The role of peer relationships and interactions in preschool bilingual children's responses to picture books

Abstract

In spite of the emphasis on the importance of social contexts in children's literacy development, there is still a startling scarcity of studies examining the role of peer relationships in preschool bilinguals' literary practices. This qualitative case study investigates how peer relationships and interactions among preschool, Korean-English bilingual children affect their responses to picture books during whole group read-alouds. As part of a comprehensive 18-month longitudinal study, this article focuses on data collected over a period of 10 months. Multiple data collection sources were used to enhance the credibility and validity of the study. Results indicated that the children's literary responses were highly influenced by their different social relationships with peers. Thus, in order to create supportive literature environments, it is important for teachers to pay considerable attention to what bilingual students experience with eir peers. With more engrossing narratives and vivid descriptions, the study aims to provide insights into the significance of peer relationships and interactions in early literacy practices in bilingual settings.

Keywords

Reading education case study kindergarten children sociocultural theory interaction

Peer experiences constitute a critical developmental context for children (Rubin et al., 2006; Ryokai and Cassell, 2003; Williford et al., 2013). Numerous studies have documented that children's social relationships increasingly centre on their peers during the early childhood years, and their peer relationships significantly influence their social, emotional and academic development (e.g. Baker-Sperry, 2007; Meyer et al., 1994; Rubin et al., 2006; Williford et al., 2013). For instance, children as young as four or five years of age identify their best friends, and their friendships help them develop their communication skills (Ryan, 2012) and make psychosocial adjustments (Boivin, 2005). Also, their friend and non-friend relationships impact on their social and emotional development (Williford et al., 2013) and academic outcomes (Rubin et al., 2006; Rudasill et al., 2013).

With the emphasis on the role of peers in young children's learning, many researchers and educators are paying attention to how peers influence the process of early literacy development (e.g. Chipman and Roy, 2005; Genishi and Dyson, 2009; Howes, 2010; Peralta-Nash and Dutch, 2000; Rogoff, 1990; Volk and Angelova, 2007). These professionals have argued that dynamic interaction with peers offers unique learning opportunities for children's literacy development. Yet, while a considerable volume of literature emphasizes the facilitative role of peer interactions, less attention has been paid to how peer relationships influence early literacy practices. The lack of previous studies is particularly noticeable when considering that peer relationships are an essential part of literacy learning in early childhood settings (Hartup et al., 1988; Topping and Ehly, 1998; Volk and Angelova, 2007). This issue is especially important in bilingual classrooms when we reflect on the challenges that bilingual children face.

Peer relationships in bilingual contexts

Minami (2000) argues that when young bilingual children enter schools, they struggle to adjust to new speech and cultural surroundings. Given the difficulties of a classroom setting, children from diverse cultural backgrounds struggle with feelings of isolation in their day-to-day experiences with peers (Cummins, 1996). Language minority students are also lacking in peer support related to emotional caring and safety (Wentizel et al., 2012). Moreover, they are often unsuccessful in their attempts to join mainstream peers, and sometimes feel frustrated with their peers during group events (Chipman and Roy, 2005; Meyer et al., 1994). Yet, there has been a startling lack of studies examining the influence of preschool and kindergarten (Pre-K) bilinguals' peer relationships on biliteracy practices because most early biliteracy studies focus on the acquisition of dual language/literacy skills through mother–child interactions (e.g. Díaz-Rico and Weed, 2005; Rodríguez-Valls, 2011).

In terms of studies about bilingual children's peer relationships in classroom contexts, Volk and Angelova's (2007) study investigated how Spanish-English bilingual children choose their languages within their social contexts. Although the findings of the study create an important dialogue about how bilingual children's language choice is negotiated by their peer relationships, the focus of the study is dual language use among school-age children. As for studies about preschool bilinguals' peer relationships, Howes et al. (2011) examined Spanish-speaking children's behaviours with peers, and Meyer et al. (1994) investigated peer relationships among preschool Korean second-language learners. These studies help us to understand the patterns of peer relationships among second-language learners during classroom activities, but the primary interest of these studies is not literacy learning.

In order to fill a gap in the research, this study investigates how peer relationships and interactions among preschool, Korean-English bilingual children affect their responses to picture books during whole group read-alouds. As part of a comprehensive 18-month longitudinal study, the study focused on three, preschool-age bilingual children at a Korean language school (KLS) in the Midwestern United States. The study addresses the following two research questions:

How do children's peer relationships constitute their responses to books?

How do social interactions with peers facilitate children's literary responses in a dual-language context?

In defining relationship and interaction, the study adopted Rubin et al.’s (2006) notion that interaction is ‘the social exchange of some duration between two individuals’ relationship’ (p. 576). Relationship in this study refers to ‘the meanings, expectations, and emotions that derive from a succession of interactions between two individuals known to each other’ (p. 577). By investigating these two research questions, this study aims to gain an understanding of how peer relationships and interactions influence early reading practices, particularly in bilingual settings. The fundamental goal of the study is to understand the situated nature of literary responses and literacy learning in young children's classrooms.

Theoretical framework

The study laid out its theoretical framework drawing on different schools of thought. First, in an effort to understand the developmental aspects of young children's responses within their social contexts, the study drew on sociocultural perspectives that learning occurs through active participation with social members (e.g. Dyson, 1993; Ochs and Schieffelin, 2001). The study was particularly informed by Moller and Allen's notion of ‘Response Development Zone’ (RDZ). Moller and Allen (2000) claim that readers’ literary responses are influenced by ‘individual conceptual development, discourse patterns, peer interactions, and other personal, social, and contextual factors’ (p. 148). Because literary responses are socially and culturally influenced by various factors including readers’ prior knowledge and social relationships, sharing ideas through social interaction can provide students with opportunities to avoid simplistic perspectives and develop their literary responses (Moller, 2004; Möller and Moller, 2008). This theoretical lens provided important guidance to understand how young children's literary responses develop as they socially interact with peers during literacy activities.

In addition, the study drew on Bakhtin's notion of dialogism to understand how readers create meaning through mutual understandings between a speaker and others. According to Bakhtin (1986), there are two levels of dialogue: an internal one and an external one. Internally, an intrapersonal dialogue is constructed, and it is closely related to the external social context. Bakhtin (1981) also argues that language is a social tool, which lies ‘on the borderline between oneself and the other’ (p. 278). Each speech genre in each area of speech communication has its own concept of the addressee, and the entire utterance is constructed by both author and addressee in ‘the chain of speech communication’ (Bakhtin, 1981, 1986). Although not every separate utterance is followed by an articulated response, an utterance always exists with respect to another (Bakhtin, 1986). Bakhtin's view provided a useful analytical framework to understand that language is inherently dialogic, and reading is a situated activity. It also helped to understand that readers recognize multiple voices during a reading process, and thus meaning is never closed, but socially constructed within internal and external social contexts.

The dialogic possibilities of language also help in understanding that language is not neutral but ideological. Bakhtin (1981) argues that language is ‘never unitary’ (p. 274) because it is not ‘a system of abstract grammatical categories’ (p. 270). He rejects the view of ‘unification’ and ‘centralization’ of language because, from his perspective, language exists in ‘the historical moment of verbal-ideological life’ (p. 276). According to Bakhtin (1993), the world is arranged around ‘a concrete value-center’ (p. 61), and this world is a unitary and unique one that is experienced concretely. Since ‘the unitary uniqueness’ of the world can only be achieved by participation in it, ‘a passive understanding of linguistic meaning is no understanding at all’ (Bakhtin, 1981: 273). Bakhtin's view provides insights into language not as a unitary and transparent medium of communication, but as a dialogic and ‘ideologically saturated’ (p. 270) communication tool. Also, it provides guidance to show that literacy learning cannot occur without active participation by individuals. With this theoretical notion, this study considers that the core of children's learning/development is active participation in a variety of sociocultural activities with community members.

Methods

The study was conducted at a KLS, one of 1,021 Korean Heritage Language Schools (Korean HL Schools) in the US (Park, 2007). Korean HL Schools are run by members of the local Korean communities that normally meet either on Saturdays or Sundays (You, 2009). Most parents send their children to Korean HL Schools to learn the Korean language and culture as immigrant, first- or second-generation Korean Americans (Wiley, 2001). The KLS was a self-governing language institution run by one of the seven Korean churches in that area. At the time of the study, there were a total of 13 classrooms and 85 students at the KLS. Of these students, 29 students were preschoolers. Most classes began at 10:30 am every Saturday, with each class session lasting for 3 h. Of these classrooms, the present study focused on Ms Park's classroom. In her mid-40s, Ms Park was a former teacher who had majored in art in Korea. Before moving to the US, she taught older students in several famous art institutes in Korea for more than 10 years. She joined the KLS because, as the mother of two young Korean-English bilingual children, she became interested in teaching young children language and literacy skills. At the time of the study, she had taught Pre-K children for two years.

Ms Park's classroom was chosen for this study for several reasons. First, she allowed the children to share their thoughts with peers using both Korean and English during reading activities. Although she did not have specific training at the KLS before teaching her students, her previous teaching experiences helped her acknowledge the importance of social interaction in learning. Thus, she usually created a comfortable atmosphere in which the children shared their views with peers about what they read in both languages. Also, she had a formal reading time, called ‘Story Time’, which was an acknowledgement of the importance of exposing young children to literature. In addition, Ms Park taught the same children for two semesters, and thus most of her students knew each other well.

Descriptions of participating children

During the first semester, there were five students in Ms Park's classroom: Grace, Jimmy, Sue, Sam and Young (all names are pseudonyms), and in the following semester, Katie joined Ms Park's classroom. Most of the participating children were four years old (first semester), and their ethnicity was either Korean or Korean American. Table 1 demonstrates this point.

Table 1.

Descriptions of classrooms.

Teacher	Semester	Names of Student
Ms Park	First Semester	Grace, Jimmy, Sue, Young, Sam
Ms Park	Second Semester	Grace, Jimmy, Katie, Sue, Young, Sam

Table 2.

Descriptions of each participant.

Name	Gender	Age	Ethnicity	Family Backgrounds	Dominant Language
Grace	Female	4	Korean-American	Parents and one younger brother	English and Korean
Katie	Female	4	Korean-American	Parents and one older brother	English
Sue	Female	4	Korean-American	Only mother	English

Among these children, the study focuses on three girls, Grace, Katie and Sue, since their social interactions were more noticeable by their frequent responses to each other's comments (see also Table 2). They also formed complicated peer relationships which helped to answer the research questions.

Grace

Grace was a four-year-old Korean-American girl who was born in the US. She used both languages during class, but she mostly used English when talking with her peers. In terms of her peer relationships outside the KLS, Grace often played with neighbourhood children. Grace liked to read books with her mother, and thus Grace's mother read books to her almost every day. Her family moved to the US seven years ago to pursue her father's doctoral degree. Grace's father was a post-doctoral researcher at the time of the study, and her mother was pursuing a master's degree at the same university.

Katie

Katie was a Korean-American girl who was four years old. She joined Ms Park's classroom in the second semester. Katie's Korean reading and writing skills were not as fluent as those of her peers. She often played with her older brother, but after Sue's mother started to take care of Katie on weekends, Katie usually played with Sue at the weekend. Katie was not interested in reading books. Katie's mother rarely read books to her at home, her brother usually did it for her. Katie's family moved to the US 11 years ago on account of her father's study. At the time of the study, he had worked in an area company for several years, and Katie's mother was a homemaker.

Sue

Sue was four years old, she was born in the US. She was more dominant in English, although she spoke both Korean and English well compared to the other children. Sue was an only child and lived alone with her mother because Sue's father had moved to a foreign country after receiving his doctoral degree in the US. Sue often played with her peers who lived close to her, but she started to play with Katie from the middle of the second semester. Sue liked to read books, and Sue's mother read books to her on a regular basis. At the time of this study, Sue's mother was pursuing her doctoral degree at a local university.

Focal literacy activity

The present study focused on Story Time in Ms Park's classroom, which occurred formally for 30–40 min. every Saturday. When Story Time started, the teacher asked the children to sit on the floor around her ‘Reading Chair’. During Story Time, the teacher read a story aloud to all the children in a whole group and discussed the story with them. When the teacher read a book, she allowed her students to talk to peers about their thoughts using both languages. Table 3 shows the teacher's behaviours before/during/after reading.

Table 3.

Teacher's behaviours before/during/after reading.

Before Reading	During Reading	After Reading
• Introduced the story • Provided background information about the book • Discussed the cover of the book and asked students what the story would be about.	• Invited the children to ask questions or make comments about the story. • Tried to relate children's responses to real-life experiences.	• Asked the children to retell the story. • Discussed issues such as what the story was about, and what the children would do if they were in the main characters' situations. • Asked the children to create written texts (occasionally)

Table 4.

Selected books.

Title of Book	Author	Language
콩쥐팥쥐 (2010) (Kong-gee, Pot-gee)	애플비 편집부 (Applebee Publisher)	Korean
Chocolate Me! (2011)	Taye Diggs	English
사라. 버스를 타다 (2004) (Sarah, Rides a Bus)	William Miller	Korean

Book selection process

During the observation period, a total of 25 books were read, some of which were chosen in collaboration with the researcher, including English books. Ms Park and the researcher had formal meetings twice to review the books, and, after sharing our opinions, we selected books based on the following criteria:

If plot, setting, style and theme were interwoven to create a convincing story in an age-appropriate manner;

If the books were written in English, Korean or both;

If the books conveyed main themes in a clear and engaging manner.

Among these books, this study focused on children's responses to the three books (see Table 4):

These books were selected as the children engaged in more lively conversations with their peers while reading them. Also, the children listened attentively and responded actively, far beyond merely commenting on the illustrations in the books. Their active discussions helped answer how the children's responses to books were shaped within their social contexts.

Data collection and analysis

Given that this study seeks to explore how young bilingual children's social relationships constitute and facilitate their responses to literature, the current study adopted a qualitative case-study approach. According to Dyson and Genishi (2005), a qualitative study looks for details of interaction within a specific context and focuses on particular participants. In this tradition, researchers investigate the details of an interaction with its specific context in diverse ways (Denzin and Lincoln, 2003; Stake, 1995). This study employed a case-study approach in order to capture the participating children's particular social experiences and the complexity of children's literary responses within social contexts. Through a context-specific investigation, the study was able to document the ways in which peer interactions develop and relationships unfold, and gain an in-depth understanding of how the participating children's responses to literature are constituted by peer relationships and peer interactions.

The data were collected by the researcher over a period of 10 months (two semesters). In this study, multiple data collection sources were used to enhance the credibility and validity of the study. First, video/audio-recording was an important data source. In order to capture the complexity of children's peer interactions in both formal and informal contexts, the children's peer interactions/discussions were recorded during whole class sessions (3 h), rather than focusing on read-aloud sessions only. Also, formal interviews were conducted in Korean with the focal children's parents and the teacher to better understand the children's social contexts inside and outside of the KLS. Although interview questions were created in advance, the researcher often asked several follow-up questions based on each participant's answers. Some informal interviews were also conducted with the children in casual situations (e.g. during break). Table 5 displays the interview protocols and sample interview questions.

Table 5.

Interview protocols.

Data	Sample Questions	Total Interview Time for Two Semesters	Interview Protocols
Interviews with Parents	• Do you often observe your child's peer relationships/interactions? If yes, why do you think that peers are important for their learning? • Which language does your child use more frequently at home?	• 80–120 min. – Four times – 20–30 min. each	• Open-ended • Semi-structured • Formal
Interviews with Teacher	• How do you support your child's dual language development? • Have you noticed any changes in terms of the children's peer relationships during the two semesters? • What is your goal in allowing your students to use both languages during literacy activities?	• 200 min – Eight times – 20–30 min. each	• Open-ended • Semi-structured • Formal
Interviews with Children	• Which language is more comfortable for you? • Who is your best friend at the KLS and why?	• 288 min. – Grace: 50 min. – Sue: 55 min. – Katie: 48 min. – Sam: 30 min. – Jimmy: 65 min. – Young: 40 min.	• Open-ended • Informal

In addition, observation was another key method for collecting data. The researcher visited the classroom once a week (3 h each time) during the 10-month observation period and wrote up observational field notes. Genzuk (2003) argues that qualitative researchers should focus on every detail of the research setting including the feelings and physical expressions of participants. In order not to miss important details, the field notes were constructed as descriptively as possible. Moreover, children's drawings were used as key artefacts for this study. After collecting the children's artefacts and some related materials, the researcher created portfolios to keep track of the children's written texts and their conversations related to those texts.

In order to analyse the data, the study adopted Emerson et al.'s (1996) coding methods. First, using preliminary coding, the researcher transcribed: the children's conversations with peers; oral responses to the books during the read-aloud sessions; and interviews with the parents, teachers and children. Once all of the data were transcribed, the researcher grouped together a series of episodes for each literacy activity. Then the researcher employed Strauss and Corbin's (1990) open coding and axial coding methods. As the researcher carefully read the transcripts, she coded meaningful segments of text using a descriptive code. The researcher continued this process until all of the data were segmented, and a total of 93 social interactions of the children were coded.

As there were many codes, the researcher sorted them into three themes, such as Grace's interactions with Sue, Katie's interactions with Grace, and Sue's interaction with Katie. Once the children's social interactions were coded and categorized, the researcher adopted analytic coding and found relationships among the codes. In this stage, the researcher focused on the children's peer relationships, interactions, specific acts and meanings and found repetitive patterns in the children's social interactions. When analysing the children's literary discussions within their social contexts, a sociolinguistic analysis was adopted. In particular, the data were interpreted based on Bakhtin's notion of a chain of speech communication. Each child's utterances were interpreted within the chain of communication of her social contexts. The basic unit of analysis was ‘speech act’ (Bakhtin, 1986); that is, the children's conversations were analysed based on individual utterances that formed minimal units of analysis for communication. After finding some patterns of action and consistencies in social interactions, some recurring themes were created. Table 6 shows examples of the themes.

Table 6.

Examples of theme categories.

Category: Three Girls' Social Interactions

Subcategory 1: Grace's Interactions with Sue

Theme: Supportive

Theme: Providing details

Theme: Confronting

Theme: Competitive

Subcategory 2. Katie's Interactions with Sue

Theme: Supportive

Theme: Asking help

Theme: Critical

Theme: Friendship

Subcategory 3. Katie's Interactions with Grace

Theme: Supportive

Theme: Distance

Theme: Indifferent

Theme: Confronting

Then, some of the literacy events were selected based on the research questions that directed this study. Table 7 summarizes the methods of data collection and analysis for each research question.

Table 7.

Data collection and analysis.

Research Question	Theoretical Base	Method to Answer	Analysis of Data
• How do the children's peer relationships constitute their responses to books?	• Reader response theory	• Audio recordings • Observational field notes • Open-ended interviews with the children, parents and the teacher • Children's artefacts	• Thematic analysis • Sociolinguistic analysis
• How do social interactions with peers facilitate children's literary responses in a dual-language context?	• Sociocultural theory • Bakhtin's theory	• Audio recordings • Observational field notes • Open-ended interviews with the children, parents and the teacher	• Sociolinguistic analysis

Trustworthiness

In an effort to establish the credibility of this study, it adopted several different techniques. First, when collecting data, the researcher used a prolonged engagement approach and a persistent observation technique, which are often emphasized in qualitative research (Creswell, 1998). The researcher spent a large amount of time at the research site as a participant observer in order to build close relationships with the participating children and their parents. Also, when analysing data, the researcher adopted Patton's (2002) approach to triangulation, and compared several data sources, including observations in the classroom and interviews with the parents and the teacher in order to check the consistency of the information and confirm the emerging findings.

In addition, using a member check method (Kirk and Miller, 1986), the researcher shared the interview transcripts, interpretations and analyses of the data with other professionals who were expert in qualitative research methods and early literacy instruction, and asked for feedback and clarification. Reviewing all of the coding of the data and triangulating the researcher's observations and interpretations helped to confirm the categories and themes that had emerged. Also, collaboration made the complex tasks more manageable and offered divers views with alternative interpretations. It helped to stimulate new ideas, enable deeper data analysis and establish the credibility of this study.

The role of researcher

As a participant observer, the researcher attempted not to intervene in the children' conversations and social interactions. According to Stake (1995), researchers bring their own values to the case being studied; thus, understanding their social locations, such as their race, gender and relation to the participants, helps the reader to understand the data analysis. The researcher was a Korean-English bilingual of Korean ethnicity, with seven years of teaching experience. She also had experience in assisting classroom teachers in delivering reading instruction at the KLS. Her positioning as an insider to Korean language and culture helped her understand the participating children's speech and background. Also, her experience as a former teacher and reading coach positively facilitated the researcher's entry to the research site, helped gain the parents' trust and made it possible to carry out prolonged engagement with the participants.

Findings

This study investigated the role of peer relationships and interactions in the process of interpretation and construction of meaning during whole group read-alouds. The results indicate that the children's literary responses were highly influenced by their different social relationships with their peers. The children formed different peer relationships in each semester, and their different social relationships influenced their literary responses in a variety of ways.

‘We are only girls’: Friendship between Grace and Sue

Within classroom contexts, children create diverse peer relationships (Jones and Pellegrini, 1996). Jones (1998) argues that, among diverse social relationships, close peer relationships such as friendships are particularly important in early literacy learning. The positive role of close peer relationships was frequently observed in the relationship between Sue and Grace. In the first semester, Grace and Sue were the only two female students in the classroom, and in that situation, they formed a very close friendship. For instance, if Sue was late for class, Grace often asked the teacher when Sue would come. Also, Grace and Sue always played together during recess, and Sue usually took the leader's role.

During read-aloud sessions, Sue was active in responding to books, and if Sue expressed her views, Grace often agreed with her. For example, when the children read the book 콩쥐팥쥐 (Kong-gee, Pot-gee) (2010), the story of Kong-gee who lived in unfortunate circumstances that suddenly changed to remarkable fortune (an Asian version of Cinderella), Sue exhibited her favourable feeling towards the main character Kong-gee, and Grace supported Sue's view as follows:

Sue: I like Kong-gee.

Teacher: (to Sue) 팥쥐는 안좋아? (What about Pot-gee?)

Sue: 싫어요 (I don't like her).

Teacher: 왜? (Why?)

Sue: 콩쥐는 nice 하구 … (Because Kong-gee is nice … and…)

Grace: 콩쥐는 착하구 … 팥쥐는 못생기구 … BAD 해요!! (Kong-gee is good and Pat Gee is UGLY and BAD!!)

Sue: (with a loud voice) She is ugly so she is bad!!

Grace: Yeah … (pointing Pot Gee's nose) And … she is 돼지코 [pig-nosed]!!

Sue & Grace: (giggling)

In the excerpt above, Sue exhibites an unfavourable feeling towards Pot-gee (a step-sister) using both Korean and English, but she is not able to provide specific reasons for her negative view of Pot-gee. As Grace notices her struggling, she helps Sue by providing some negative aspects of Pot-gee in both languages, such as her unattractive appearance: when Grace supports Sue's views, she usually provides some details about the reason for her support, which often makes Sue become more self-assured about her perspective. Like in this example, Grace and Sue often supported each other's views either directly or indirectly. Figure 1 demonstrates the number of instances of Grace and Sue's supportive feedback to each other during the first semester:

Figure 1.

Frequency of Grace and Sue's mutually supportive feedback.

Yet, the classroom demographics changed in the following semester, as Katie joined the classroom. As the children were exposed to a different atmosphere, Sue and Grace formed different social relationships, and their changed peer relationships influenced their literary responses differently.

‘She is my twin sister’: Triangular relationships among three girls

At first glance, Grace and Sue still seemed to get along with each other, but they did not seem as close as they had been: Grace did not always want to sit next to Sue and did not look for Sue if Sue was late or absent. Sue also started to spend more time playing with Katie. When Katie and Sue played together, Sue often took the leader role, and Katie used to call Sue her ‘twin sister’. As Sue and Katie became closer, Grace tried to stake her claim on Katie by talking to her more frequently. Yet, Katie often wanted to sit next to Sue, and it seemed that Grace began distancing herself from both Sue and Katie.

As the three girls' relationships changed, the relationships among their mothers seemed to change as well. When Sue was absent from class, Sue's mother often asked Grace's mother to pick up classroom assignments for her, but after Sue and Katie became close friends, Sue's mother swapped to Katie's mother for this task. In the interview with Katie's mother, she indicated that she had recently begun to spend more time with Sue's mother.

Researcher: 요즘 혹시 Sue엄마랑 따로 자주 보셨나요? (Do you often meet Sue's mother these days?)

Katie's mother: 예 사실 Katie 때문에 요즘 자주 봤죠. 주말에 사실 큰애가 너무 바빠가지고 … 언니가 집도 가깝고 Sue가 아무래도 혼자 있으니까 주말에는 언니가 거의 케어 해줘요. 저는 거의 큰애만 챙기고 … (Yes. We meet each other more frequently these days because of Katie. In fact, Sue's mother takes care of Katie (at the weekend) since she lives close to me, and Sue is an only daughter. Also, I am too busy taking care of Katie's brother at the weekend … so …)

According to Ms Park, Sue and Katie became close after Sue tried to help Katie do her worksheets. As indicated earlier, Katie's Korean literacy skills were behind those of the other children, while the level of Sue and Grace's reading and writing skills were similar. For instance, Katie's Korean vocabulary scores were low compared to the other children, whereas both Sue and Grace's vocabulary scores were always high. In this situation, Sue and Grace often seemed to be in competition with each other during most literacy activities. The following is an example from a vocabulary test.

During the second semester, the teacher continued to read from various picture books to her students during Story Time. While reading the books, the children responded to them using two languages, and their responses were socially constructed, reflecting their changed social relationships with their peers. One of the most notable changes was Sue and Grace's conflicting views when responding to the books. For instance, when the children read Chocolate Me (2011), which dealt with the story of a black child and his white peers, Grace expressed her positive views towards dark skin in English, but Sue opposed Grace' opinion:

Grace: Actually, if you be dark, you protect your skin more … better than white skin.

Teacher: Why?

Grace: Because sometimes you go to outside swimming pool, then you can get more darker!

Sue: No! Light skin is better than dark skin ‘cause dark skin is dark, and if you get dirt, you can't see it, so you might think there's no dirt and you might sleep without washing your face but white skin is white so if you get any dirt on, you can know it and …

Katie: (In a loud voice) That is right! Because you can see it!

Teacher: 그러면 white skin이 더 좋은 거야? (Then, do you guys mean that white skin is better?)

Sue: 선생님! 여기 봐봐요. 여긴 다 보이는데 여기 초코렛은 다 못보이쟎아요. (Teacher, look! (pointing at the face of a boy with white skin) You can see anything here but (pointing at the boy with dark skin) you can't see chocolate here.)

Beach (1993) argues that conflicting tensions among readers arise during the reading process due to the ‘heteroglossia inherent in the transaction with texts’ (p. 113). As the book evoked Grace's past experiences about people with dark skin in swimming pools, she asserted the advantages of having dark skin using English. Yet, Sue disagreed with Grace, pointing out the drawbacks of dark skin in English as well: for Sue, it seemed that dark skin was not a positive trait because people with dark skin would wash their faces less frequently than people with light skin. With the two girls’ conflicting views, Katie jumped into the conversation and supported Sue.

Like in the example above, Grace, Katie and Sue formed complicated peer relationships in the second semester, which often influenced their literary responses. Figure 2 shows the numbers of the three girls' supportive or conflicting responses to each other during the second semester.

Figure 2.

Sue, Grace and Katie's vocabulary texts (from left to right).

As seen in Figure 3, Grace and Sue exhibited opposing views frequently in that semester. However, this does not mean that the competition in their relationship had a negative impact on their literacy learning, because it helped them think about different perspectives on the benefits or drawbacks of different skin colours.

Figure 3.

The numbers of the three girls' responses to each other. (a) Katie's responses, (b) Sue's responses and (c) Grace's responses.

Benefits of peer interactions

The children's complicated social relationships and interactions also helped them get deeply involved in reading and develop their literary understanding. For example, when children had discussions after reading the book 사라 버스를 타다 (Sarah Rides the Bus) (2004) in the second semester, Katie asked a question about why Sarah (a main character) was supposed to sit at the back. After Katie's question, both Sue and Grace attempted to answer her question as follows:

Katie: 왜 뒷자리로가? (Why (does she have to) go to the back seat)

Sue: 왜냐면 그때 long time ago 였을때 걔네들가 light skin 이랑 dark skin 이랑 separate 해서 light skin 이 더 위에 가구 black skin 이 더 밑에 가야되는데 그 사람은 그냥 거기 앞에 앉아있는거예요. (Because … a long time ago, there were light skin (people) and black skin and they had to be separated because light skin had to (sit) higher and black skin had to (sit) lower but the girl just stayed there)

Teacher: 그렇지 옛날에는 그렇게 separate 해서 앉았지. (Right. A long time ago, those people sat separately.)

Sue: 어 그래서 걔네들가.. light skin 은 혼자 다 해야되구 dark skin 은 다 혼자 해야되구 근데 누가.. 같이.. 같이.. work out 하구.. 같이.. (murmuring) [So, those people.. uh.. uh.. light skin had to do alone and dark skin also had to do alone but.. some guy.. together.. together.. tried to work out.. together..]

Grace: 원래 light skin… (Originally, light skin…)

Sue: 원래 light skin 이랑 black skin 이랑 separate 했었는데요 근데 나중에 그 girl 가 안 separate 하구 앞에가서 경찰아저씨가 와서 pickup 해서 office로 데려왔는데 엄마가 와서 pick up 했구요 … 그리구 … 사람들가 모여서 얘가 famous 했어요. 왜냐면 newspaper 에 나와서 다들 알아서 애들가 다 follow 해서 (Originally, (people with) light skin and black skin (sat) separately but the girl did not separate (herself) and went to the front, and police came, and picked her up, and brought her to the office. Yet, her mother picked her up and … people gathered and the girl became famous because she was on a newspaper and everybody got to know her and people followed her.)

When Katie brought up the issue of why it was a problem for Sarah to sit at the front of the bus, both Sue and Grace tried to answer Katie's question as a ‘skilled peer’ (Rogoff, 1990). Sue first answered Katie's question using both Korean and English, but as Sue's effort was not successful in adding more details, Grace tried to answer it. Noticing this, Sue spoke faster and more clearly. Although Sue's Korean was sometimes ungrammatical, she ended up successfully explaining the story, and with Sue's support, Katie was able to understand most of the major events that occurred in the story in chronological order.

At this point, it is also important to note that Sue serving as a skilled peer does not necessarily mean that the interactions between Sue and Katie were ‘unidirectional’. Rogoff (1990) states that learning is ‘multidirectional, rather than aimed at a specific endpoint in a unique and unidirectional course of growth’ (p. 12). Their interactions were ‘multidirectional’ because, through social interactions with Katie, Sue could also have an opportunity to review the whole story and encapsulate what she remembered about it.

The excerpts above indicate that the children's literary responses were socially created within their complex peer relationships and interactions. They sometimes supported or challenged each other's views, reflecting their social relationships. While negotiating and creating meanings with peers, they had opportunities to deepen their thoughts, critically think about the text and explore diverse perspectives.

Discussion

The present study on peer relationships and interactions among three Korean girls during a read-aloud found that the children constructed meanings through interacting with each other, and their literary responses were shaped according to their social relationships. The findings of the study add important insights to discussions related to reading literature in young children's classrooms in three aspects.

Reader responses as a situated practice

First, the study suggests that children's literary responses are not fixed but situated practices. According to reader response criticism, readers’ responses are influenced by ‘the social complexity of classroom communities with students of varying backgrounds, abilities, and experiences’ (Rogers and Soter, 1997: 2). Since their responses reflect membership of their particular communities, meanings are created within the confluence of an individual's community and society (Beach, 1995; Kucer and Silva, 2013). In this study, the children negotiated meanings within social contexts, and their responses to books reflected their social roles and peer relationships. For instance, when Grace and Sue were the only two girls in Ms Park's classroom and formed a close relationship, Grace often supported and enhanced Sue's views. However, when Sue and Grace had a competitive relationship in the following semester, they rarely supported each other's responses. Instead, Katie supported Sue's views, just as Grace had in the previous semester. This finding reinforces the reader-response perspective that readers’ responses are socially constituted by negotiation among members of interpretative communities (Cai, 2001; Cox, 1997). Pre-K children form peer relationships in diverse ways as they engage in assisting, tutoring, negotiating, affirming and contradicting each other (Genishi and Dyson, 2009; Jones and Pellegrini, 1996). The way in which the children in this study negotiated, affirmed and contradicted each other according to their peer relationships suggests that, in order to better support young children's literacy practices, it is crucial that teachers understand young children's complex peer experiences and peer relationships inside and outside of school (Howes, 2010; Volk and Angelova, 2007). Teachers should also pay considerable attention to how children interpret their different peer experiences from school and home, and what they think and feel about them.

Possibilities of RDZ

The findings of the study also suggest that it is important for teachers to help Pre-K children to increase their literary understanding and broaden their responses within ‘a response development zone’ (Moller and Allen, 2000; Möller and Moller, 2008). Bakhtin (1986) claims that learning always requires another person because it cannot occur without participation in both internal and external social contexts. The children in this study developed their literary responses and constructed multiple levels of meaning through social interactions with their peers. As the teacher created a space in which they interacted freely, the children were able to listen to each other's views on diverse issues such as the benefits and drawbacks of different skin colours and racial segregation. While agreeing and disagreeing with each other's perspectives, they could develop their literary responses from ‘monologic’ to ‘dialogic’ (Beach, 1993: 112). Their peer interactions also opened up the possibility of enriching their own literary understanding and enhancing each other's perspectives as well. This finding suggests the potential of RDZ as a medium to create a supportive literature environment in Pre-K classrooms. Möller and Moller (2008) argue that when teachers create a comfortable space where young readers can share, negotiate and contradict their diverse views, they can deepen their thoughts and develop their responses to literature. The children in this study could extend or challenge each other's comments as they were able to share their views in a comfortable setting. In this classroom, reading was a fixed and stable investigation. The role of the teacher was also more than teaching ‘the skills of close, concise, attentive analysis’ (Beach, 1993: 16). As the teacher created this fluid space, the children could negotiate meanings together, and in this process, they sometimes became mediators of their talk without assistance from the teacher. This finding suggests that RDZ provides preschool children with valuable opportunities to ‘learn from others, to learn with others, and to teach others’ (Moller, 2004: 456). Copenhaver (2000) argues that text-centred environments do not help young readers’ authentic engagement with texts. Thus, in order to create a supportive environment in Pre-K classrooms, teachers should create a fluid and multifaceted space (Moller, 2004) where young children can freely share their ideas and apply whatever they know to the making of literary meaning (Copenhaver-Johnson, 2006). Literacy teachers should also help young readers to exchange their ideas and broaden the range of their responses ‘as ways of forging strong links between stories and children's’ lives’ (Sipe, 2002: 482).

Translanguaging for communicative potential

As a practical implication of RDZ for bilingual teachers, the study suggests the potential of ‘translanguaging’ (Garcia, 2009) as a tool to help bilingual children develop their responses and facilitate critical discussions. When bilingual children enter school, the expectations and pressures for them to assimilate into the majority culture and language lead them quickly to abandon their heritage language for English (Cummins, 1996; Lee and Suárez, 2008; Tse, 2001). The children in Ms Park's classroom were allowed to use both Korean and English when they had discussions about books with their peers. As they were able to switch their languages freely when responding to books and answering peers’ comments, they could express their views in a comfortable atmosphere, which provided them with opportunities to explore diverse perspectives about the books they read. Their use of two languages also fostered literary understanding, critical examination of texts and deep engagement with more advanced thoughts. This enhances previous studies about ‘translanguaging’ for young bilinguals’ literacy development (Creese and Blackledge, 2010; Garcia and Wei, 2013; Hornberger and Link, 2012; Peralta-Nash and Dutch, 2000). The findings also suggest that, in order to help Pre-K bilinguals maximize their communicative potential, teachers should allow multilingual/bilingual children to share their diverse responses with peers in two (or more) languages during reading activities. Young bilingual and multilingual children often code-switch for different communicative aims (Garcia and Wei, 2013; Hornberger and Link, 2012). Therefore, it is important that teachers create environments in which Pre-K bilinguals can engage in authentic discussions with peers in both languages and develop critical perspectives as they explore various facets of reading.

Limitations and future directions

The current study has emphasized the significant role of peer interactions and relationships on young bilinguals' literary responses. The detailed descriptions of the participating children's interactions with peers during reading activities provide early childhood educators with insights into the importance of peer relationships/interactions in early literacy practices. For bilingual educators, this study provides deeper comprehension of the importance of social interactions in reading activities in a dual-language context. In this sense, the results of this study may be beneficial not only for early childhood educators but also the broader community of teachers and educators interested in the social nature of learning. Yet, there were also several limitations on conducting this study. First, limited access to participants' homes and their mainstream schools was another challenge. The researcher obtained information about the children's peer relationships outside the KLS and their literacy preferences only through conversations with their parents. Although in-depth interviews with the mothers helped understand the children's social experiences, it is possible that the limited contact with participants outside of school could have affected the findings. Also, although the focal children in the study are likely to be representative of many bilingual children, this study may not be representative of children from other ethnic or socioeconomic backgrounds. In this study, the focal children were from economically affluent families with college-educated parents. Since the findings are specific to this case, their relevance may not extend directly to different contexts. Thus, this study highlights the importance for future research of describing the roles of peer relationships in different bilingual settings.

Young children interact with a variety of different community members including parents, teachers and peers in their daily construction of social lives (Genishi and Dyson, 2009; Ochs and Schieffelin, 2001). In order to create a supportive literature environment for young bilingual children, it is crucial for teachers to understand children's complex social experiences with peers in their bilingual surroundings. This is important because the richness of their futures as full-fledged bilingual/biliterate students can be assured only when we embrace the complexity of their social lives.

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