Mohd Mukhlis Bin Abu Bakar

This chapter reports on research conducted in Singapore that revisits a two-year study on the lived literacy experience of eight Malay children who were preschoolers when the researcher first met them. 12 years on, the researcher reunited with two of them who are now young adults. This chapter wades through data from both phases of the study in an attempt to answer the question: What does it take to be literate in school-sanctioned ways, what are the challenges that children face, and to what extent these relate to school outcome? In the process, the author attempts to link the experiences of these three children with his own literacy trajectory within his own sociocultural and sociolinguistic spaces, and tease out the similarities and differences between them. The author’s biographical narrative provides another layer of meaning to the relationship between cultural capital and school outcome, and between structure and agency.

Children’s earliest discoveries about literacy are learned through active engagement with their social and cultural worlds (Bissex, 1980). Play is a social activity that evolves through the internalization of socio-cultural processes and practices, a tool enabling children to learn about literacy through interaction with the environment (Neuman & Roskos, 1997). Symbolic play supports the development of early literacy skills. It is the imaginative function of language: characterized by the use of explicit language to convey meaning, linguistic verbs to clarify and negotiate meaning, as well as the theme of integration and organization of language and stories, required in both symbolic play and literate behaviors of children that results in this (Pelligrini & Galda, 1990, 1993). In this paper, we take a close look at four instances of symbolic play narratives enacted at home by a group of three siblings over a two-year period. Micro-analyses of the play setting (props, play area), physical actions and movements, as well as the pattern of discourse contained within these narratives show a pattern of narrative competence (role appropriate language and story production and comprehension) and appropriation of socio-cultural experiences that Pelligrini (1985) argues is necessary for schooled literacy practices. Hence, it is within this context of purposeful, pressure-free play in familiar environments that children may best display and extend knowledge about literacy and how it may function in their worlds (Fantuzzo, Sutton-Smith, Coolahan, Manz, Canning & Debnam, 1995). We view these play activities as a useful pedagogical tool in the classroom. A dynamic and active classroom context for participation in literacy development offers children real-world opportunities to engage in language and literacy practices. Blending in situated learning with the more formal traditional learning ensures continuity between the rich contexts of home and school literacy practices.

Siblings play an important and reciprocal role in each other’s literacy development. The younger sibling’s exposure to the older sibling’s literacy activities creates the opportunity for many shared literacy experiences. Gregory (2001) calls this bidirectional and reciprocal learning relationship a “synergy” where siblings act as adjuvants in each other’s learning, i.e., older children ‘teach’ younger siblings at the same time develop their own learning. This paper presents data from two contrasting pairs of siblings who display a very close relationship through shared activities as playmates. Close in age (one in Primary 2, the other in K2), the younger sibling is exposed to the academic and literacy activities of the older sibling, spurring his/her interest to participate in the same activities. Differences in the dynamics of the pairs’ reciprocal relationship seem to be shaped by three factors: the parent’s expectation of the level of involvement the older child plays in his/her younger sibling’s literacy learning, the literacy competence of the older sibling, and the gender make-up of the sibling pair. Differences such as these in the home literacy experience with siblings, it is argued, may impact differently on reading activities with peers in the classroom unless teachers embrace the different cultural resources that children take with them to school.

Children learn about literacy through their interactions with more experienced members of the culture (teachers, parents, siblings, peers, extended family members, etc.) in a process of guided participation (Rogoff, 1990). This means that their learning of literacy occurs in participation with and is mediated by others in culturally valued activities. Differences in what the members count as literacy and which literacy they consider worth transmitting to children affects the latter’s literacy learning and their disposition to texts. This paper presents data from two families with different approaches to literacy learning. In one family, the child is exposed to meaning-based activities in literacy instruction where the parents and other adult members engage in extended discourse around texts and encourage intertextual references. In another family, the child learns that literacy means learning the grammar of reading and writing (decoding, punctuation and intonation), a practice that appears to cohere with the family’s devotion to learning to recite religious texts and perform religious rituals where meaning and comprehension are often relegated to a secondary activity. The two children will enter school with fairly different cultural resources towards literacy learning, and their educational attainment will depend on how teachers make efficient use of these resources and design pedagogies that meet the needs of different children.