Abstract
In early childhood classrooms from preschool through third grade, an emergent literacy approach defines literacy as activity, talk, listening, drawing, and writing (Shickendanz, 1986; Dyson, 1989; Morrow, 1997). All of these develop in situational contexts as young children interact with others for purposes that are both new and familiar. This means that emergent literacy does not view the development of oral and written language as imitation, but as an interaction in which “...the others are not simply providing a model—they are also actively engaged in the construction process” with the child (Halliday, 1980, p. 8). This means that in classrooms for young children, not only the children’s language but also the teacher’s language should be assessed for its continued development over time. Child language functions and teacher language functions differ in the context of science experiences as the teacher guides, questions, highlights contradictions, and helps the children to formulate their questions and problems so that they can answer and solve these.
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Britsch, S.J. (2001). Assessment for Emergent Science Literacy in Classrooms for Young Children. In: Shepardson, D.P. (eds) Assessment in Science. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0802-0_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0802-0_7
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