This study investigated the role of social interaction in the literacy learning of twenty-one 3- and 4-year-olds. Over a period of 8 months, data were collected at a classroom writing center using the ethnographic techniques of participant/observation, field notes, collection of written texts, audio and video tape. Patterns in the data indicated that author/audience conversation occurring as children completed self-selected literacy activities encouraged them to (a) activate, confirm/disconfirm, and revise their existing hypotheses about literacy; (b) form new literacy knowledge; (c) become audiences for their own texts; (d) internalize the audience's perspective and use this information to plan texts for absent audiences; (e) experience literacy activities beyond their independent abilities; and (f) with their teachers, build shared understandings about literacy. Overall, the findings indicate that children's self-selected literacy activities are rich contexts for literacy learning, and that social interaction, as part of these events, provides the predictable context and motivation for literacy learning, as well as influencing the kinds of literacy strategies children internalize and use independently.
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