A playful orchestration in narrative expressions by toddlers – a contribution to the understanding of early literacy as event

Back to front page
Author
Olaussen, I. O.
Year
2022

Purpose

The study investigates events in which toddlers explore different bodily expressed modalities in storytelling. The research question is: How do toddlers orchestrate meaning in multimodal ways in literacy events with narrative expressions?

Result

The study reveals meaning-making in the children’s narrative expressions and concludes that these should be interpreted as literacy events. Children’s narrative skills are based on both past experiences and what they have available in the moment. The multimodal expressions in the children’s stories were both bodily and relational.

Design

The study used a micro-ethnographic, narrative approach to present a cultural portrait of one to three year olds and their narrative expression. A total of 20 children aged one to three years were observed. All the children went to the same kindergarten. The empirical data were collected during autumn 2015 and spring 2016. The research material consisted of 10 observations in the form of field notes. In addition, 33 video recordings of varying length were included.

References

Olaussen, I. O. (2022). A playful orchestration in narrative expressions by toddlers – a contribution to the understanding of early literacy as event. Early Years42(2), 137–150.

Online year: 2019

Issue year: 2022

Review year: 2022