“You Know, I Could Trip and Fall Onto the Track!”: Inspiring Text Production

Abstract

The authors present the literacy pedagogical approach LAUNCH and reveal its influence on young learners as engineers of literacy learning through text production. Findings are reported from design-based research in a case study of an Australian early years classroom. Using a qualitative orientation, data were generated from video and audio recordings, cogenerative dialogues, and artifacts. Data pertain to a 5-year-old boy, his teacher, and the first author in the capacity of coteacher and researcher. The authors draw attention to 11 literacy practices that afforded opportunities to give form to and express customary, everyday text production, such as drawing and writing, while introducing new, untried forms of producing text. Central to these literacy practices are pedagogic actions that conceptualize ideas about how teaching and learning text production modalities might occur in the early years of schooling.