Meginmarkmið þessarar greinar er að lýsa fyrirmyndardæmi um óformlegar aðferðir leikskólakennara
við að efla áhuga leikskólabarna á rituðu máli, bæta orðaforða, skapa skilning
á hugtökum og æfa börnin í að tjá hugsanir sínar í mæltu máli. Rannsóknarspurningarnar
eru: Hvernig spurningar notuðu sex leikskólakennarar 68 barna á aldrinum fjögurra
til fimm ára í samræðum um barnabókmenntir og afþreyingarefni? Hvernig brugðust börnin
við spurningum kennaranna? Gögnin eru úr rannsókn á menningarlæsi leikskólabarna
frá árunum 2006–2012. Árin 2010–11 voru tólf samræðustundir barna og kennara teknar
upp á myndbönd í tveimur leikskólum í Reykjavík og viðtöl tekin við sex kennara. Á árunum
2012–13 voru gögnin endurkönnuð og sjónum beint að því hvernig spurnaraðferðum
kennararnir beittu í samræðum við börnin og hvort og þá hvernig þær nýttust börnunum
til að auka skilning sinn á tal- og ritmáli. Einnig var athugað hvernig kennararnir fjölluðu
um fagmennsku sína í viðtölunum. Í ljós kom að spurnaraðferðir kennaranna féllu undir
samræðulestur (e. dialogic reading) en í honum felst að börn og kennarar ræði saman um
bækur og afþreyingarefni sem börnin hafa kynnst innan og utan leikskólans. Áhersla er
á að börnin tjái sig um innihaldið á sínum eigin forsendum. Hlutverk kennara er að styðja
frásagnir barnanna og ýta undir frásagnargleði þeirra. Niðurstöðurnar benda til þess að
spurnarleiðir kennaranna hafi veitt börnunum tækifæri til að tjá sig um margvísleg málefni
sem tengd voru sögunum sem til umræðu voru hverju sinni. Auk þess virtust spurnarleiðirnar
skapa flestum börnunum tækifæri til að bæta orðskilning, auka orðaforða, efla
skilning á sínu nánasta umhverfi og að tjá hugsanir sínar í mæltu máli.
Informal pedagogy involves child-centred social education and “here and now” oriented
activities, as a way to help children to learn on their own terms. The current debate
in Iceland reflects an increased interest in formal teaching and standardized testing
in preschools, which comes at the cost of spontaneous or informal learning; thus it
is important to understand how traditional (unprompted) early childhood education
works in a preschool context. The primary aim of this study was to analyze whether
and how six preschool teachers’ informal pedagogy motivated four and five-year-old
children’s interest in texts and literacy in two Reykjavik preschools.
This article focuses on preschool teachers’ informal ways of organizing conversations
on literature and popular culture, familiar to the children. The teachers’ questions
and children’s reactions are foregrounded in this discussion by emphasizing
whether and how the teachers’ questions created opportunities for the children to
express themselves and make their own meaning out from the discussion topic.
The analysis is based on data from a study of preschool children’s cultural literacy
from 2006-2012. According to Clarke and Cosette (2000) it has become common
among researchers to use past data collection in a new way, as is done in this research.
During the initial examination of the video data analysis, where the aim was first
and foremost to understand the children’s knowledge of children’s literature and popular
culture, a secondary result was that all the teachers put very similar questions
to the children, unbeknownst to either group. This result evoked the researcher’s interest
in preschool-teacher’s professional role in helping young children to construct
emergent literacy, which forms the frame of analysis in this article.
The theoretical framework has its foundation in theories of dialogic reading, which
have been shown to have a positive effect on language development and emergent
literacy. Dialogic reading is based on asking open questions, providing positive feedback,
and encouraging young children to further express their experience, rather
than to answer more specific leading questions. It relies on teachers’ and children’s
conversations relating to books and popular culture, on the children’s terms. The
teacher’s role is to support and encourage the children to enjoy the conversation in a
creative way (Hargrave and Sénéchal, 2000; Riley & Reedy, 2003).
The research questions are: What kind of questions did six preschool teachers use,
in conversations on children’s literature and popular culture, with 4–5 year old children?
How did the children in smaller groups react to the teachers’ questions? The
research took place in two preschools in the greater Reykjavik area. The data involves
twelve videotaped conversations, lasting from 20 to 35 minutes. The group
sizes varied from 8 to 12 children and always included one teacher. To supplement
this data semi-structured interviews were conducted with the teachers to gather their
perspectives on the role of children’s literature in early childhood education. Then
previous findings of the videotape analysis from 2012, on the children’s knowledge of
the discussions topics, were compared to this newer analysis of the teachers’ way of
leading the conversation.
The analysis method used was qualitative content analysis, normally used in studies
aiming at describing a phenomenon (Snape & Spencer, 2003). The teachers’ questions
were divided into six categories: the story line; the characters; the characters’
relationships; fantasy or reality; reason and arguments. Within each category the following
themes appeared: the time of the story, the author, the place of the story, the
story line, and questions which motivate imagination and reasons; that is, what would
happen if this character met a character from a different story.
The findings indicate that most of the children seemed to enjoy the discussions. They
explored such concepts as: appearance, characteristics, dispositions, relations,
practices and circumstances of the characters. Furthermore, they discussed meanings
of words and compared story lines with real life experience and developed an
understanding of their closest environment. For example, they discussed the meaning
of the concept “greed” (from an Icelandic folktale) and argued whether it meant
“to be hungry” or “to want more than you needed”. Their conclusion was it meant “to
want more than you need”. They compared real step-parents to the stepmother and
stepsisters in the Cinderella tale, concluding that fairy tale step-parents differ from
real step-parents.
