This article presents analyses of the language and literacy practices in one urban kindergarten.The intent is to examine ways in which process-oriented materials and pedagogies are used as decontextualized language arts ‘packages’ to teach isolated literacy skills. Furthermore, I will describe the consequences of this practice on students’ access to literacy events. I draw on Goffman’s (1981) conception of the participation framework as a linguistic structure that organizes and is organized by talk and interaction in activity to analyze what roles were available in the participation framework in this classroom and how these roles mediated access to meaningful participation in literacy events. Discourse analysis of available roles in the participation framework showed that student participation in literacy events was limited to the observation of ‘pedagogized’ literacy practices (Street, 1995).
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