This book contributes to current debates about the importance of early literacy and the different ways that literacy resources offer support to parents with young children. It sheds light on the impact of policy discourse and austerity measures on community resources designed to support children’s early literacy learning. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in a small town in the East Midlands, UK, the book shows how government policy is enacted in four local resources – Sure Start children’s centres, pre-schools, a public library and privately run parent and child early education classes. It reveals how inequalities and contradictions exist in different forms of community literacy provision which can explain some of the educational differences evident when children start school. With a particular focus on mothers, the book reveals how parents are supported differently depending on where they go and how they are viewed by the professionals they encounter. The book contributes to the current literature around literacy in early childhood and combines a unique case study with theoretical concepts to offer a new way of thinking about early intervention, parental engagement and school readiness. Local Literacies in Early Childhood will be highly relevant reading for researchers, academics and post-graduate students in the field of early childhood education and literacy education. It will also be of interest to policymakers, early childhood professionals, literacy advisors and librarians from different local, national and international contexts wishing to support parents and children more equitably so that learning opportunities can be maximised and educational inequalities tackled.

This book contributes to current debates about the importance of early literacy and the different ways that literacy resources offer support to parents with young children. It sheds light on the impact of policy discourse and austerity measures on community resources designed to support children’s early literacy learning. Based on an ethnographic study carried out in a small town in the East Midlands, UK, the book shows how government policy is enacted in four local resources – Sure Start children’s centres, pre-schools, a public library and privately run parent and child early education classes. It reveals how inequalities and contradictions exist in different forms of community literacy provision which can explain some of the educational differences evident when children start school. With a particular focus on mothers, the book reveals how parents are supported differently depending on where they go and how they are viewed by the professionals they encounter. The book contributes to the current literature around literacy in early childhood and combines a unique case study with theoretical concepts to offer a new way of thinking about early intervention, parental engagement and school readiness. Local Literacies in Early Childhood will be highly relevant reading for researchers, academics and post-graduate students in the field of early childhood education and literacy education. It will also be of interest to policymakers, early childhood professionals, literacy advisors and librarians from different local, national and international contexts wishing to support parents and children more equitably so that learning opportunities can be maximised and educational inequalities tackled.

Local Literacies is a unique detailed study of the role of reading and writing in people’s everyday lives. By concentrating on a selection of people in a particular community in Lancaster, England, the authors analyse how they use literacy in their day-to-day lives. It follows four people in detail examining how they use local media, their participation in public life, the role of literacy in family activities and in leisure pursuits. Links are made between everyday learning and education. The study is based on an ethnographic approach to studying everyday activities and is framed in the theory of literacy as a social practice. This Routledge Linguistics Classic includes a new foreword by Deborah Brandt and a new framing chapter, in which David Barton and Mary Hamilton look at the connections between local and global activities, interfaces with institutional literacies, and the growing significance of digital literacies in everyday life. A seminal text, Local Literacies provides an explicit usable methodology for both teachers and researchers, and clear theorising around a set of six propositions. Clearly written and engaging, this is a deeply absorbing study and is essential reading for all those involved in literacy and literacy education.

Providing an overview of contemporary research into early childhood literacy, this handbook deals with subjects related to nature, function and use of literacy and the development, learning and teaching of literacy in early childhood.

Bringing together prominent scholars, this book shows how 21st-century research and theory can inform everyday instructional practices in early childhood classrooms (PreK-3). Coverage includes foundational topics such as alphabet learning, phonological awareness, oral language development, and learning to write, as well as cutting-edge topics such as digital literacy, informational texts, and response to intervention. Every chapter features guiding questions; an overview of ideas and findings on the topic at hand; specific suggestions for improving instruction, assessment, and/or the classroom environment; and an engrossing example of the practices in action.

This book offers a comprehensive report on a three-year, cross-cultural, critical participatory action research study, conducted in children’s homes and communities in Fiji. This project contributed to building sustainable local capacity in communities without access to early childhood services, so as to promote preschool children’s literacy development in their home languages and English. The book includes rich descriptions of the young children’s lived, multilingual literacy practices in their home and community contexts. This work advances research-based practices for fostering young children’s multilingual literacy and building community capacity in a post-colonial Pasifika context; further, it shares valuable insights into processes and complexities that are inherent to multiliteracy and cross-cultural research.

Rethinking Early Literacies honors the identities of young children as they read, write, speak, and play across various spaces, in and out of pre/school. Despite narrow curricular mandates and policies, the book highlights the language resources and tools that children cultivate from families, communities, and peers. The chapters feature children’s linguistic flexibility with multiple languages, creative appropriation of popular culture, participation in community literacy practices, and social negotiation in the context of play. Throughout the book, the authors critically reframe what it means to be literate in contemporary society, specifically discussing the role of educators in theorizing and rethinking language ideologies for practice. Issues influencing early childhood education in trans/national contexts are forefronted (e.g. racism, immigration rights, readiness) throughout the book, with a call to support and sustain communities of color.