Storytime: young children's literary understanding in the classroom

Abstract

The author draws on his own extensive research in urban classrooms to present a grounded theoretical model of young children's understanding of picture storybooks. Advancing a much broader and deeper theory of literary understanding, the author suggests that children respond in five different ways during picture storybook readalounds; that these responses reveal that children are engaged in five different types of literary meaning-making; and that these five types of meaning-making are instantiations of five foundational aspects of literary understanding.Capturing the liveliness of children's responses, this dynamic volume: describes picture storybooks as sophisticated aesthetic objects worthy of children's literary critical abilities; offers a theory of literary understanding that is relevant to contemporary young children from a wide variety of ethnic, racial, and socio-economic backgrounds; includes a wealth of examples of children's responses and how teachers' scaffolded the children's interpretation of stories; and, examines the significance of young children's literary interpretation, factors that influence literary understanding, and implications for practice and further research.