Home–school book sharing comes in many forms: A microanalysis of teacher–child interaction during the activity of borrowing a school book

Abstract

In this paper, we analyse one aspect of home–school book sharing, namely the activity of borrowing a book. We describe how the borrowing activity is accomplished in daily practice in two Dutch preschools and which emergent literacy practices can be embedded in this routine. We followed fifteen children, aged from two years to four years, and analysed how they were involved in the borrowing activity as part of home–school book sharing. In total we analysed sixty borrowing events. We found three variations of the borrowing act: children were not involved at all; they were involved in a basic borrowing routine; and they were involved in an extended borrowing routine. In the case of no involvement, the teacher chose a book without the child being present, or the child did not get a new book at all. In the other two cases there was teacher–child interaction. The structure of the basic routine is: (1) the teacher orients the child to the activity; (2) the child browses books and selects one; and (3) the teacher acknowledges the child’s choice. In the extended routine there are supplemental orientations to literacy practices, either about (future) reading or about writing down the choice. Microanalysis of borrowing interactions revealed that although both preschools had implemented the home–school book sharing programme, literacy experiences for individual children differed.