables. The Likert-scale and open-ended question survey found parents were divided in their reported views on the level of emphasis placed on explicit systematic phonics instruction and commercial phonics program use in the years prior to formal schooling. Parents with children attending school-based early learning centres (children aged three-totwelve) were more likely to place higher importance on phonics and name writing and less likely to view adult-child shared reading as playing an important phonics instructional role, than parents of children in a community based kindergarten (children aged three-to-five) and standalone long day care centres (children aged birth-to-five). Parents with children who attend a community-based kindergarten were less likely to agree that phonics should be the focus of an early childhood literacy program. Most parents reported engaging in phonics practices at home, with many (88%) placing value on their child learning the alphabet-song. Approximately one-quarter of parent respondents reported using commercial phonics programs in the home environment. This study highlights parental expectations placed on early childhood teachers to teach phonics and parental perceptions of play-literacy learning in the early childhood curriculum., Introduction Teaching phonics in the prior-to-school years (ages three-to-five) through guided play-based learning is endorsed by parents and early childhood teachers as effectively supporting early literacy development. Parental literacy beliefs [...]

In light of the shift towards incorporating multimodality in the curriculum, it is of interest and value to examine the extent to which multimodal literacy is assessed in national and international literacy tests. This is so as to surface any misalignment between the two and highlight gaps which curriculum planners and assessment designers can address. Given the significant influence that the nature of assessment has in shaping classroom practices and teaching priorities, it is imperative that assessment is aligned with curriculum goals. Our paper examines the assessment items in the visual text comprehension in Singapore's national examinations, the Graduate Certificate of Education Ordinary Level (GCE O' Level) and the Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE), for the English Language exam, as well as the literacy components of Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) reading items. We adopt the approach of an earlier study by Unsworth et al. (2019) and position our work as a replication study, extended to a new context. In adopting a common approach, we hope to offer an independent verification of the framework, analyses and findings from the earlier study and contribute towards consolidating and building up proven practices in the analysis of text-image relations within the field of multimodal studies. Our results similarly show an overall low proportion of test items that deal with images and image-language relations in the Singapore and international assessments. While the proportion of questions where the image is essential or supports answering the question is higher for the Singapore GCE O' Level exams, the role of images in the PSLE and international assessments is limited, which suggests a greater focus on assessing multimodal literacy is required. As curriculum reforms to incorporate multimodality in education become more commonplace around the world, we argue that attention on assessment must be the next frontier of change., Introduction Modern communication is increasingly saturated with multimodal resources that make meaning through semiotic modes such as language, images, animation, and music, in both online and physical spaces. Before the [...]

One either believes problems are rooted in groups of people, as a racist, or locates the roots of problems in power and policies, as an antiracist. --Ibram X. Kendi We [...]

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of supporting students' development of scientific literacies in light of the current global crises related to human health and the environment. Integrating [...]

It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of measuring one's soul by the tape of a world [...]

Filled with books and self-authored stories, James's (1) living room was a place where he engaged the world through literacy practices that creatively merged reading, drawing, journaling, and storytelling. A [...]

When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. --Jalal ad-Din Rumi As educators look ahead to life after the global pandemic and [...]

National Assessment Program for Numeracy and Literacy (NAPLAN) is the national assessment programme for literacy and numeracy in Australia administered to children in Years 3, 5,7 and 9 each year. The testing process was introduced in 2008 and is described by the developers as low stakes, however, research has highlighted that this is not the case. This paper examines the perceptions of teachers in the early years of school on the impact NAPLAN has on wellbeing of stakeholders, and the pedagogy and curriculum in early years teachers' classrooms. Through focus group interviews, the early childhood teachers in 10 independent Western Australian school sites were asked about their experiences of NAPLAN in terms of their wellbeing and that of the children and families with whom they interact. Findings highlight that early years teachers describe that the impact of NAPLAN is felt in the lower years of school by all stakeholders-parents, children and teachers. This study highlights the need for additional research in this area, particularly in diverse settings, to gain evidence of impact that could inform the practice of the NAPLAN testing programme. Keywords NAPLAN, early years pedagogy, wellbeing, early years curriculum, Introduction It has been just over 10 years since the Australian government introduced the National Assessment Program for Numeracy and Literacy (NAPLAN) in 2008. The programme was introduced by the [...]

This paper takes up key questions of this special issue regarding tensions and challenges in the field of literacy education by exploring how literary knowledge and skills intersect with subject area teachers' disciplinary ontologies and epistemologies. Drawing on Pierre Bourdieu's thinking tools, we analyse how literacy across the curriculum has been approached in policy and practice terms in recent decades, particularly in the context of neoliberal reforms and increasing accountability cultures. We then discuss the implications and limits of these approaches for teacher identity and professionalism, and using two initiatives in both pre-service and in-service contexts as examples, we consider ways of reconsidering the field of disciplinary literacy and the habitus of subject experts, so that secondary teachers might be best placed to support diverse learners in their classrooms. Keywords Disciplinary literacy * Teacher expertise * Bourdieu, 1 Introduction While there is general agreement that all teachers are teachers of literacy (Christie & Derewianka, 2008; Humphrey, 2017), how literacy learning might be embedded across the curriculum areas [...]

Author(s): Robert Highsmith [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) Minnesota Council on Economic Education, Saint Paul, MN, USA The 2016 election season boggled the minds even of knowledgeable observers predisposed to expect [...]

Research in the field of literacy has identified choice as a key component affecting students' reading habits and their resulting literacy growth. This article discusses an in-school independent reading project [...]

In the middle of center time, Derek excitedly approached his preschool teacher. Thinking he had demystified the complexities of the alphabetic principle, he confidently announced, 'Banana starts with yellow!' Over [...]

This paper reports on the assessment of initial data from an ongoing, award-winning service learning project called 'Computer Training for Persons with Intellectual Disabilities.' The project was researched, designed, and [...]

Although literacy coaching offers promise in terms of improving teacher practice and student achievement, guidance is often needed regarding the qualifications, activities, and roles of literacy coaches. Amanda Davis (all [...]

'Better Beginnings' commenced in Western Australia as' an integrated program of early literacy support for parents involving early years, community, health and library services. Its success and the longitudinal study [...]

It is day two of Mrs. L's weekly science lesson and the 'explain' day of the learning cycle. Students are reading the book Earthworms Underground (Beals, 2007) within their groups. [...]