Talking Children Into Literacy: Once More, With Feeling

Abstract

Children’s literate development is mediated by classroom talk. That same talk also mediates children’s emotional, relational, self-regulatory, and moral development. Consequently, the discourse of some literacy teaching practices may be important for shaping the course of human development, and those dimensions of human development can play reciprocal roles in children’s literate development. For example, conversations about the inner life of book characters (and authors) expand children’s social imaginations, which improve their self-regulation, social relationships, and moral development. Coincidentally, literacy learning requires cognitive self-regulation (e.g., working memory, attention, focus), social self-regulation in interactions with peers and teachers, and emotional self-regulation (e.g., frustration and anxiety). Children who develop self-regulation earlier, and to higher levels, develop decoding and reading comprehension earlier. Similarly, when children’s conversations explore the pragmatics of their linguistic interactions, such as how to disagree productively, they become more able to comprehend texts and argue persuasively but also more able to learn from and with each other. Children need to acquire “the codes,” but the ecology of acquisition matters a great deal not only for the ease of acquisition but also for the nature of the literacy that is acquired and for the trajectory of human development. Children’s social and emotional development lies squarely in the bailiwick of the language arts and the literate talk within which they are immersed. But the accompanying human development, in turn, supports literate development.