Surfacing complexity in shared book reading: The role of affordance, repetition and modal appropriation in children's participation

Abstract

Adult-child shared-book-reading (SBR) is an everyday practice that is fundamental to young children's early engagement with literature. Its potential for supporting young children's participation in literacy is of continuing interest to parents, practitioners, researchers and policymakers alike. However, there is limited research involving critical examination of the processes involved in SBR, particularly of interaction beyond verbal language and of the ways in which differing social contexts influence children's participation. Through close examination of two children's involvement in eight SBR episodes using a multimodal lens, this paper surfaces complexity in the ways in which different contexts and children's previous experience of the text afford differential participation and influence narrative interpretations. The findings contribute to understandings of how SBR practices, and the role of affordance, repetition and modal appropriation, shape children's early engagement with literature.