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As current governmental agendasseverely narrow the ways in whichearly literacy development is de-fined and described (i.e., No ChildLeft Behind in the US, the NationalLiteracy Strategy in the UK, amongmany), it is critical to rememberwhat we’ve learned during the pastseveral decades of research abouthow young children come to be lit-erate members of society. In this ar-ticle, we synthesize critical lessonsfrom this research to share a trans-actional view of early literacy devel-opment. Whether a precise linguisticdevelopment, a sweeping sociologi-cal phenomenon, or a political in-fluence, critical lessons areselections from the complex re-search literature that describe andinterpret how young childrenbecome readers and writers.

TRANSACTIONAL THEORY

The fundamental ideas of a trans-actional theory are defined by thework of John Dewey and LouiseRosenblatt and further informed byKenneth Goodman’s language de-velopment and L. S. Vygotsky’slearning theories. Dewey (1938)says that, “An experience is alwayswhat it is because of a transaction

Kathryn F. Whitmore, Prisca Martens,

Yetta Goodman, andGretchen Owocki

Given the current political climate, it is crucial that we

return to what we know about the literacy learning of

young children.

Remembering Critical Lessons in Early Literacy Research: A Transactional Perspective

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bering Critical Lessons

Language Arts, Vol. 82 No. 5, March 2005

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Text Box

Copyright © 2005 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.

taking place between an individualand what, at the time constituteshis environment” (p. 43). Rosenblatt(1976) adds that transaction is apoem—“the interrelationship be-tween the knower and what is to beknown” (p. 27). A transactionalview of reading and writing meansthat we see literacy as a meaningconstruction process, and thatwithin a given literacy event, boththe text and the reader/ author arechanged.

Goodman, Smith, Meredith, andGoodman (1987) say that in lan-guage development, “[t]here is analmost explosive force from withinthe children that propels them toexpress themselves, and at the sametime there is a strong need to com-municate that pushes the directionof growth and development towardthe family and community. . . . Thelanguage is generated by the child,but it is changed in transactionswith others by their responses”(p. 34). As young literacy learnerstransact with written texts duringreading and composing, the samedynamic tension exists between

their personal constructions of liter-acy inventions and social conven-tions. Much of our research isdirected toward understanding howthe tension between invention andconvention is embedded in eachchild’s literacy.

Vygotskian (1978) theory strength-ens the transactional base of criticalearly literacy lessons because Vy-gotsky says learning begins longbefore school, meaning all schoollearning must be viewed as a con-tinuation of a previous learning his-tory. A critical feature of Vygotsky’sview of learning as it affects trans-actional theory is that learningawakens a variety of internal devel-opmental processes that operateonly when children are interactingwith people in their environmentsand in cooperation with their peers.Learning creates a “zone of proxi-mal development” that permitsteachers to identify how to createconditions that mediate develop-ment. From our point of view,adults, peers (not only more capablepeers), and cultural tools like textscan all serve as effective mediators.

INTERPRETIVE RESEARCHMETHODOLOGIES

We share three sets of criticallessons in this article, organized ac-cording to the methodological lensesinterpretive researchers use to designand carry out early literacy studies(see Figure 1). “Interpretive field-work research involves being unusu-ally thorough and reflective innoticing and describing everydayevents in the field setting, and in at-tempting to identify the significanceof actions in the events from thevarious points of view of the actorsthemselves” (Erickson, 1986, p. 121).One lens is a close examination ofindividual children’s early readingand writing development designedas case studies and qualitative clini-cal studies. The second is classroomprocess studies that analyze chil-dren’s engagement in activities likewriting and reading workshop, read-ing response engagements, and liter-ature discussion groups. The third isethnographic studies in homes, com-munities, and schools in which re-searchers come to understand a

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Case Clinical Studies Qualitative Studies

Literacy is Individual

Children simultaneously developas readers, writers, and meaningmakers from birth

Children personally invent writtenlanguage

Children refine their writtenlanguage through experience

Classroom Process Studies

Literacy is Social

The social community influencesmeaning construction

Children construct and representmeaning through multiple symbolsystems

Play is a particular symbol systemespecially relevant to youngchildren’s literacy development

Home, Community, andSchool Ethnographic Studies

Literacy is a Cultural Practice

All families are literate

Identity positions are part of literacy development

Cultural tools are part ofliteracy development

Focu

sCr

itica

l Les

sons

Rese

arch

Le

ns

Figure 1. Three sets of critical early literacy lessons

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research site as a culture, from themembers’ perspectives. The focus inall these stances is on children’sactive construction of knowledgeand the social processes childrenparticipate in as they come to knowliteracy as a cultural tool and as asystem of meaning making.

In each section that follows, an ex-ample from our own researchdemonstrates the interpretive lens ofthe set and introduces criticallessons from related research. Thestudies described were selected be-cause they demonstrate young chil-dren’s developing knowledge andcontribute to the credibility (Miles &Huberman, 1994) of interpretive re-search in that they seek to illumi-nate early literacy development as itoccurs in the context of daily life.

CRITICAL LESSONS FROMCASE STUDY AND CLINICALQUALITATIVE STUDIES: LITERACY IS INDIVIDUAL

Sarah, at 4 years, 10 months of age,wrote the get well card in Figure 2to her friend Johnny when he hadhis tonsils removed (Martens, 1996).Sarah considers that she “already

knows how to read” in that shereads and rereads favorite books(by integrating her previous knowl-edge of the plot, cues in the illus-trations, and the story language sheremembers), she writes invitationlists for her party, and she readsenvironmental print on cerealboxes at home and Stop signs inthe community.

At first glance, Sarah’s note mayappear to be random letters. It is,however, invented thoughtfully anddeliberately, based on Sarah’s expe-riences and understandings of liter-acy at the time, and it demonstratesthat Sarah is a knowledgeablereader and writer before she beginskindergarten. For example, Sarahmakes several letter choices basedon how she articulates sounds. Shebegins Johnny’s name with <d> be-cause in both sounds /dj/ and /d/,the tip of the tongue is positioned atthe upper gums. She represents /f/in feel with <v> because /f/ and /v/are both fricatives. In addition,Sarah knows how to write her namein all upper case letters and that getwell cards have a particular func-tion and form (she begins with“Dear Johnny” and closes with hername and “I love you”).

Children assumeagency for theirlearning and frombirth are activelyconstructingknowledge aboutliteracy; therefore,no two children’spaths to literacylook the same.Case study andclinical qualitativeresearchers let thechildren be theirlinguistic infor-mants (Harste,Woodward, &Burke, 1984).

Their in-depth observations of chil-dren’s transactions with reading andwriting across settings reveal thatliteracy is a highly individualprocess.

Critical Lesson: ChildrenSimultaneously Develop asReaders, Writers, and MeaningMakers from Birth

By the 1980s, researchers were dis-covering that children, even those“at risk,” are engaged in readingand writing at the same time thatthey are involved in speaking andlistening, and that literacy develop-ment begins long before formal in-struction occurs in school (Clay,1975; Goodman, Altwerger, &Marek, 1981). These insights areconfirmed by longitudinal casestudies of children, including stud-ies by parent researchers whose “en-lightened subjectivity” (Bissex,1980, p. vi) provides informationother researchers studying thesesame children could not replicate.For Bissex’s son Paul, reading, writ-ing, and oral language develop incoordination and support eachother, and for Doake’s (1988) sonRaja, literacy development begins at6 hours of age when he is read tofor the first time. Baghban’s (1984)daughter Giti observes writingevents until 17 months when shegrabs pens and paper to write her-self. At 24 months, Giti reads envi-ronmental print and by 34 monthsshe distinguishes between drawingand writing, writes from left to rightand top to bottom, and writes hername independently. Non-parent re-searchers Soderbergh (1977) andTaylor (1991) and grandparentsCampbell (1999) and Whitehead(2002) confirm that songs, storyreading, and rhymes support youngchildren from their earliest days asactive and purposeful readers andwriters in the family context.

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Figure 2. Sarah’s get well card

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Other researchers ask children tocomplete literacy tasks in a clinicalsetting. Most notably, Ferreiro andTeberosky (1982) interviewedmiddle- and lower-class Argentin-ian children ages 4–6 to understandthe children’s knowledge andthought processes over the course ofa year. They discover that the chil-dren (who would begin formalschooling in first grade) have defi-nite concepts and hypotheses aboutliteracy prior to instruction. The re-searchers conclude that makingmeaning from written text is one ofthe first steps in literacy develop-ment, rather than one of the laststeps. They state, “It is absurd toimagine that four- or five-year-oldchildren growing up in an urbanenvironment that displays printeverywhere (on toys, on billboardsand road signs, on their clothes, onTV) do not develop any ideas aboutthis cultural object until they findthemselves sitting in front of ateacher” (p. 12).

Critical Lesson: Children Personally Invent Written Language

With the realization that childrenhave a lot of literacy knowledgelong before they participate informal instruction comes questionsabout how children develop theirunderstandings about written lan-guage. Goodman, Altwerger, andMarek (1989), as well as Matlin(1984), Romero (1983), and Long,Manning, Martin, Williams, andWolfson, (1982) document that chil-dren in varied economic, language,and cultural populations are awarethat written language makes senseand seek to discover how it makessense. Chinese children generate hy-potheses about when and how touse different characters and usuallyproduce forms close to the conven-tional formations of the Chinese

characters (Lee, 1990). Marie, a3-year-old growing up in Quebec,capably invents recognizable formsfor her native English and theFrench print of her community(Whitmore & Goodman, 1995). Noa,a 7-year-old, simultaneously in-vents literacy in English, Spanish,and Hebrew (Schwarzer, 2001). Sim-ilarly, Harste, Woodward, and Burke(1984) note that 3–6-year-olds’questions (i.e., “What does thissay?”) indicate they know writtenmarks signify meaning. Children be-lieve, for example, that for a text tobe readable, it needs a sufficientnumber of varied characters. Whilechildren’s hypotheses do not neces-sarily follow societal conventions,they demonstrate that childrenexpect written language to be

organized in a systematic manner,and they continue to work to figureout how (Ferreiro & Teberosky,1982; Tolchinsky, 2003).

The term “invent” is commonly usedby spelling researchers who viewspelling as part of writing develop-ment, not a prerequisite. LinguistRead (1971) discovered that chil-dren’s invented spellings are logicaland sensible as they constructknowledge. In fact, the distinctionsmade in preschoolers’ spellingsmore closely resemble the distinc-tions linguists make than the dis-tinctions used in the conventionalwriting system. Children draw upona broad range of phonetic and mor-phological knowledge that informstheir spellings (Wilde, 1991). Theyform hypotheses about the linguisticrules that govern letter combina-tions and try out patterns (Bissex,

1980). As their experience andknowledge increase, children revisetheir spellings to more closely ap-proximate conventional Englishspellings (Hughes & Searle, 1997).

Children do not wait for formal in-struction before they read and write.In fact, Piaget (1970) cautions,“Each time one prematurely teachesa child something he could havediscovered for himself, that child iskept from inventing it and conse-quently from understanding it com-pletely” (p. 715).

Critical Lesson: Children Refine Their WrittenLanguage through Experience

As children test, refine, and gradu-ally move their reading and writinginventions within the boundaries ofsocietal conventions, they learn touse the multiple strategies involvedin reading and writing processesmore proficiently. Martens(1996) shows how Sarah’s learningis propelled by her inquiries andgrounded in her perceptions ofreading and writing from her expe-riences. At times when Sarah real-izes that her literacy inventions donot match the conventions aroundher, she becomes overwhelmed byhow much she doesn’t know and isreluctant to read and write. Things“fall apart” for her until she inte-grates what she is learning withwhat she knows. Rather than regres-sions in her learning, these aretimes of growth in which Sarah’sliteracy inventions move closer tosocietal conventions. Martens states,“Quite contrary to being linear, the[literacy learning] process . . . iscyclical, allowing for zigs and zags,revisiting, and rethinking” (p. 93).

Miscue analysis studies reveal thatreaders of all ages, backgrounds, and proficiencies integrate the se-mantic-pragmatic, syntactic, and

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Children do not waitfor formal instructionbefore they read and

write.

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graphophonic language cueing sys-tems with reading strategies (sam-pling, inferring, predicting,confirming/disconfirming, correct-ing) to construct meaning (Brown,Goodman, & Marek, 1996). Whatdistinguishes proficient from lessproficient readers is not the processitself, but how well readers orches-trate it (Goodman, 1994). Readersbecome more proficient while read-ing authentic texts for real purposes,supported by more experiencedreaders when necessary. Miscue re-search describes children learning toread in first (Matlin, 1984; Flurkey,1995) and second (Crowell, 1995)languages using cues and strategieswithout being specifically taught.Recent studies that examine readers’eye movements while reading, in ad-dition to analyzing miscues, sup-ports reading as a sociopsycho-linguistic process (Paulson & Free-man, 2003). In one study, six first-grade children’s eye movementsindicate they make decisions aboutwhere useful information is locatedin the text: characters and objects inthe illustrations and content words(nouns, verbs, adjectives, and ad-verbs) in the print (Duckett 2003).

Research also documents the writingprocess that writers refine as theygain experience. Children learn si-multaneously to form letters, tospell words, to write phrases, and toform complete messages (Goodman& Wilde, 1992; Graves, 1982, 1983;King & Rentel, 1983; Sowers, 1985;Sulzby, 1985). Their active compos-ing typically focuses on multi-dimensional processes more so thanproducts (Calkins, 1983), and theyself-monitor and experiment withvaried forms and content as theycompose (Avery, 1987; Clay, 1975).For example, Rosa, age 6, uses dif-ferent, appropriate conventions(e.g., abbreviations) when compos-ing via e-mail vs. handwrittenforms (Wollman-Bonilla, 2003).

Case studies and clinical qualitativestudies provide close-up views of thevariations in children’s personal lan-guage histories. From these lessons,we learn that literacy is not handeddown to children but that theyuniquely construct and refine theirliteracy through active interpretationand purposeful sense-making.

CRITICAL LESSONS FROMCLASSROOM PROCESS STUDIES:LITERACY IS SOCIAL

Harry and Aster are playing aswaiters in the dramatic play area.Their teacher, Curt, orders crab.

Harry: I wonder how you really spellcrab.

Aster: How do you?

Harry: Um, I can’t really remember.

Aster: But, you could sound it out.

Harry utters several of the sounds inthe word crab while writing the let-ters K-R-R-B-A. Aster repeats thesounds, and also writes the letters.

Harry: Cra-buh . . . uh. And maybe anO at the end. Do you think so?

Aster: Yeah.

Harry: All right. [Writes O.] Curt, doesthat spell crab?

Curt: I read it as crab. Do you readit as crab?

Harry: I don’t know.

Curt: What do you think itsays?

Harry: Uh, crab.

Curt: Yes.

Harry: Ooh! Cool. Crab’s soeasy. I didn’t know wecould write that!

Curt: You sounded it out.

Harry: Yeah!

Aster: K-R-R-B-A-O.

Harry: Oh! We wrote crab. Now weknow how to write crab. Ididn’t know we could reallywrite.

Curt orders cake (K-A-K) and milk(M-O-K) next and Aster writes theorder (see Figure 3).

Harry and Aster’s example illus-trates the value of watching and lis-tening carefully to young childrenas they engage with written lan-guage during group play (Owocki,1999). Their talk and the productthey create reveal their knowledgeabout letters, letter–sound relation-ships, and the genre of a restaurantorder. Their understanding aboutthe function of print is evidentwhen they take the list to thekitchen to “prepare” Curt’s order.

It is important to note that class-room process researchers are oftenpreschool and elementary classroomteachers and/or collaborativeresearcher–teacher teams. Theirwork highlights groups of childrenengaged in authentic literacy eventsthat reveal the highly complexnature of constructing meaning, andthe social and cultural factors thatpermeate literacy events. Theselessons exemplify Moll’s (1990) in-terpretation of the zone of proximaldevelopment “as a characteristic notsolely of the child or of the teaching

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Figure 3. Aster’s restaurant order

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but of the child engaged in collabo-rative activity within specific socialenvironments” (p. 11).

Critical Lesson: The SocialCommunity Influences Meaning Construction

Transactional research in classroomsettings examines how meaning iselaborated when children’s “inter-pretations are shared with a commu-nity of [writers and] readers, [and]

different people’s interpretations en-hance the potential for makingmeaning for all” (Peterson & Eeds,1990, p. 16). Moll and Whitmore(1993) identify such occurrences as“collective zones of proximal devel-opment,” and Dyson (1993) de-scribes children’s compositions oftexts as compositions of their exis-tence in multiple social worlds.

Goodman and Wilde (1992), whodocumented young Tohono O’od-ham writers’ decisions and actionsas they composed, argue that time,freedom to use classroom resources,and opportunities to interact are keyingredients for effective writing.Others find that when given the op-portunity to write without assign-ments, children express themselves,self-monitor, and experiment withvaried written forms and content(Graves, 1983; Edelsky, 1986)—eventhough individual “choice” neveroccurs apart from the confines ofpeer, teacher, and culture expecta-tions (Lensmire, 1994). With theirnatural propensity to seek order inlanguage, children consistently ana-lyze, revise, test hypotheses, and tryto figure out what will help them tocommunicate effectively. Studies of

the classroom as a distinctive con-text for early literacy growth revealthe power of language (Edelsky,1986), friendships (Dyson, 1993),and popular culture (Dyson, 1997)in supporting children’s develop-ment as writers.

The social community of a class-room is important for readers, too.Discourse analysis of children’s re-sponses to quality literature showsthe presence of individual and col-

lective zones of proximal develop-ment as young children “listencarefully and think critically anddeeply with other group members”and “push the group to deeper un-derstandings and investigations oflife” (Short, Harste, & Burke, 1996,p. 195). Powerful books lead chil-dren to search for answers to theirown powerful questions about his-tory, war, culture, language, andother rich topics (Crawford &Hoopingarner, 1993; Whitmore &Crowell, 1994). In Paley’s (1997)kindergarten classroom, the bookFrederick (Lionni, 1967) promptsexploration of deep themes of race,gender, and identity. Raising and re-solving questions through socialtexts presents intellectual challengesas children connect new ideas totheir personal knowledge of theworld.

Critical Lesson: ChildrenConstruct and RepresentMeaning through MultipleSymbol Systems

Leland and Harste (1994) suggestthat sign systems, including art,music, mathematics, drama, andlanguage are ways of knowing—

“potentials by which all humansmight mean” (p. 339)—that are oftenoverlooked and untapped by schoolcurricula. They say, “in order to beliterate, learners need to be able toorchestrate a variety of sign systemsto create texts appropriate to thecontexts in which they find them-selves” (p. 339). The notion of ex-panding literacy to include multiplesign systems is shared by the ReggioEmilia philosophy (Malaguzzi, 1998)and Gardner’s (1983) theory of mul-tiple intelligence.Children need opportunities to ex-plore sign systems simultaneously.For example, for young writers,talk—both private and social—is asign system that helps children shapeand share the imagined worlds theyonly partially portray on paper(Dyson, 1997). Children as young asthree use talk to rehearse for com-posing, to narrate what they arewriting, to provide the play-by-playaction of their drawings, and to clar-ify their intended meanings forothers. Drawings are likely to containmore information than their writtentexts (Graves, 1983). Drawingssupply information about characters,settings, and events, disambiguatetext, and may elicit more responsesbecause they are more accessible topeers than writing.Movement and sound elaborate lan-guage, helping children express theirideas more thoroughly than they are able to do with talk, drawing, or text alone (Newkirk, 1989). Achild may move a marker to “drive”a car around the paper or “play” aguitar by strumming a finger acrossa picture while vocalizing a sound(Neves & Reifel, 2002). The inven-tive use of sound and actionstrengthens the connection betweenthe text and the child’s intendedmessage. Transmediation of textinto dramatic play “allows childrento walk around in story settings . . .to touch, feel, and actually look at

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Classroom process studies demonstrate that youngchildren exhibit an impressive amount of literacyknowledge in classrooms that are sociocultural

systems.

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objects from the vantage points ofbook characters” (Rowe, 2000,p. 20). Medd & Whitmore (2000)find that when English LanguageLearners compose by drawing andselecting sound effects, before writ-ing in any language, they “expresstheir previous knowledge, constructnew knowledge, and communicateregardless of their facility with En-glish” (p. 49).

Dyson (1997) characterizes chil-dren’s literacy development as a re-solving of tensions among symbolsystems, or, as a differentiation be-tween information conveyedthrough text and through social ac-tivity, talk, pictures, and actions.Kress (1997) describes children’scognitive disposition as “one thatsees the connections of all parts ofthe semiotic world” (p. 142) that areless accessible in the typically mini-malist, segmented, and verbocentriclessons of school. For example, hesays two- and three-dimensionalobjects and color carry young chil-dren’s meanings more effectivelythan language can.

Critical Lesson: Play Is aParticular Symbol System That Is Especially Relevant to YoungChildren’s Literacy Development

Play creates a text for expressingand constructing knowledge. Play isa particularly relevant symbolsystem in the transactional point ofview because it creates its own zoneof proximal development. Accordingto Vygotsky (1978), in “play a childalways behaves beyond his averageage, above his daily behavior; inplay it is as though he were a headtaller than himself” (p. 102). Playprovides a safe testing ground thatmaintains the dynamic tension be-tween invention and convention.

Literacy-enriched dramatic play ex-periences provide children with op-portunities to fine-tune and expandthe aspects of written language that

are currently significant for theirdevelopment (Roskos & Christie,2001; Hall 1987; Owocki, 1999;Schrader 1989) and to explore theliterary stances needed to meet theircommunicative goals. In Owocki’s(1999) study, four-year-old Karlatakes an efferent stance as sherecords specific information from amother with a sick baby. On otheroccasions, she transacts more aes-thetically, turning through the pagesof concept books and writing storiesand notes.

Children at play are most likely todemonstrate and develop their liter-acy knowledge when given accessto familiar literacy objects that arereflective of their lives and cultures(Neuman & Roskos, 1992; Roskos,1995). The set-up of the environ-ment and the types of props that areincluded influence the amount ofsocial interactions and time childrenspend playing together (Petrakos &Howe, 1996). When opportunitiesabound for playing, talking, andreasoning together, children shareknowledge about written language(Vukelich, 1993), leading to moreadvanced ways of thinking (Piaget,1962; Pontecorvo & Zucchermaglio,1990).

Classroom process studies demon-strate that young children exhibitan impressive amount of literacyknowledge in classrooms that aresociocultural systems. In otherwords, critical lessons from class-room process studies reveal how lit-eracy learning in school extendsliteracy development.

CRITICAL LESSONS FROMHOUSEHOLD, COMMUNITYAND SCHOOL ETHNOGRAPHICSTUDIES: LITERACY IS ACULTURAL PRACTICE

José and his Mexican immigrantparents regularly attend Escuela Fa-

milia, a family inquiry group thatmeets after school. They compose acollection of narratives that traceJosé’s annual journey betweenhomes in Iowa City, Iowa, and ElPaso, Texas, and his grandparents’ranch in Mexico. José writes: Pordestino de la vida, por cierto yo loveo muy beuno me toco tener an Papque trabaja para una Compania enel Estadode Iowa y por lo tanto ten-emos que emigrar desde El PasoTexas cada ano para trabajar laestacion de calor en la Cuidad deIowa City, Iowa. Por esto yo tengo lagran oportunidad de ir y regresarcada ano a estas dos ciudades quetanto amo. (José’s translation: Bygreat fortune, I have a dad thatworks for a company in the state ofIowa that sends him to El Paso,Texas, each winter to work theirstation there. Because of that, I getthe great opportunity to go backand forth each year between twocities that I love very much.)

The narratives describe José’s twocities and events on the journey be-tween them, two schools and teach-ers, and “unforgettable days” whenhis grandpa “passes down manystories” while they spend time at theranch. The cover of José’s family’sbook (see Figure 4) captures thewarmth and beauty of José’s “dosmundos” (two worlds) and commu-nicates much about his identity, cul-ture, and life to his readers. José’ssense of audience provides him withreasons to write and guides his de-cisions about forms for writing.José’s identities as a Mexican immi-grant who is bilingual and biliterate,working-class, male, a student, anda son position him in a larger social,cultural, and political context.When the family’s book is pub-lished, it is catalogued and shelvedin the school media center.

Ethnographic research characterizesliteracy as a complex cultural prac-tice that is a part of children’s iden-

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tities and everyday lives in and outof school. The next critical lessonsbegin with the premise that lan-guage is cultural and political(Wells, 1986; Gee, 2001) and consid-ers relations of power as central tolanguage and literacy events, partic-ularly in school (Luke, 1991;McLaren, 2002). These criticallessons reveal that those in powerdetermine what literacy and illiter-acy are, whose literacy “counts,”and when and why literacy is re-sisted by some learners.

Critical Lesson: All Families Are Literate

Anthropological studies publishedin the 1980s contributed what wasthen a groundbreaking realizationthat essentially all families andcommunities construct and expressmeaning through varied symbolsystems. These symbol systems, in-cluding written language, may ormay not fit mainstream expecta-tions in school, but achieve func-tionality and intellectual purpose infamilies’ daily lives. Ethnographiesreveal images of real families invaried cultures using literacy for

multiple and functional purposesand call deeply into question previ-ous low expectations for childrengrowing up in multiethnic, low SEScommunities. For example, in Trac-ton, a low-income, African Ameri-can community, a mother namedWillie Mae reads letters from thechild welfare system to her neigh-bors, illustrating that literacy is adeeply social practice in her neigh-borhood (Heath, 1983). On ShayAvenue, where most of the AfricanAmerican residents’ incomes arewell below the poverty level, afather named Jerry composes lists ofbooks he has read and wants to buy,and a grandmother writes a movingautobiography explaining the cir-cumstances of her life to genera-tions that follow (Taylor &Dorsey-Gaines, 1988). Such databreak the myth that low-incomeAfrican Americans are less literatethan other groups.

When children from these literatehouseholds enter school, however,they usually confront an inauthen-

tic literacy environment that isforeign to their experience as read-ers and writers. For instance, thediscourse pattern in indigenousHawaii, called talk story, contrastswith what is expected of speakers inclassrooms (Au, 1980). Funds ofknowledge exist in the working-class Latino neighborhoods of SouthTucson (Moll, Amanti, Neff, & Gon-zalez, 1992), and Bangladeshi fami-lies engage in a range of literacypractices (Blackledge, 2000), but

these are not typically recognized atschool. On the Warm Springs IndianReservation (Philips, 1983), whenchildren confront such difference,they transform from socially en-gaged, capable communicators athome to less attentive, even disrup-tive, unsuccessful language users atschool.

Studies that document “communi-ties’ ways of talking, knowing andexpressing knowledge” (Heath, 1983,p. 343) suggest a view of family lit-eracy that Auerbach (1989) refers toas social-contextual. We assume,from our transactional perspective,that literacy exists in students’homes, and families serve as re-sources for one another. Even morecritical, we view literacy as a tool toaddress local political and socialissues and a potential bridge be-tween home and school. In fact,some ethnographers engage commu-nity members in action research thattransforms their relationships withschools, literacy, and culture (Mc-Carty, 2002). Teachers (Martínez-Roldán & Lopez-Robertson, 1999/2000), children (Eagan-Robertson & Bloome, 1998), and families (McCaleb, 1994; Whitmore &Norton-Meier, 2000) become research collaborators creating conditions for children’s literacy experiences out of school to trans-form their literacy experiences inschool.

Critical Lesson: Identity PositionsAre Part of Literacy Development

When literacy is viewed as a cul-tural practice, literacy learners areseen as positioned in groups and insociety by their existing culturalidentities and as acquiring new cul-tural identities by participating inschool. Children embody their cul-tural, racial, linguistic, class, labor,ideological, and gendered positionsin their early literacy activities.Many must negotiate the culture of

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Figure 4. The cover of José’s book

Ethnographies revealimages of real families

in varied culturesusing literacy for

multiple andfunctional purposes.

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the mainstream, dominant society inorder to succeed in school.

Toohey (2000) followed six EnglishLanguage learners who are “seen torequire normalising” (p. 93) duringtheir kindergarten, first- andsecond-grade years. She concludes,“As central practices, schools evalu-ate and rank children and thusmanufacture identities for them”(p. 124). She suggests that childrenhave the most opportunities for ap-propriating classroom languagewhen they “speak from desirableand powerful identity positions”(p. 124). Solsken (1993) also findschildren as young as kindergarten-ers have “a sense of themselves andothers as participants in particulartransactions involving written lan-guage” (p. 2), especially regardingtheir constructions of literacy as a“gender-linked activity.” Moll andDiaz (1987) reveal how the deficitassumptions teachers hold aboutSpanish readers lead them to define

children according to their languageidentity rather than their readingability. Martínez-Roldán (2003) andParke, Dury, Kenner, and Robertson(2002) demonstrate how access tonarrative and native language en-ables bilingual children’s academicand culturally-rich identities toshine.

Critical Lesson: Cultural Tools ArePart of Literacy Development

From cross-cultural studies of earlyliteracy, we learn that families orga-nize and use literacy tools in waysthat are uniquely suited to their cul-tural purposes. We see the necessityof examining “the form, function,and meaning of literacy eventsacross culture, communities, orsocial groups” (Schieffelin &Cochran-Smith, 1984, p. 22). Weknow that children use tools suchas popular culture and narrative tosituate themselves socially and tex-tually and to mediate their environ-

ments. They adapt and improvisetelevision and movie themes andcharacters to challenge boundaries ofrace, gender, and class (Dyson, 1997;Arthur, 2001). While viewing themovie Swiss Family Robinson, youngchildren in a Hawaiian school noticeand question media representationsof race, gender, class, and colonial-ism, prompting Tobin (2000) to chal-lenge the assumption that childrenpassively absorb and accept stereo-typical images that are sometimespresent in popular culture.

Popular culture paired with newtechnologies has the potential as acultural tool to transform the waysthat children approach text. Luke(1999) suggests that “[h]ypertextenvironments demand ‘reading’skills in diverse and laterally con-nected symbol systems which en-courage the very critical and lateralthinking skills many educators havebeen promoting for the past decade”(p. 97). This vision of multimodal

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When quality research about young children’s literacylives is ignored, bracketed, or dismissed because of po-litical agendas, teachers have one important place toturn—their own classrooms. Sustained systematicstudy of classrooms can gradually contribute to a much-needed change in political climate. Celebrations at thelocal level of students’ accomplishments can offset themean spirited and negative representations of our workthat often appear at the national level. When familiesare informed about what their children can do, their per-ceptions influence how they vote and respond to criti-cisms of education.

The following books suggest specific ways of studyingclassrooms, including ideas for publication. Publicationis a broad term that includes family nights, curriculumnights, learning celebrations, newsletters, home visits,posters, and video and audio productions.

• Cochran-Smith, M., & Lytle, S. (1993). Inside/outside:Teacher research and knowledge. New York: Teach-ers College.

• Holly, M. L., Arhar, J. M., & Kasten, W. (2005). Actionresearch for teachers: Traveling the yellow brickroad. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice Hall.

• Hubbard, R., & Power, B. M. (1999). Living the ques-tions: A guide for teacher–researchers. York, ME:Stenhouse.

• Owocki, G., & Goodman, Y. (2002). Kidwatching: Documenting children’s literacy development. Ports-mouth, NH: Heinemann.

• Power, B. M. (1996). Taking note: Improving your ob-servational notetaking. York, ME: Stenhouse.

—Richard Meyer

When Research Is Ignored

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competence expands the trans-actional view of literacy to includenew media texts such as Pokemoncards and video games (Vasquez,2003) as locations where identity,culture, literacy, and learning intersect.

A FINAL CRITICAL LESSON

We know that although childrenbring unique literacy histories fromtheir specific communities, they allcome to school with the same intel-lectual potential for literacy (Whit-more & Goodman, 1995). Children

learn and develop literacy with rela-tive ease in their natural communi-ties. The critical lessons from casestudies and qualitative clinical stud-ies remind us that children find in-dividual paths to literacy as theyinvent written language in socialsettings. The classroom processstudies remind us that children whoare members of process-oriented lit-eracy classrooms are effective andinfluential literacy teachers for oneanother. The critical lessons fromethnographic studies remind us thatno child can be viewed as indepen-dent of her sociocultural identity,political status, or linguistic her-itage. Our transactional perspectiveon early literacy means children aresocialized into versions of the worldthat are limited and expanded ac-cording to issues of power andaccess.

How does the transactional theoryof early literacy developmentinform teaching? Teachers whowork within the transactional frameare mediators who help childrenreach their individual academic lit-eracy potentials at school while

maintaining the richness of their so-ciocultural positions in their homesand communities.

Research that supports a transac-tional view of early literacy arguesthat children need to value and bevalued for who they are and wherethey come from. They need to con-trol their own literacy processes.They need time to read and write.Critical lessons in the transactionaltheory suggest that teachers pro-vide classroom opportunities andreasons for children to invent writ-ten language and a social and cul-

tural context that necessitatesconvention.

Our memory of what we know isthreatened by the current politicalclimate. We are distracted by man-dates for artificial literacy instruc-tion that marginalizes children dueto their community discourses andknowledge. Children are increasinglyexpected to master a significantnumber of skills in isolation uponentry and throughout their publicschool experiences. The criticallessons in the transactional perspec-tive offer a framework for ensuringthat we capitalize on children’s in-tellectual, linguistic, and culturalknowledge to expand possibilitiesfor their early literacy learning.

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Kathryn F. Whitmore is associateprofessor in Language, Literacy, andCulture at The University of Iowa. PriscaMartens is associate professor inElementary Education at TowsonUniversity. Yetta M. Goodman is RegentsProfessor Emeritus in Language, Reading,and Culture at University of Arizona.Gretchen Owocki is associate professorof Elementary, Early Childhood, andSpecial Education at Saginaw StateUniversity.

Author Biographies

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