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Children often prefer nonfiction to fiction books but historically, teachers have neglected nonfiction books during reads alouds. The present study examined how young readers collectively make meaning of nonfiction picturebooks with the help of the teacher and their peers during a whole group interactive read-aloud in one kindergarten classroom. Using Bakhtin’s dialogism and Rosenblatt’s reader response theory, this study captured videos of nonfiction read-alouds, interviews, and formal observations to examine how children make sense of nonfiction picturebooks during whole group read-alouds. This study exposes the social nature of learning. Findings indicate that readers of nonfiction consider the responses of those around them in their takeaways, that making sense of nonfiction is a continual and discursive process, and that children used nonfiction books as a way to connect with one another. Implications for conducting nonfiction read-alouds with young children are discussed. This research exposes the power and potential for interactive read-alouds using nonfiction picturebooks with kindergarteners.

Grounded in Bakhtin’s heteroglossia and Rosenblatt’s reader response theory, this semester-long case study of one kindergarten classroom examined students’ transactions with nonfiction picturebooks through play.

The category of nonfiction picture books has changed in the past few decades, putting more emphasis on engaging writing styles, attention to accuracy, and using synergic relations between images and texts. As a result of this shift, the strategies taught to students for reading nonfiction picture books must change. The author presents five strategies that readers navigating new nonfiction picture books can use to comprehend all of the information provided by authors and illustrators: reading the pictures, tracking the words, focusing on the medium, analyzing the back matter, and highlighting the text in visual elements. When readers use these strategies, new nonfiction picture books encourage them to think critically, engage in their own research, and dive deeply into the content they are reading about.

Purpose Our world had always been multimodal, but studying how young children enact and embody literacy practices, especially reading, has often been overlooked. The purpose of this study was to examine how young children respond to nonfiction picturebooks in multimodal ways. This paper aims to answer the question: What multimodal resources do readers use to respond to and construct meaning from nonfiction picturebooks? Design/methodology/approach Undergirded by Rosenblatt’s transactional theory of reading and social semiotic multimodality, a 9-min video clip of three boys making sense of one nonfiction picturebook during reading workshop was analyzed using Norris’ approach to multimodal data analysis. This research stemmed from a five-month-long case study of one kindergarten class’s multimodal and collective responses to nonfiction picturebooks. Findings Findings demonstrate how readers use gesture, gaze and proxemics in addition to language to signal agreement with one another, explain new ideas or concepts to one another and incorporate their background knowledge. In addition to reading images, the children learned to read each other. Originality/value This research indicates that reading is inherently multimodal, recursive and complex and provides implications for teachers to reconsider what kinds of responses they prioritize in their classrooms. Additionally, this research establishes the need to better understand how readers respond to nonfiction books and a broader examination of multimodality in the literacy curriculum.

Access to green space has always been a social inequity, but the recent global pandemic has exacerbated this injustice for lower-income families even more. Environmental access strengthens mental health, encourages exercise and healthy social habits, and reduces pollution. Many have argued that children not only need play, but they need play in outdoor environments for physical, sociological, and social development. And yet, researchers have reported a dramatic decline in children's outdoor play over the past three decades. As the COVID-19 pandemic ravages the world, the author worries about children's access to outdoor spaces. Researchers have argued that people in urban and minoritized communities lack access to quality outdoor spaces near their homes. When gyms, schools, and parks are closed, who gets the privilege of exploring natural spaces? The author set out to determine if recently published children's books depicted outdoor play more frequently than she had found in books as a teacher. Thus, the research question for this study was this: How many award-winning and honor picturebooks published from 1995 to 2020 include depictions of outdoor play, and what does a critical multicultural analysis reveal about these portrayals? The author begins with an overview of critical multiculturalism and ecocriticism, as they undergirded her analysis of 189 award-winning and honor books, and describe some of the literature that supported this critical content analysis. Then, the author describes her process and findings, followed up with a discussion of future considerations for children's literature readers as they examine depictions of outdoor play

[...]we offer recommendations for teacher educators and early elementary educators to create and participate in literacy ecosystems at local, state, and national levels. Many educators who work in these settings teach students who may be experiencing community- and family-related traumas as well as inconsistent access to nutritious food, safe housing, and health care (Annie E. Casey Foundation 2024). The Interconnected Ecosystems of Educators Urie Bronfenbrenner's theory on human development underwent revision over the course of three decades but retained a focus on individuals' growth and change within the context of their interconnected environments (Rose & Tudge 2013). According to Bronfenbrenner and Evans, competence is the \"acquisition and development of knowledge, skill, or ability to conduct and direct one's own behavior across situations and developmental domains\" (2000, 118).

Informed by Bakhtin’s (1929/1984) notions of heteroglossia and dialogism, Rosenblatt’s (1938/1978) transactional theory of reading, and Kress and van Leeuwen’s (1996) social semiotic multimodality, this qualitative study explores the question: How do readers respond in multimodal ways to nonfiction children’s literature, both individually and as a part of a collaborative learning experience, such as a whole group interactive read-aloud? And ancillary questions: 1) How do members of the classroom (children and teacher) transact with nonfiction picturebooks during whole group read-alouds to individually and collectively construct meaning? 2) What multimodal resources do readers (children and teacher) use to respond to and construct meaning from nonfiction picturebooks? 3) How do children's meaning making experiences with nonfiction picturebooks extend beyond the immediate read-aloud event, if they do? How might this meaning making occur during children’s play? This case study of one Kindergarten classroom in the Southeastern U.S. observed teachers and students as they participated in read-alouds and throughout the school day two to three days a week from January – May. A multimodal interactional analysis was conducted of the 77 video recordings, photographs, audio recordings, daily written observations, and reflective memos collected over the five months. Findings indicate that readers of nonfiction consider the responses of those around them in their takeaways, that making sense of nonfiction is a continual and discursive process, and that all readers responded to nonfiction picturebooks in multimodal ways. Findings also suggest that play is an integral site for children to continue their meaning making of nonfiction picturebooks collectively and individually, even when the play is fantastical or deviates from the nonfiction picturebook. Additionally, children responded to nonfiction books in both aesthetic and efferent ways, even though teachers continued to prioritize an efferent stance when reading nonfiction. This study has implications for elementary teachers and administrators, readers of nonfiction picturebooks, and reading researchers. It suggests that free play provided invaluable opportunities for young children to make sense of the nonfiction picturebooks and their worlds, that readers are always on the aesthetic-efferent continuum, even when transacting with nonfiction, and that young readers respond to picturebooks in multimodal ways.

Informed by theories of reading as transactions and new literacies, the authors discuss the powerful possibilities of reconsidering reader response with contemporary nonfiction children's literature. The more we pondered the evolution of nonfiction children's literature in concert withâ€\"and in response to--larger societal trends, the more we gravitated toward the concepts of mashups, remixes, and participatory cultures that are part of the ethos of new literacies. While these concepts are more readily associated with media and digital technologies, they do not preclude more traditional texts that are often identified as peripheral instances of new literacies. Operating with the understanding of genres as dynamic, fluid constructions that are socio-historically bound and help us construct understanding and acknowledging how book awards can help shape what are exemplars of particular genres, we embarked on a reading exploration of books designated for young readers that were selected for at least one of three major nonfiction/informational children's literature awards within the past decade.