Abstract
C McLachlan, T Nicholson, R Fielding-Barnsley, L Mercer and S Ohi, Literacy in early childhood and primary education: Issues, challenges and solutions. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 2013; 332 pp. ISBN 978-1-107-67101-0 (pbk)
This volume is a useful addition to the stable of literacy texts currently available. It builds on earlier work by the authors, particularly McLachlan’s contribution to the 2007 text with Makin and Jones Diaz, and Nicolson’s work (with Tunmer) in the edited Rubie-Davies 2011 text (Makin et al., 2007; Nicholson and Tunmer, 2011). The book is accessible, with a clear physical lay-out on the page and a range of useful study supports (e.g. Reflective questions and suggestions for Further reading). A major strength is the focus on transitions across the arbitrary age/institutional divides that constrain pedagogies in differing contexts across the sector. The photographs and work samples from across settings with children of varying ages successfully reinforce this intention. Similarly, chapter 10’s content (beginning in primary school) has a lovely focus which is often missing from other texts, valuing transitions and family connections.
The book blends Australian and New Zealand expertise and has a particular flavour valuable for the regional context, although it tends to rely more on New Zealand data, policy and curriculum documents than the recent Australian context. There is a valuable focus on “literacy as a process” (p. 293) and an intention to work across early-years environments. Perhaps reflecting the New Zealand teacher-education context, it is a shame that the editors have eschewed the international definition of early childhood as referring to the years from birth through to age eight, choosing to use the more parochial definition of “early childhood” as equating to prior to school settings (e.g. p. 14). This does a disservice to the major tenet of the publication, in which the editors are arguing for similarity of philosophy and approach across prior-to-school and early-school-year contexts.
References supporting the content are a blend of classic and recent sources, reflecting an appropriate range of reading and background. Nevertheless, it seems unwise to have claimed to move ‘beyond the Literacy Wars’ without clearly establishing what they were/are, both historically and philosophically. As student teachers will continue to be embroiled in arguments related to prioritising instruction in early literacy, learners need to be positioned to defend their own positioning and given a solid understanding of background. Although introduced on page 10 and extended in chapter 2, the coverage of the varying approaches may not be adequate for this purpose.
The exploration of early literacy (e.g. chapter 3) seems to imply a traditional definition of terms, despite the book’s orientation towards emergent and social-practice definitions and expectations. The discourse has a focus on formally learning to read (or indeed being taught), which might more clearly have been accompanied by a ‘seeking-meaning’ perspective alongside the requirements for decoding print and prediction. Perhaps a broader definition of pedagogy would have been useful, reflecting the intersection of learning and teaching, with the child positioned as seeking meaning, reading the environment and tackling print in situationally contextualised ways. Perhaps if chapter 4 had preceded chapter 3, this instructional implication would have been mediated. The issue is clouded further when there is a claim that writing is not commonly taught, a claim which is followed by a clear explanation that writing (as mark-making and intention to convey meaning) can begin very early indeed. While there is useful detail to assist in planning and assessment, some of these blurred nuances are unsettling to the reader.
Organisationally, the book is a little frustrating as content does not sit comfortably across sections. For example, I would have preferred the Diversity and Multiliteracy chapters immediately ‘up front’ to highlight their centrality (i.e. as chapters 3 and 4, reversing with 5 and 6) and confront the ‘othering’ that might be present for some students. These topics have a tendency to end sections rather than begin them, and given the increasing complexity within both the contexts of educational settings and diverse expectations across the literacy landscape, I would expect a stronger stance in a recent publication. In any case, one paragraph on Indigenous Australians and no specific Maori content in this section seems an unfortunate omission. Similarly, I think that chapter 15 should have begun Part 3 rather than appearing to be tacked on to ‘fill’ the final section, Part 4. Note that there are already references to struggling readers earlier (e.g. p 270), so this restructuring was possible, and could be considered in a subsequent edition. Of course, teaching staff can assign chapters in their preferred order to support programme priorities.
Of greater concern is the slippage in chapter 14, which seems to suggest that young children would not be expected to compose and deconstruct non-fiction texts, although examples of such practice are included. It is misleading to allocate attention to this topic to the later primary years, when younger children are often interested in writing reports and following investigations of scientific ideas and world events, rather than being limited to fictional/narrative writing genres. I’m also not sure why the heading here refers to ‘factual’ texts in lieu of the more standard ‘non-fiction’ label, which is clearly the focus on the following page. Building and extending on learners’ skills in these areas is certainly the province of the upper-primary school, but the foundations are laid in the prior-to-school years, as is clearly evident in other sections (such as pages 292–298).
This is the length of many standard texts, but it could usefully have been a bit longer in order to deal more fully with some of the issues raised here. It is valuable for the authors to have reached across age groups, though more detail on specific stages of experience might assist the beginning teacher; more stage-appropriate detail will be necessary to supplement specialist courses of study. Generally, the content is interesting, valuable and appropriate, and despite the organisational weaknesses, it will be a valuable resource for students struggling to have humane literacy-learning contexts in a climate of blinkered accountability and narrow achievement directives.