It's Time to Foreground the Relational Aspects of Literacy Learning

This article describes how young children’s early relationships with caregivers and other significant adults, such as teachers, do far more than introduce and mediate their literacy experiences. These relationships are the experience, and only with time and development do young children differentiate from these experiences the signs and symbols as objects for exploration in their own right. To understand the literacy development of children, birth to five, one must understand the role children’s relationships play in this development. To support this argument, the authors cross disciplines and include theories within literacy and developmental psychology. First, they describe theories related to the role others play in children’s general development. They then review studies which examined how these relationships influence children’s literacy development; next they examine the prominence of children’s relationships with others in current literacy documents. Finally, this article concludes with suggestions to forefront the relational dimension of literacy learning. Emergent literacy, “. includes the skills, knowledge, and attitudes . presumed to be developmental precursors to conventional reading and writing” (Lonigan, 2004, p. 59). What do these precursors look like when referring to our youngest learners, birth to age five? Assumptions guided by socio-cultural perspectives 244 • Reading Horizons • V48.4 • 2008 of learning suggest that these learners begin their literate lives in the laps and by the sides of significant others. Although these early interactions may not initially resemble in form or function later formal literacy learning, socio-cultural theories suggest these earliest interactions are, in fact, the foundation for the infant’s later school-based literacy knowledge (Wells, 1999). In this article we argue that the relationships formed via these early interactions are more than vehicles for transmitting literacy knowledge. These first relationships are the experience, and only with time and development does the child begin to differentiate from these experiences the signs and symbols as objects for exploration in their own right. What later might be described as precursors of literacy learning, e.g., use of literate language or knowledge of print concepts, are initially embedded within behaviors that, at the time, are not readily recognized as literacy (Sparling, 2004). Therefore, to understand the emergent literacy development of children, birth to age five, one must understand the significant role young children’s relationships with others (first primary caregivers and later important others such as teachers) play in this development. To support this argument, we cross disciplines and extend theoretical boundaries to include those within literacy as well as developmental psychology. First, we briefly describe how socio-cultural theory and attachment theory support the significant role others play in children’s general development. Then, we review studies which examine how the qualities of these relationships influence children’s literacy development. Next, we examine the prominence of children’s relationships with others in current literacy position statements and study group reports. We end with suggestions to assist literacy educators to forefront the relational dimension of literacy learning. The Primacy of Personal Relationships in Literacy Development: Initially and Thereafter, A Socio-cultural Process The infants’ window on the world is first opened by others. From birth, children are focused on these others, first their family and later other adults, such as teachers, with whom they consistently interact (Schaeffer, 1996). From their earliest days, the infants’ actions are theorized to be motivated by an innate need to survive. To encourage this first relationship, infants are equipped at birth with a number of social cues, such as crying, staring, and within weeks, smiling. First initiated by caregivers, and then by the infant, interactions between infants and their caregivers The Relational Aspects of Literacy Learning • 245 become increasingly complex (Tomasello, Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005). Initially the interactions are dyadic, occurring between the infant and the caregiver. Observing these interactions, one notices the infant and caregiver not only taking turns in these face-to-face exchanges, but also sharing emotional states. Later, the interactions become triadic, and involve the infant, the caregiver, and their mutual and shared attention to an object selected by the caregiver (Adamson, Bakeman, & Deckner, 2005; Tomasello, et al., 2005). At this time, this shared engagement involves the young child and the adult sharing a goal. For example, the infant and the adult may roll a small car back and forth between them, thereby sharing the goal of moving the car back and forth. Triadic engagement is followed by collaborative engagement when the shared goal of the infant and the adult, desiring to move the car back and forth, involves not only shared attention but shared intention. Changes in the adult-infant interactions are now evident. The infant can now be observed directing the adult to perform an act, (pointing to the car or directing the adult to pick it up) and then coordinating actions with the adult to accomplish a shared intention (rolling the car down a wooden incline). From a sociocultural perspective, with the routinized exposure to such objects and actions, the infant comes to appropriate the values of the home culture (Rakoczy, Tomasello, & Striano, 2005). For some children, early interactions involve books. For others, interactions might involve objects which represent other family interests and values. For example, a photographer may introduce a camera to her son, a mechanic may introduce a miniature car to his daughter, or a baseball fan might introduce her son to a stuffed baseball. The possibilities are infinite and affected by numerous influences, such as cultural views, family history, geography, economics, etc. (Wells, 1999). Rochat and Callaghan (2005) describe the infant’s interest in such objects as stimulated by the basic need of all humans to affiliate with other humans, a need they reference as basic affiliated need (BAN). The infant seeks to maintain interactions with the caregiver and is inherently motivated to participate with attachment figures. Central to maintaining these interactions is the infant’s propensity to reproduce the actions of others. At first the infant’s reproduction is guided by a desire to experience the consequence of the action, whereas later, the infant’s actions become directed toward maintaining an affiliation with the significant others. For many years, the young child depends on others to introduce him/her to other objects or tools used within the extant community, the procedures for using these objects, and the contexts within which the objects are used (Adamson, et al., 2005; Rakoczy, et al., 2005; Wells, 1999). So, for the young child, the emotional 246 • Reading Horizons • V48.4 • 2008 interlace with caregiver(s) provides the psychological, emotional, and physical support needed by the child to venture into the world to explore other objects and people in the environment. When viewed from a human development perspective, the young child’s later interest in the symbols and acts associated with literacy development are the consequence of and subsequent to the child’s basic need to affiliate with the important others in his or her environment. Insights into the Relational Aspects of Learning: One Explanation Proffered by Attachment Theory “Attachment theory and research have offered fundamental insights into early sociopersonality development for the past quarter-century” (Thompson & Raikes, 2003, p. 691). When referencing young children, attachment is defined as the emotional bond formed between the child and primary caregivers (Bowlby, 1979). The emotional bonds established within these first relationships, “lie at the intersection of all of the cognitive, emotional, and social development occurring in the first year” (Sroufe, Egeland, Carlson, & Collins, 2005, p. 42). Bowlby (1979) investigated children’s responses to their mother and the consequences to children when this relationship is disrupted. It is theorized that attachment has both a protective and an instructive function (Peluso, Peluso, Kern, & White, 2004). The protective function serves to promote the survival of the infant, while the instructive function relies on the attachment figure becoming a secure base from which the child learns about the world. Further, Bowlby (1979) postulated that because of its protective function, attachment needs supersede many others. Thus, a child with unmet attachment needs will seek to achieve the feeling of safety and security, often at the expense of other less critical needs, such as exploring and learning about the world. Ainsworth, Blehar, Waters, and Wall (1978) extended Bowlby’s work and provided extensive, detailed descriptions of mothers’ sensitivity to their infants’ cues, e.g., crying and smiling, and how distinctions in this sensitivity were consequential to the type of attachment relationship between mothers and infants were identified. These consequences involve behavioral and cognitive responses, as well as affective, with all perceived to function as interlocking processes (Ainsworth, et al., 1978). To illustrate the differences in the quality of the mother-child relationship, we provide brief descriptions of three attachment security relationships identified by Ainsworth et al., (1978), secure, insecure-ambivalent, and insecure-avoidant. The Relational Aspects of Literacy Learning • 247 Secure attachment is characterized by feelings of physical, emotional, and psychological safety in the young child. The secure attachment relationship is based on a history of interactions between child and attachme