CREATING LITERATE ENVIRONMENTS FOR PRESCHOOL CHILDREN: TEACHERS AS PARTICIPANTS, DEMONSTRATORS, RESEARCHERS AND LEARNERS

This study employed a collaborative methodology to explore two areas of interest. The first involved the creation and explication of a supportive learning environment. By design, the study created an overlap of roles and responsibilities which eliminated the gaps that often exist between researchers and teachers. Three teacher/researchers, twenty three and four-year-old children and I (researcher/teacher) were curricular collaborators, professional colleagues. The most recent research regarding literacy learning and how to support it were used to generate a list of assumptions, a theoretical frame which guided both our researching and our teaching. Using three self-corrective strategies (child as informant, team debriefings, and personal diaries/field journals), our research team worked to develop a natural language setting that was responsive to the ever-changing needs and interests of not only those who were engaged in literacy learning, but those who were attempting to support it, as well. In the end, we created a context which was supportive of all learners.;Additionally, our data supports the claim that within a supportive context, literacy learning is as easy and natural for children as learning to talk. Important educational implications have been generated, the most powerful of which suggests that by adopting a participant stance, i.e., by reading and writing with students, teachers will most naturally and effectively support literacy growth and development.;Our second agenda consisted of an investigation into the impact of the social nature of learning on literacy learning. Of particular interest was Frank Smith's (1981) construct of "demonstration." Results from this six month naturalistic study suggest that demonstration plays important role in the development of both a personal and a social theory of literacy.