Journal of Early Childhood Literacy最新文献

This paper offers a nuanced perspective of two families' lockdown literacy journeys with their young children during the COVID 19 pandemic. We present informal home learning examples stimulated by play and by school-sanctioned synchronous and asynchronous activities from homes geographically miles apart yet close in terms of shared experience. In response to the catch-up and learning loss narrative which threatens to overshadow some of the positive learning experiences taking place at home, we redirect the 'catch-up' narrative towards a nuanced understanding of family learning at home by articulating the complexity of circumstance. Methodologically, drawing on Autoethnography, we present vignettes of lockdown life from Scotland and Michigan, USA. Throughout this paper we articulate challenges with the catch-up narrative and root our conclusions in the early childhood philosophy that learning extends beyond the mind to a whole body, holistic experience.

This article examines spatiality in selected children's books about COVID-19. Spatiality is an important lens because the coronavirus pandemic is a crisis related to distancing and mobility restrictions-spatial matters. Benedict Anderson's notion of imagined communities was adopted as a framework to how children's books present community belongingness within the spatial restrictions imposed during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a content analysis of pandemic-related children's books published in early 2020 (n = 51), this paper explores the sense of community in three everyday spaces: 'inside' (home), 'outside' (outdoors), and 'in-betweens' (windows and digital space). Findings reveal a two-fold observation: (1) children's books show how the 'normal' in everyday space is disrupted; and (2) layers of imagined communities manifest within the everyday spaces depicted in the books examined. These findings offer insights that while children's literature and geography are different disciplines, there is much to be explored about spaces in children's lives from writers and illustrators of children's books. Likewise, a geographical lens can substantiate discussions in children's literature by unpacking relationships of characters based on the spaces they occupy. With these in mind, it is hoped that conversations about spatial discourses in children's books flourish from this initial exploration.

In this article we explore how digital play as conducted through various social media and online meeting platforms facilitated resiliency and confidence building in children during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using day-in-the-life methodology and narrative inquiry, we disseminate and examine observations collected on children aged 2-10 during lockdown in a Newfoundland neighbourhood. Children utilized platforms such as TikTok, YouTube, and Zoom to embrace their agentic digital play in ways that repurposed the platforms to fulfil life milestones and social needs otherwise impacted and disrupted by pandemic restrictions. Through a series of vignettes and interviews, our research not only examines how such digital play benefits children and their healthy development, but how parents reacted to and assisted with their children's agentic digital platform manipulation and how this provided positive benefits and enriching experiences to the entire family. We additionally explore the conflicts and tensions both children and parents encountered in securely implementing free play via digital platforms, including fears of excess screen-time, digital dependency, and online threats, all of which risk limiting children's ability to independently explore their creativity and identities through digital play if not handled sensitively. Despite the hurdles to implementing digital play, this study exposes why it is essential for families to navigate this online terrain; this study ultimately poses that digital play and online platforms not only were beneficial to maintaining and building family resilience during the pandemic but will be vital assets in sustaining resiliency and positive mindsets moving forward with pandemic recovery.