A Is for Avatar: Young Children in Literacy 2.0 Worlds and Literacy 1.0 Schools

Abstract

We talk about children as digital natives (Prensky, 2001) growing up in brave new virtual worlds, but also as vulnerable innocents who are especially attuned to—and in need of—nature. But do we really see these children? Do we understand them as emergent users of new literacies and new technologies? If so, how might early literacy education change to prepare children to read, write, be, and act as full participants in digital worlds and unknowable futures? This article examines tensions across literacy, play, and technologies in early childhood classrooms in order to understand how the meaningmaking possibilities we offer children are shaped by the ways we see them. How might new ways of seeing open our eyes to “new basics” (Dyson, 2006) in early education and help us reshape inschool literacies to more closely match children’s lived worlds?