Storytime: Young Children's Literary Understanding in the Classroom Book

Foreword P. David Pearson ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction 1

Literary Understanding: A Neglected Part of the Literacy Landscape 3

The Marginalization of Reading Aloud to Young Children 5

Why Another Theory? 8

Audience 9

Part I Picturebooks and Literary Understanding 11

1 Picturebooks and Children's Responses 13

Examining Picturebooks 14

Reading the Signs: Semiotic Perspectives 16

Perspectives from Visual Aesthetic Theory 18

The Relationship of Text and Pictures 21

Research on Children's Responses to Picturebooks 28

2 Young Children's Literary Understanding: Either Text or Reader 36

The Social Constructivist Paradigm and Vygotsky's Sociocultural Approach 36

Talk in the Classroom 38

Cognitive Perspectives on Children's Comprehension of Narratives 40

Literary Perspectives on Using Literature in the Classroom 43

3 Young Children's Literary Understanding: Between Text and Reader 55

The Middle Ground: Iser and Rosenblatt 55

Britton's Participant and Spectator Stances 59

Benton's Construct of the Secondary World 61

Langer's Model of Envisionment 65

Bogdan's Theory of Reader Stances 66

Can't We Just Enjoy Literature? The Theorization of Pleasure 69

Research About Literary Talk in the Classroom 70

Part II Five Aspects of Literary Understanding and their Interrelationships 83

4 Introducing the Categories of Response and the First Type of Analytical Response 85

The Categories of Children's Responses 85

Examples of the Five Conceptual Categories 87

Analytical Response 1A: Making Narrative Meaning 90

5 Other Types of Analytical Response 111

Analytical Response 1B: The Book as Made Object or CulturalProduct 111

Analytical Response 1C: The Language of the Text 115

Analytical Response 1D: Analysis of Illustrations and Other Visual Matter 117

Analytical Response 1E: Relationships Between Fiction and Reality 126

6 Intertextual Responses: How Stories "Lean" on Stories (and Other Texts) 131

Three Types of Intertextual Connections 131

The Roles of Intertextual Connections 136

The Power of Text Sets 147

Intertextual Resistance to Stories 150

7 Personal Response: Drawing the Story to the Self 152

Life-to-Text Connections 152

Text-to-Life Connections 160

Other Personal Connections 162

Children's Personal Resistance to Stories 166

8 Transparent and Performative Responses 169

Transparent Response: Entering the Storyworld 169

Performative Response: The Text as a Platform for Children's Creativity 173

9 A Grounded Theory of the Literary Understanding of Young Children 181

Five Facets of Literary Understanding 181

Blurring the Categories 186

Three Basic Literary Impulses 189

Connections to Other Theoretical Models 192

The Dynamics of Literary Understanding 193

Part III Teachers as Enablers of Children's Meaning-Making and Implications for Pedagogy and Further Research 197

10 Teachers' and Children's Roles in Enabling Literary Understanding 199

What is Scaffolding? 199

Five Conceptual Categories for Adult Talk 200

Examples of the Categories of Adult Talk 202

Scaffolding Provided by Category 1: Reader 205

Scaffolding Provided by Category 2: Manager and Encourager 207

Scaffolding Provided by Category 3: Clarifier/Prober 209

Scaffolding Provided by Category 4: Fellow Wonderer/Speculator 213

Scaffolding Provided by Category 5: Extender/Refiner 214

Storytelling: Mrs. Martin's Style of Reading and Scaffolding 216

Types of Teacher Questions 223

Children's Enabling of Their Peers' Response and Understanding 225

11 What's the Point of Literary Understanding? Implications for Practice, Research, and Beyond 228

Pedagogical Implications of the Studies 228

Further Research 237

Beyond Literacy: What Good is Literary Understanding, Anyway? 247

Appendix A The Research Studies for This Book 249

Appendix B A Glossary of Picturebook Terminology 253

Appendix C Transcription Conventions 259

Children's Literature References 261

References 265

Index 289

About the Author 305