Children's participation rights in early childhood education and care: the case of early literacy learning and pedagogy

Abstract

This position article argues that educators' knowledge of young children's perspectives on aspects of early learning, including literacy learning, and subsequent interpretations of the ways that these perspectives can inform and shape pedagogy are key to promoting children's participation rights in early childhood education and care. Drawing on ideas such as guided participation and Bruner's notion of a pedagogy of mutuality, it is argued that pedagogy, as it is now understood, implies that children's participation is central to the task of teaching. It is also argued that explicit articulation of the concept of joint participation in relation to literacy curricula and pedagogy in early childhood is warranted. The latter part of the article raises the issue of the diversity of children's perspectives of literacy learning and pedagogy. There follows a discussion of some of the issues related to working with young children's perspectives on literacy.

Keywords:

• children's perspectives
• early literacy
• multimodal representations
• pedagogy
• children's participation

Notes

This article draws on the literacy-related material first presented in a review commissioned by the National Council for Curriculum and Assessment (Kennedy et al. 2012). The report can be accessed in full at www.ncca.ie