What Counts As Literacy In Early Childhood?

In the last ten to fifteen years, the term “literacy” has evolved to encompass a multimodal approach in which children make meaning of the world around them through play, cultural artifacts, and popular media characters. This is in stark contrast to the primarily print-based view of literacy that was widely held until that point. In Aria Razfar and Eunah Yang’s article, Digital, Hybrid, & Multilingual Literacies in Early Childhood, they explore the question “What counts as literacy in early childhood?” While this question can have many answers, Razfar and Yang focus on how electronic and digital media and hybrid languages play major roles in the literacy development of young children.

According to Razfar and Yang, the changing face of literacy can be better understood by taking a sociocultural approach to early childhood literacy development. When looked at it through a sociocultural lens, literacy learning is a social activity and is mediated by signs, symbols, and cultural artifacts. The article explains these semiotic tools that children use to make meaning, such as language, number systems, drawings, signs, hand-held devices, interactive online games, etc. Through these semiotic tools, children learn by engaging in a multimodal method of learning literacy.

Digital mediation is one such way that children see literacy as multimodal. Even in early childhood, interactive cartoons, movies, video games, and music play an important role in the development of literacy. Another type of literacy that Razfar and Yang describe in the article is hybrid mediation. This refers to an intermixing of multiple signs, symbols, and texts. Again, early childhood literacy development has strayed away from being exclusively print-based and more towards a variety of sources.

The availability of such a variety of sources has given children the ability to develop their literacy skills in ways that were not available to previous generations. The multimodal nature of literacy today makes it a necessity for educators to use multiple literacies when teaching students. From interactive games to characters in popular culture, educators now have a plethora of tools to use when helping students further their literacy skills. While this seems like a perfect scenario, multiple literacies can be an overwhelming prospect; however, the more educators can use these literacies in their classroom, the more students will be able to relate to their lives and activate their background knowledge.