Kindergarten as Nexus of Practice: A Mediated Discourse Analysis of Reading, Writing, Play, and Design in an Early Literacy Apprenticeship

ow does “playing school,” an ordinary child-hood pastime, shape children’s reading abili-ties, classroom identities, and relative social positioning? This ethnographic study of kindergarten literacy play situates children’s combinations of play, reading, writing, and design within a nexus of practice (Scollon, 2001), the web of seemingly natural combi-nations of ways of interacting shared by an embodied community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). When literacy and play practices combine, they support and strengthen one another, proliferating ways for children to “do school” and increasing access for diverse learners. For example, playing school produces a reading/playing nexus where (a) reading supports play goals—reading to play—as children read books and charts to make play scenarios more credible or to gain the cooperation of other players and (b) playing supports reading develop-ment—playing to read—as pretending to be the teacher and teaching pretend students enables children to share and explore reading strategies.To reconceptualize kindergarten as nexus of prac-tice, this dissertation draws upon cultural–historical activity theory and models (Engestrom, 1990; Leont’ev, 1978; Vygotsky, 1978) and practice theory (Bourdieu, 1977) supported by critical sociocultural perspec-tives (Lewis, Enciso, & Moje, 2007) to (a) frame play as a cultural and transformative force in peer culture (Corsaro, 2003; Marsh, 1999); (b) analyze discourse through close readings of talk, actions, materials, and contexts (Bloome, Carter, Christian, Otto, & Shuart-Faris, 2005; Gee, 1999; Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996; Scollon, 2001); and (c) investigate early literacy as ide-ological practices situated within overlapping social spaces (Leander, 2002). In early literacy apprentice-ships, children as novices learn to take up reading and writing practices through mediated encounters in which expectations for participation are implicitly or explicitly expressed and responsibility for learn-ing is gradually released (Bomer, 2003; Rowe, 2008; Whitmore, Martens, Goodman, & Owocki, 2004). Children also engage in writing, play, and design prac-tices to appropriate and display peer-valued popular media and to participate in peer culture (Dyson, 2003). Nexuses of practice in events and spaces that blended children’s culture and classroom culture were located to examine the following:• How play and design practices function as meaning-making practices within an expanded definition of early literacy• How nexuses of play, design, reading, and writing practices expand and/or restrict opportunities for diverse learners to mediate materials and mean-ings and to participate more fully in peer and school culturesThrough network sampling, teacher interviews, classroom visits, and classroom environment surveys, I identified a focal classroom in a U.S. midwestern public elementary school: an all-day kindergarten where lit-eracy, play, and design opportunities were integrated in a daily two-hour period. One teacher and 21 chil-dren (12 boys, 9 girls; all 5- and 6-year-olds; 8 immi-grants from China, Russia, the Philippines, Mexico, and Sudan) participated in the research. Data collection and analysis was organized through a three-pronged