Play as a literacy of possibilities: Expanding meanings in practices, materials, and spaces

Abstract

This reconceptualization of play as an embodied literacy explores how its multimodal facility for manipulating meanings and contexts powerfully shapes children’s learning and participation in classrooms. Three examples from one focal kindergarten in a three year study of literacy play in early childhood classrooms illustrate how young children emphasize or combine particular modes to strategically amplify their intended meanings as they play 1) to try out social practices, 2) to explore the multimodal potential of material resources, and 3) to construct spaces for peer culture within classrooms. Multimodal literacy research holds promise for convincing administrators and policy-makers to reverse the erosion of play in schools. In this classroom, a pedagogy of literacy fusion (Millard, 2003) merged two literacies—multimodal play with school literacy—producing an inclusive space where children could play with meanings and achieve school goals as they enacted literate identities in both peer and school cultures.