Storybook reading: Literacy and teacher knowledge in early childhood education

Abstract

Language and literacy are prioritised across education as tools for thinking with texts, and cultural tools to access participation in society, culture and learning. Teacher knowledge about ways to promote language and literacy are therefore critical. How might this intention play out in early childhood education, where longstanding beliefs about play and child-centred education have dominated Western provision? This paper explores teacher knowledge brought to playful storybook reading interactions between teachers and children aged 3–5 years in a qualitative study of two early childhood settings in Aotearoa, New Zealand. Teachers were explicitly and implicitly aware of specific teacher knowledge they brought to these interactions, prioritising knowledge of children and pedagogy while cognisant of language learning. The paper argues that blending Shulman’s seminal thinking about professional knowledge categories with tenets of early childhood pedagogy shows a way forward for thinking about teacher knowledge and professional learning that involves responsive, relational pedagogy in the context of story book reading. When teachers can confidently articulate and critically reflect on their pedagogies and decision-making, and are supported through professional learning and policy such as low teacher-child ratios, they might provide a sound foundation in the development of language and literacy for children.

Introduction

‘Children are born with an innate capacity to communicate, to develop a system of knowing and expressing themselves, which allows them to begin understanding the world around them’ (Farrell et al., 2022: 311). Those capacities for language learning, developing systems of knowing and expressing themselves all form language bases for the development of sign making, and forms of written and visual language (Peterson and Friedrich, 2021). For children, participation in valued literacy activities of childhood might include the telling of, and listening to, stories and shared storybook reading, including playful interactions around language. In this sense, early literacy is understood as the knowledge, skills and dispositions that are developed in the early childhood years, and form the bases for children to be successful in communicating, understanding and expressing themselves orally, and in written forms of language in later schooling and life (Farrell et al., 2022).

Teachers make decisions moment-by-moment about how to extend these language and literacy bases when working with children. The professional knowledge teachers bring to literacy interactions with children is therefore vital to understand. This paper addresses this important issue, drawing on a qualitative study of storybook reading interactions between teachers and children in Aotearoa, New Zealand (NZ). The overall question guiding the study was ‘How might early childhood teachers mediate conceptual thinking and talking during storybook interactions with young children?’ The following research question is addressed in this paper: ‘What professional knowledge is necessary for teachers during storybook reading and conversations?’

We first overview literature that describes the nature of play-based language and literacy in the early years, and tensions that have arisen in attempts to support teacher knowledge, in order to make literacy content more explicit in teacher-child interactions during storybook reading. We then describe the context, settings, and methods used in the study. Findings show that teachers drew on a range of knowledge that we align with Shulman’s (1986, 1987) seminal theoretical model of teacher knowledge to ECE in order to resolve these tensions and offer a contribution to theorising of ECE teachers’ professional knowledge. We argue that particular ideas about teacher knowledge are worthy of further attention in early childhood education (ECE) so that teachers can confidently enact and articulate literacy-promoting pedagogies. We also critically reflect on and advocate for policy enablers that permit teachers to engage deeply with children during language and literacy activities, including storybook reading.

Literature review

Governments routinely seek evidence about whether their investment in ECE pays dividends for children’s and nations’ educational, social and economic outcomes (Brunsek et al., 2020), and whether the associated investment in professional education is worthwhile (Markussen-Brown et al., 2017). Much governmental and public attention has revolved around literacy, reflected in tense discussions about phonics and teaching approaches, both internationally and in New Zealand (Campbell, 2020). In 2020, the Ministry of Education’s report on literacy learning in NZ highlighted that all children should have access to equitable opportunities to high-quality literacy experiences, starting with the literacy learning that takes place in ECE settings (McNaughton, 2020).

How might researchers and teachers of ECE respond? Given its dominance, there is a plethora of research on early literacy development, reflecting a range of theoretical, epistemological and methodological positions. The present study examines the intersection of play, language and literacy in the early years. The authors draw on both systematic reviews and empirical studies of early literacy, focusing on storybook reading. We use propositions about ECE teacher knowledge from this evidence to consider the teacher knowledge that might underpin these findings. These aspects of teacher knowledge for literacy in ECE are then connected with Shulman’s (1986, 1987) seminal scholarship.

Play, language and literacy in the early years

In NZ, as in many Western nations, ECE is founded on a play-based curriculum, and playful and integrated approaches to pedagogy. Play is regarded as the leading activity of childhood (Vygotsky, 1978), with every experience that children engage in conceived as a learning opportunity. Child-centredness is a concept strongly associated with play. While it is a longstanding and complex construct historically, child-centredness is commonly interpreted as providing play - and therefore learning - opportunities that are child-initiated and interests-led (Ang, 2016; Hedges, 2022). Yet, storytelling and storybook reading are typically adult led, and often instigated by adults as valued cultural practices in Western and non-Western settings. This tension plays out in early childhood settings. Even when a literacy-rich play environment is provided, children’s engagement with teachers can be limited by views of child-centredness (Neaum, 2020). When considering language and literacy development, closer examination of established beliefs, knowledge and practices seems warranted for teachers to benefit from stronger professional understandings about play-embedded language and literacy pedagogies.

Within a play-based curriculum, the opportunities for stories and story reading might indeed be child-led, but teacher mediated. Reading for pleasure can be conceived as a form of play beginning in early childhood that can continue into adulthood, with inherent and attendant sociality, playfulness and creativity (Boyask et al., 2023). Features of responsive reading interactions that align with ECE practices include beginning with a rich environment and warm relationships. Teachers can adjust routines for groups of children and respond to individual children in-the-moment, using open-ended questions, and integrating emotional and cognitive elements of learning (Hu et al., 2021). Children infect each other with their enthusiasm (Kucirkova et al., 2023) and children’s literacy and reading enjoyment are supported by high-quality teacher-child interactions (Hamre et al., 2012; Lapola et al., 2023). A benefit of child-centred beliefs, therefore, may be to enable a focus on understanding and enhancing teacher responsiveness to children’s reading enjoyment, language and literacy development (Hu et al., 2021).

Important links between play, language, and literacy learning and teaching are well established (Roskos and Christie, 2001), with the relationship between them needing ongoing exploration (Campbell, 2020). Roskos and Christie (2001) focused on the social and cultural interactions that promote literacy using a holistic and integrated perspective of play and literacy. They cautioned against simplistic assumptions about a literacy-rich play environment or assuming that the presence of adults per se will promote literacy. This scholarship draws attention to the knowledge teachers bring to selecting play resources and engaging children with these in ways that promote children’s interest, language and literacy. Yet, as Roskos and Christie perhaps feared, much subsequent research has adopted an interventionist stance focused on teacher use of more structured pedagogies in ECE to promote literacy skills.

A line of recent studies has reversed this interventionist trend. These studies helped teachers understand and make literacy knowledge, skills, and processes more explicit within children’s play and interests. Findings include that adult modelling and mediation of literacy practices and processes during play interactions led to more child-led play involving literacy activities, and more literacy interactions between child peers. Lepola et al. (2023) explored the role dialogic shared reading in story groups, finding impacts on narrative listening comprehension that were mediated by the amount of time teachers were able to provide, the opportunities for children to talk, and how much they talk. Colliver et al. (2021) found that children’s early reading skills improved in their study but could only cautiously suggest that this was due to increased literacy play.

Nevertheless, there remains a risk that literacy pedagogy is narrowly understood as structured approaches to early reading and writing knowledge and skills (Colliver et al., 2021; Scull et al., 2012; Taylor and Leung, 2020). This narrow understanding is a consequence of school readiness pressures on policy and practice where governments justify investment in ECE as leading to school learning (Kay, 2022). The term pushdown curriculum describes the way that subject-focused learning, curriculum content, and use of more didactic pedagogies typical in schooling risk influencing ECE. Such approaches and pedagogies are typical in commercially sponsored literacy programmes (Campbell, 2020). Without relevant professional knowledge about a teacher’s role in play-based literacy there is a danger of early academic learning in ECE being subject to a pushdown curriculum from schooling (Dampney et al., 2018), including to under 3-year-olds (Boardman, 2022). In some countries too, primary teachers are teaching in the sector, increasing the risk of pushdown curriculum and pedagogies (Scull et al., 2012).

How might teachers uphold and advocate for the longstanding tenets of ECE and embed literacy within these? Professional knowledge grounded in research is an important first step. There has been compelling evidence for some time of clear associations between children’s oral language competence, literacy development, and academic and social trajectories. Cazden (1987) stressed the importance of rich discussion and conceptual talk during conversations, and extra-textual talk that focused on affirming learner contributions to expand meaning making. Dickinson (2011) examined the way early language experiences affected later reading. He suggested that some ECE programmes were not having the desired improvement in children’s learning because they did not address, or provide professional learning about, the kind of knowledge teachers needed to support children’s language and conceptual development.

Two recent meta-analyses of early literacy studies provide guidance on current research evidence that has implications for professional knowledge and learning. Brunsek et al. (2020) examined connections between teacher professional development and children’s outcomes across a number of domains. In the field of literacy and language, 26 studies were analysed that had positive associations with 147 different outcome measures. In particular, they observed significant outcomes related to expressive and receptive language, sound knowledge, and phonological awareness that directly related to what teachers had learned in the professional development programmes.

Markussen-Brown et al. (2017) specifically focused on language and literacy-focused professional development, identifying 25 studies relevant to include in their meta-analysis. Although part of their rationale was the assumption that professional development updates and enhances teacher knowledge and practice, they found no accompanying evidence of enrichment of teacher knowledge. They surmised there was more work to do to expand understanding of teacher knowledge. In response, qualitative explorations of the knowledge teachers bring explicitly and implicitly to their practice may offer insights, particularly in naturalistic settings during everyday ECE activities.

Storybook reading

Storybook reading provides a social, playful context in which there is strong evidence of potential for rich language interactions (Dickinson et al., 2014; Hindman et al., 2008; Lepola et al., 2023) when teachers have support via professional learning (Milburn et al., 2014). As with the studies of play, several qualitative studies of storybook reading point to the crucial role of teacher knowledge, including knowledge of pedagogy appropriate to ECE, knowledge of children, their families and their interests. Reading aloud with young children is both pleasurable and powerful for reinforcing valued literacy and intellectual activities of book reading. Extra-textual conversations open opportunities for complex language and thinking beyond the here and now, supporting children’s use of imagination, inference and prediction. All of these involve metacognitive conversational skills. From a language and conceptual perspective, rich narratives in books are semantically and lexically more complex than everyday conversation, exposing children to complex language and ideas (Cárdenas et al., 2020).

Empirical studies of book reading confirm the benefits indicated. However, some also raise concerns about the paucity of time spent engaged with books. For example, in Australia, Adam and Barratt-Pugh (2020) identified that book sharing sessions that went beyond reading the text involved children choosing to participate and were longer than usual reading sessions. They also included rich conversations during the reading, a positive climate, and teachers responding positively to children’s behaviours. Significantly, within their data only eight such sessions occurred, all during small rather than large/whole group sessions. In Sweden, Damber (2015) investigated storybook reading events finding these too to be limited in number. Damber also found that teachers selected books randomly and rarely extended follow-up play and conversations.

Therefore, while research provides compelling reasons for reading books with children, there may be a number of constraints on this practice. Logistical and practical challenges around group size, teacher-child ratios, multiple demands of and on teachers, and the organisational logistics of children in long-day settings are among barriers identified in prior studies (Adam and Barratt-Pugh, 2020; Alatalo and Westlund, 2021).

Yet opportunities for participation, context and mediation (Razfar and Gutiérrez, 2013; Rogoff, 2003) are vital. Teachers and peers play an important role in mediating stories by providing access to story resources, and supporting children to learn about and through language as well as other multimodal systems of meaning (Taylor and Leung, 2020). In the present study, sociocultural theories of learning and development positioned teachers, storybooks, language and environment as mediators of children’s learning during social interactions. These interactions take different forms: small and large groups of children might come together organically or during routine times for read and talk together, often with teachers. These interactions involve playfulness, closeness and relationships as valued aspects of ECE curriculum and pedagogy. Theoretically, through engaged participation in valued activities, storybook interactions also provide meaningful opportunities to draw attention to concepts of print, letters, phonological awareness and other early literacy knowledge and skills, embedded within their social purpose, acknowledging children’s strengths as members of communities (Rogoff et al., 2017).

Teachers’ confidence in expressing and advocating for play-based pedagogies founded in sociocultural theories may be vital to promoting children’s literacy learning during playful engagements, while also pointing to the kinds of professional knowledge teachers need. Yet, alongside the concerns noted earlier (Markussen-Browne et al., 2017; Taylor and Leung, 2020) there is evidence that early childhood teachers’ beliefs and knowledge about literacy is varied (Colliver et al., 2021; Scull et al., 2012). Hence, we next explore concepts of teacher knowledge that might provide a frame for understanding the knowledge needed to promote language and literacy learning.

Teacher professional knowledge and learning

As noted, studies of language and literacy teaching in ECE settings suggest that teacher knowledge of literacy coupled with knowledge of children and early childhood curriculum and pedagogy can connect to promote language and literacy learning. However, there have been no comprehensive empirical studies of ECE teacher knowledge. Studies in primary and secondary teaching in the 1980s led to Shulman’s (1986, 1987) seminal theoretical model of teacher knowledge comprising the following categories:

• Knowledge of subject content - beyond factual knowledge to substantive conceptual knowledge;

• Knowledge of pedagogy - principles of teaching and strategies for organising and managing groups;

• Knowledge of curriculum – specifically curriculum materials and resources;

• Knowledge of learners - learners’ prior knowledge and also theories of learning;

• Knowledge of contexts - local, national and global;

• Pedagogical content knowledge - knowledge of subject content needed for teaching; a way to reduce the distinction between content and pedagogy by bringing them together with considerations of learners and context as a ‘special form of professional understanding’ (1987: 8); and

• Knowledge of educational philosophies, values, goals and objectives.

Aligning Shulman’s model with the broad scholarly literature in ECE, it seems that early childhood teachers’ knowledge might include the following:

• Broad knowledge of subject content to utilise in child-centred and interests-based interactions with children;

• Theoretical knowledge of learners and learning;

• Insightful knowledge about individual children, their families, and the communities and cultures of the educational context they serve;

• Knowledge of a range of pedagogical strategies; and

• Understanding of early childhood philosophy, curriculum policy and associated politics.

Yet, language and literacy research focused on teacher knowledge has primarily addressed two features. The first is beliefs and practices around what constitutes literacy in the early years (e.g., Dampney et al., 2018; Scull et al., 2012), including recent attention to the mediating role of responsive teaching (Hu et al., 2021). The second is professional development studies involving interventions designed to improve literacy instruction practices (Teale et al., 2020) that, as noted, showed no teacher knowledge gains. Drawing on Shulman’s work allows an exploration of the kinds of teacher knowledge that might be valued around literacy in the early years when stories are shared, and the guidance that this might provide for the professional learning and development of teachers.

In summary, despite extensive evidence recognising the importance of young children developing strong language skills as a precursor to later literacy development, qualitative research that specifically examines naturalistic early childhood teacher-child interactions in early childhood settings is needed in order to explore teacher knowledge brought to these interactions. Specifically, the present study explored teacher-child storybook interactions in ECE settings that had the potential for rich language and thinking oriented to children’s interests. An assumption of the study was that literacy concepts would be developed during the interactions. Therefore, as noted earlier, the question guiding this paper is ‘What professional knowledge is necessary for teachers during storybook reading and conversations?’

Context of study

ECE in NZ is available for children from birth to school age in a variety of community-based and privately-owned settings. These settings are funded at different rates for children of different ages and for varying levels of qualified staffing. Echoing the situation globally, not all staff are required to hold an early childhood teaching qualification.

The NZ early childhood curriculum, Te Whāriki (Ministry of Education, 2017) enables teachers to design their own local curriculum built on a weaving of principles (empowerment, relationships, holistic development, and family and community) and strands (wellbeing, belonging, communication, contribution, and exploration). Teaching and learning are therefore viewed as holistic, occurring in relation to matters of interest important to children and their communities.

Within this integrated approach to curriculum, specific attention to literacy is also found in the Communication | Mana Reo strand. This includes aspirations for children to learn about the stories of their own and other cultures through engagement in both verbal and nonverbal communication with others. The advent of Te Whāriki in 1996 prompted concern about how literacy would be prioritised within an integrated curriculum and how teachers could support literacy (Cullen, 2002; McNaughton, 1996). This concern gained evidence in studies that language-rich interactions were infrequent in NZ ECE centres (Meade et al., 2012), consistent with international research cited earlier (Adam and Barratt-Pugh, 2020; Damber, 2015; Dickinson, 2011; Dickinson et al., 2014).

Methodology and methods

We report from a qualitative, interpretivist case study that took place in two early childhood settings in Auckland, NZ. The study was designed to explore the role and place of storybooks in early childhood centres, that is, the how, when, why, and with whom storybooks were used, the knowledge teachers brought to curricular and pedagogical decision making, and to identify enablers and constraints around teacher-child storybook interactions.

Two settings that served 3–5 year-old children were purposively selected, invited, and agreed to participate. They each had a predominantly play-based curriculum. Both had received positive Education Review Office ¹ reviews that specifically included comments about being staffed beyond minimum teacher-child ratios and rich teacher-child interactions. Selecting settings judged well-placed to enable teacher-child conversation opportunities augured well for rich fieldwork opportunities. 10 teachers consented to take part. Ethical processes and permissions were observed throughout, following principles of informed consent, voluntary participation, a right to withdraw, confidentiality, and maximising benefits to participants. Pseudonyms are used for teachers and children. Parents were informed of the study, specifically that children were not direct participants, and that video would be securely stored for analysis purposes only.

Fieldwork occurred over 6 months. The first author, Joanna, familiarised herself with daily routines to gain insight into teachers’ and children’s activities across a day, and then undertook 6–12 hours of observation visits at differing times of the day, 2–3 times per week, in both settings. Each centre’s planning and assessment documentation was located. An individual interview with teachers occurred about their own childhood experiences of storybook reading, and personal and professional reading habits and routines. Teachers were subsequently video recorded on 2–3 occasions each during naturally occurring storybook interactions with one, two, several, or many children at a time. Despite the length of time of the fieldwork, most video footage was taken during whole group sessions that preceded mealtimes. Transcripts of teaching interactions were analysed for language and literacy-based exchanges, and opportunities for meaning making. Video excerpts were also used for one-to-one video-stimulated recall interviews with teachers. Field notes that included descriptions, sketches, reflections and analytic memos were kept to enrich data gathering, analysis and interpretations. A mix of inductive and deductive analysis was used to generate findings, with the deductive analysis following Shulman’s (1987) categories of professional knowledge.

Findings

Overall, consistent with a sociocultural theoretical framing, when storybooks were read and used they allowed for connections to be made between the stories and children’s lived experiences, thus expanding children’s enjoyment, communication and thinking. Consistent with existing literature (Adam and Barratt-Pugh, 2020; Alatalo and Westlund, 2021; Damber, 2015) storybook interactions occurred mainly in large group situations and rarely in one-to-one and small group situations.

Subject content knowledge

Joanna observed occasions where teachers drew children’s attention to book authors and illustrators, and made connections between images and text, and letters and sounds. However, most teachers rarely specifically talked in interviews about opportunities to use storybooks to draw children’s attention to aspects of literacy such as letters, sounds, or concepts of print. Joanna also noted hesitancy in their responses, long pauses before replying, and replies that were quite generalised. For example, when Joanna asked Jane about her purposes for reading books with children she paused, considered and commented ‘to extend their interests and literacy.’ A follow up question about literacy only elicited: ‘They [children] may have specific goals or aims to do with literacy,’ but she could not offer an example.

Where teachers did mention literacy, it was often to assume it would happen naturally and to downplay it. For example:

Joanna: But what about a book is valuable to you as a teacher?

Susan. Well, teacher speak it’s because we know that it’s a precursor to literacy but to me that’s not a motivation. …

Joanna: In what ways do you know that it’s a precursor?

Susan: We know that reading to children gives them an understanding that words make sentences and sentences give meaning you’ll find in books and here are the words …. And that children who are exposed to literature will hopefully also want to become readers later on. So maybe that’s part of it on a subconscious level …. But I think I value them because … when you’re reading with a group of children and they’re watching the story to see what’s going to happen and even though you’ve read it heaps of times … it can be exciting.

Here Susan shows she has some professional knowledge (‘teacher speak’) related to the value of storybooks for literacy learning; however she is more focused on the enjoyment of a book that children experience as her motivation. For some reason she did not see a clear connection between both aspects.

Beyond the mechanics of written language, teachers showed they did have subject content knowledge about topics of interest to children that were included in books read. This knowledge was expressed through attention to interesting vocabulary. For example, Maria read a book about dinosaurs one mat time because she knew many children were interested in dinosaurs and discovering dinosaur bones. To help build conceptual vocabulary about this interest she questioned and reinforced the meanings of words like archaeologist, treasure and museum as they came up in the story. Sometimes the children prompted her explanations. In her extra-textual talk, Maria used words that related to archaeology like discoveries but as part of a ‘mat time’ scenario she tended to ask and answer her own questions rather than seek the children’s understandings. She also incorporated textual cues like images to reinforce the word meanings and ideas within the story by pointing to corresponding images as she read or talked.

Knowledge of curriculum

Aligned with Shulman’s focus on curriculum materials and resources, teachers explained that they offered a wide variety of picture and text-based fiction and non-fiction books in each centre. Each centre had a bookcase to display books for children to select from, along with either a couch or chairs and a carpeted area to sit on to read. Children were observed in both centres looking at books by themselves or with child peers in the book area, but rarely with teachers.

Teachers were able to explain their reasoning for selecting books to read at the large group time as including children’s interests, connections with planning, and books that kept a large group focused. As Joan expressed it:

… to get the message across about a certain thing, like we have books about recycling … so we might read … that at mat time. Or we might just choose a book … because it’s got playful words … just to have fun with the children. So they understand … stories have beginning and endings ….

On the few occasions observed of interactions with a small group or individuals, teachers accepted children’s choices of books.

Knowledge of pedagogy

The principles of teaching expressed were that it was play-based, child-centred, and founded in warm and positive teacher-child relationships. Aligned with the subject content knowledge category, there appeared to be a reluctance to explicitly ‘teach’ literacy skills and knowledge, and instead a belief that learning would happen naturally through playful and sociable experiences.

In terms of organising and managing the group, teachers described books as used primarily in two ways. The first was to settle children new to the setting. No instances of this were observed during the fieldwork. There was also little evidence of any one-to-one or small group reading overall. Teachers indicated this happened on quieter or rainy days, but again this was not observed. When Joanna raised these points in post-observation interviews teachers commented on their multiple roles and responsibilities, and a feeling that they had to justify sitting and reading with children conscious that this meant others in the team would then be busy supervising many children over the large spaces of each centre’s play environment.

The second way was that books were used at whole group times to manage the large group and transition between routines and rhythms of the day. As noted earlier, on these occasions, teachers usually selected the book/s to be read; sometimes knowing they were books children enjoyed. Jane commented that some of the more humorous books the children enjoyed had complex words and meanings. Referring to The Book with no Pictures (Novak, 2014), Jane said ‘It expands on their language and broadens their ideas. So, you want to encourage the books they want because they want to listen to the stories…. and it gives them an opportunity to hear these interesting words.’ This book contained the words ‘preposterous’ and ‘ridiculous’; words Joanna heard several children using when talking about the book to her or among themselves. It was a book that was often seen lying on the floor, looked at by various children. The story framed some rich language and abstract concepts about books, rules, ridiculousness and ridicule. For example, one group time interaction included:

Jane: … Is this whole book a trick? Can I stop reading, please?

Children: No! (chorused)

Jane: What? This book is ridiculous. Can I stop reading yet?

Children: No! (chorused and lots of excited exchanges between children)

Jane: My only friend in the whole world is a hippo named Boo Boo Butt. (Children laugh at the hilarity, roll on floor, children repeat hippo’s name). …

Jane: And these kids are the smartest kids too because [they] … chose this book even though there is no pictures. … Please don’t ever make me read this book again. It is so silly. In fact, it is completely and utterly preposterous.

Clearly, talk and dialogue were central to these ideas about pedagogy. However, knowledge about the interrelationships between thinking and talking, types of talk (e.g., explanatory or exploratory), and using conceptual vocabulary were underplayed by most teachers in the study. For example, Kavana spoke of children’s implicit language and thinking gains but said that she did not focus on these specifically during interactions, believing that the word and idea exposure came about as a natural part of sharing storybooks together. Nevertheless, field notes and observations showed that she often intentionally questioned the meaning of less frequent vocabulary during storybook reading with children, showing some awareness that one purpose was to expand vocabulary and discuss concepts.

Of the 10 teachers, only one referred to a phrase specifically associated with a teaching approach to support language and thinking – dialogic reading. Natalie commented that she liked to have a dialogic interaction with a child during storybook reading but that for this to happen she needed more responsive back and forth talk which was difficult to achieve at mat time.

To me dialogic works best when it’s one-to-one or in a small group setting. With the whole group, you are steered by certain factors and depending on the children and what they are saying.

As noted, few one-to-one or small group storybook interactions occurred between children and teachers. Hence, there were few opportunities to use this kind of pedagogy to benefit literacy learning.

Teachers’ reports of their practices suggested that their focus on a relational pedagogy and managing a large group overrode most considerations of the potential to mediate or expand children’s language or literacy learning. Yet, as with Kavana and Natalie, there were examples where this occurred in relation to individual children, noted in this and the next category. Therefore, it appeared that intuitively at least – or subconsciously as Susan put it – teachers did have this kind of knowledge, but perhaps being relational and responsive was what they focused on as they managed the learning environment.

Knowledge of learners and learning

All teachers suggested that they understood children’s book choices in terms of their prior experiences and interests in particular stories for enjoyment, or topics of interest and inquiry for non-fiction books. Teachers also recognised and commented that storybooks of interest to children stimulated richer engagement in terms of children’s contributions to conversations and to their thinking. Nevertheless, their primary drivers remained engagement, entertainment and fun.

Kavana read a book about dragons because she knew these interested many children. This book included several words around a theme: ‘dreadful,’ ‘terrible,’ ‘terribly,’ ‘horribly.’ She took the opportunity to link the words to the story and their prior knowledge about dragons. Similarly, Yvette read Hairy Maclary’s caterwaul caper (Dodd, 2008) and briefly explained through dramatic voice and demonstration what a caterwaul was. This was fun for the children who would join in with her each time there was a caterwaul in the story, reinforcing the meaning of this complex word with action and humour.

Knowledge of language learning was expressed, beyond interests, in relation to children with additional learning needs. Katy commented that while she knew it was important to be conscious of supporting children whose language may need extra support she did not specifically think about this when reading with children.

I think it’s important with children who have some speech impediments, it’s good for them to hear someone talking and slow it down and just really focus on reading the words nicely and correctly for them to hear it. But I can’t say in all honestly that I think about it too much when I’m reading to them because I’m so caught up in the story myself.

Like other teachers, Katy focused on playful, relational, and responsive aspects of pedagogy rather than attention to individual children within a larger group session.

Cognisance of individual children’s language learning was also observed through decisions teachers made about where to focus attention and to dedicate teacher-talk time. For example, teachers described one child, Emma, as ‘clever,’ ‘intelligent,’ ‘very talkative,’ whose ‘Mum is a teacher’ and ‘she has a lot of adults around her so hears a lot of adult language.’ However, Emma was often cut off during her mat time responses and seemed to find it difficult to get a teacher to read to her alone. Joanna often saw her reading books to herself or to another child. In the large group times, teachers seemed to prioritise hearing from children who had less to say, and perhaps wanted to engage other children with books. For example, a teacher held up the book Where’s My Teddy? (Alborough, 1994) at mat time. The following interaction occurred (initials used rather than pseudonyms here).

T: What do you think it’s about P?

P: “A Hungry Bear”

T: A hungry bear? What do you think it’s about Emma?

Emma tries to tell the plot expansively and is cut off.

T: I think you know this book.

Emma: I know it’s…. She is cut off again.

T: This book is called Where’s my Teddy? Who has Teddy at home? Hands up.

There was no overt talk that Emma was advantaged and therefore no prioritising of talking with her or enabling her contributions at mat times. Instead, the practices in this setting sent that message, whether intentional or not. Observation findings suggested that at group time teachers wanted to engage children who had less to say, and ones who might struggle to stay on task. This evidence reinforced the teachers’ concerns that large group storybook discussions can quickly become unmanageable if the teacher did not stay in control of the length and types of child contributions. Therefore, for Emma, despite their desired approaches to pedagogy, teachers did not take the child’s lead to follow what she knew and was interested in. This suggested that group concerns overrode individual interests in the large group situations where storybooks were most commonly experienced, contrasting with espoused beliefs about child-centred pedagogies.

Knowledge of context

Constraints in a child-centred environment occurred around teacher-child ratios, and teacher time and availability to read, as there were often multiple demands on teachers. All of the teachers commented on how they felt constrained by routine responsibilities. A teacher who particularly enjoyed reading books to children questioned her own practice.

Why do I choose to do that at mat time [read books aloud]? I think books are wonderful and I think kids get a lot out of them as in they can be interesting, they can be educational, they can be entertaining. So why can’t I choose to do that at other times? I don’t understand that myself sorry…I think that’s it’s probably busyness, that there is so many other things to be done.

In short, the findings showed that teachers in both settings found it difficult to justify sitting down and reading to children one-to-one or in small groups during a busy day, even when they knew that sharing books was a valuable curriculum experience. In terms of the wider national context of education, while teachers did not mention the ongoing debates about literacy achievement at school they did appear to approach the topic of literacy cautiously. Interactions among teachers and parents about literacy were not observed as part of the study. This limitation points to further research opportunities in this area.

Pedagogical content knowledge

Pedagogical content knowledge describes how knowledge of content, pedagogy and learners come together. The most lengthy and engaging one-to-one dialogic interaction observed was motivated by a storybook. It occurred between Natalie and a child named Luke. All teachers in the setting described Luke as very quiet and shy. Despite an early disconnect around the words ‘spar’ and ‘spa’ in the book they were reading, Natalie found a way to connect with Luke’s knowledge and gradually drew him out of his silence, and he became quite animated describing his experiences and understandings about concepts like air, bubbles, water and oxygen, concepts beyond the book they were reading.

Excerpts of the interaction follow:

Natalie: When you were in the spa, did the water smell funny?

Luke: Shakes his head. It smelled like, um, oxygen.

…

Natalie: Have you seen that word oxygen anywhere? In one of your books at home? Or is that something your Mum or Daddy told you about?

Luke: I saw a word that said that in one of the space books here.

Natalie: Oh right yes …. Do you know what oxygen is? Can you remember?

Luke: It’s when you go in space so you can still breathe.

Natalie: Absolutely if we don't have oxygen (holds hand up to mouth in an expression of despair) we can’t breathe can we?

Luke: We’d die.

Knowledge of educational philosophies, values, goals and objectives

Having a book area freely accessible all day aligned with child-centred approaches to ECE where children could make choices. Teachers often selected books and prioritised conversations during book reading at mat time about pro-social behaviours such as friendship, kindness, turn taking and fairness as concepts. Values about child-centredness, play and playfulness, pro-social concepts, and encouraging positive interactions were uppermost in teacher decision making about usage of storybooks. Teachers could articulate a justification for these values from the curriculum document, Te Whāriki.

As noted earlier, there was clearly a general underlying belief that shared reading experiences with teachers was beneficial to the goal of language and literacy development. The specifics of how this played out, and what the benefits were, were however difficult to elicit from the teachers. As Kelly commented ‘I think there is so much learning in books so it’s difficult to pinpoint it.’ Susan defaulted to the transactional position that children’s language and learning is extended simply via the experience of sharing a book together itself without any focus on strategies or outcomes. She said: ‘It’s just books in themselves really.’ Moreover, despite this belief, as noted, there were few occasions observed where a teacher sat with an individual child or small group to read for an extended period. As noted under context, teachers’ multiple responsibilities called them away from these kinds of interactions.

Overall then, applying Shulman’s categories point to particular ideas as being explicitly and implicitly present in teacher knowledge, thinking and decision making about curriculum and pedagogy in ECE. In the following discussion, we explore these ideas in order to argue a potential way forward for ECE teacher knowledge and promotion of literacy, within a sociocultural learning lens.

Discussion

This study has affirmed the importance to ECE teachers of responsive relationships in supporting connections and learning in everyday story interactions. Teachers being responsive enabled them to cue into children and engage them with story experiences that children enjoyed through thoughtful selection of books. In this way, teachers wove educative concepts into a relational pedagogy whether one-to-one, small or large groups were involved. Relational pedagogy is at the heart of ECE and borne out in these findings focusing on storybook reading and the development of literacy.

Knowledge of children as learners, coupled with strong values within knowledge of pedagogy were uppermost in teacher decision making. These factors are noted in literature on responsive teaching and relational pedagogy in ECE. Moyles and Papatheodorou (2009: 228) introduced relational pedagogy as a term as a way to explore ECE-specific ‘understandings, interpretations and practices.’ It has interactions and communications at its heart and acknowledges sociocultural context (Papatheodorou, 2009). Papatheodorou proposed features of relational pedagogy such as reciprocity, joint involvement, intuition, wisdom, trust, providing learning that connects with children’s interests, respecting children’s ideas and emphasising meaning making rather than knowledge construction. Hedges and Cooper (2018: 378) provided empirical evidence of such pedagogies, noting that these were:

[t]houghtfully selected with integrity, in line with deep knowledge of children’s experiences and interests, and used as motivation for ongoing inquiry and learning. These approaches contrast with scenarios where teachers might focus on academic knowledge through dominating an interaction … using subject content knowledge didactically, and/or developing a lesson sequence that might employ a worksheet approach … These latter, more didactic approaches, risk taking an inappropriate leap into academic concepts without any contextual grounding in children’s current knowledge and interests.

Relational pedagogy includes the lifelong playfulness, sociality and creativity associated with reading for pleasure (Boyask et al., 2023) and allows children time to develop their ideas and thinking at their own pace. Didactic pedagogies therefore remain an inappropriate response to the under-emphases on literacy learning (Colliver et al., 2021; Scull et al., 2012; Taylor and Leung, 2020). Instead, researchers and teachers might consider how language and literacy content, emotions and interactions can become more central within a relational pedagogy.

Shulman (1986: 6) suggested that research at that time had shifted priorities from the subject matter to be taught to content and context-free considerations of teaching processes, and teacher decision making and effectiveness, going so far as to call subject content knowledge the ‘missing paradigm.’ The place of subject content knowledge has also been contentious in ECE (Hedges, 2014), commonly as part of promoting child-centredness and resisting school-type subject-centred, didactic pedagogies. As a result, it is likely that teachers who have studied a qualification may have had little time and attention paid to subject content knowledge to support their teaching, and that this has not been a focus of subsequent professional learning.

Yet, teachers need to feel confident in their own subject content knowledge and use in combination a relational pedagogy that prioritises knowledge of learners and learning with pro-actively including language and literacy practices and concepts. The subject matter expertise underpinning language and literacy is both varied and contested, including the fields of linguistics, language arts, literature and educational psychology. In the present study, language, values and concepts as well as engagement, interest and concentration underpinned the decision-making processes. These ideas are at the heart of what might be then a more relational form of pedagogical content knowledge in ECE consistent with Shulman’s (1987: 8) idea that this is a ‘special form of professional understanding.’ Hedges (2014: 199) suggests that consideration of learners is foremost in this context-appropriate application, as part of a:

… confluence of three particular elements in relation to teacher knowledge and culturally valued learning: (1) knowing learners and utilising their prior knowledge and experiences in specific contexts well; (2) having subject content knowledge; and (3) developing a range of pedagogical techniques to draw on during planned and spontaneous interactions with children.

Knowledge in practice to enhance language and literacy interactions requires attention to the knowledge teachers actively, rather than implicitly, consider during interactions, and how this changes beliefs, knowledge and practice (Hamre et al., 2012). ‘Knowing what knowledge, information, and reasoning educators are leveraging in the moment of interaction with children could potentially bolster professional learning in meaningful ways’ (Dwyer et al., 2023: 2).

There is further work to do to raise consciousness about ways to embed language and literacy within playful and relational pedagogies in the knowledge base of teachers. This study therefore draws attention to exploring implications for teacher professional learning at both initial qualification levels and as ongoing professional learning supported by leaders who encourage teachers to develop further knowledge and skills.

We are convinced that significantly enhanced teacher practices in early childhood literacy instruction will only come with enhanced teacher learning …[with] leaders who create the conditions necessary for such teaching to develop and prevail (Teale et al., 2020: 209).

A need for professional learning about language and literacy to mediate children’s learning better has been a theme across multiple studies of literacy development (e.g., Cárdenas et al., 2020; Colliver et al., 2021). Several studies also point to a need for further teacher professional learning as key to increasing the quantity and quality of literacy experiences (e.g., Alatalo and Westlund, 2021; Markussen-Brown et al., 2017; Teale et al., 2020). Alongside understanding of the teacher knowledge required, work is needed to identify how such professional learning might result in take-up by teachers and therefore outcomes for children (Hamre et al., 2012; Markussen-Brown et al., 2017).

What Shulman (1987: 12) noted in relation to primary and secondary teaching therefore speaks to a contemporary situation in ECE, namely that:

A knowledge base for teaching is not fixed and final. Although teaching is among the world’s oldest professions, educational research, especially the systematic study of teaching, is a relatively new enterprise. We may be able to offer a compelling argument for the broad outlines and categories of the knowledge base for teaching. It will, however, become abundantly clear that much, if not most, of the proposed knowledge base remains to be discovered, invented, and refined.

We offer these findings as a contribution to theorising about ECE teachers’ professional knowledge, specifically with reference to fostering language and literacy content knowledge. In this study, as Shulman (1987: 6) pointed out from his work ‘[t]eachers themselves have difficulty in articulating what they know and how they know it’. However, another of his statements also has current pertinence to finding a way forward for ECE: ‘Teachers must learn to use their knowledge base to provide the grounds for choices and actions’ (Shulman, 1987: 13). This knowledge base needs to be strengthened with subject content knowledge of language and literacy to blend these into the playful, responsive and relational interactions prioritised by the teachers in the present study.

While we advocate for professional learning that offers teachers opportunities to learn more about blending tenets of ECE pedagogy with explicit attention to language and literacy, our findings also suggest the influence of contextual constraints on individual or small group interactions around storybooks. There are two implications for policy in NZ and internationally (Damber, 2015). The first is the shift to 100% qualified teachers indicated in the Early Learning Action Plan (Ministry of Education, 2019) in NZ needs activating so as to enact pedagogies that reflect deep understandings of the role of language and literacy in children’s life course (McNaughton, 2020). In addition, for teachers to engage children in learning focused interactions, and not be diverted to other responsibilities, ratios need to be improved so that teachers can spend time talking and reading with individuals or small groups of children.

Conclusion

Language and literacy remain fundamental domains for access to learning and knowledge across the life course; learning which is developed through conversations, and through engaging with texts, including storybooks. Ways this attention plays out in ECE has been the focus of this paper through a qualitative study of storybook reading in NZ. The study has shown ways books can be used to engage young children in stories as enjoyable invitations to engage in thinking with others. Teachers can create space for, prioritise, and sustain these invitations to ensure a broad range of valued early literacy experiences for young children occur in the context of social and cultural relationships in ECE settings. Findings suggested that knowledge of children and pedagogy were of most importance to the teachers in this study. Other categories of Shulman’s (1987) point to matters to think about re the professional knowledge in which ECE teachers might build to enact responsive, playful pedagogies that embed literacy.

We argue that blending Shulman’s seminal thinking about professional knowledge with a relational pedagogy holds the key to maintaining the tenets of early childhood education – play, interests, and focusing on children – while providing a sound foundation in literacy for children. Teacher confidence in understanding and articulating this knowledge to interested parties such as parents, and researcher confidence in understanding and articulating this knowledge to interested parties such as policy makers, will be vital to ensuring children’s experiences remain playful and child-focused.