ABSTRACT
Nadia, the 7-year-old whom we met in Chapter 6, is ‘teaching’ Aisha, aged 5, to read her schoolbook: Aisha: It’s Monday again. You’d… Nadia: Look. See that says bet. Aisha: bet… Nadia: and that says ‘er’. Put them together and they make…? Aisha: better play nicely George so… Nadia: says. Aisha: says his mum. Nadia: Reme…mber-remember…1
In this chapter, we examine ways in which young children at our two
schools in the 1990s go about learning the literacy of the classroom. Like those of past generations whose voices were heard in Part II of the book, these children do not enter school possessing the cultural capital of ‘bedtime stories’ or familiarity with the language of the books used in school. Although Nadia’s mother has provided her with an encyclopaedia, writing paper and other literacy materials, Nadia generally practises her schoolbook alone at home. In other cases, parents may be unable to read English. Nor are they children whose parents have time to spend many hours reading with them or preparing other school tasks once they have started formal lessons. The questions tackled in this chapter, therefore, are: To what extent have these young children learned the literacy of school after one or two years and how do they come to know what they do? To what extent do they syncretise home and school learning patterns? How similar or different are they from past generations? The group’s primary school learning spans the last five years of the twentieth century, and is taking place at a time of immense change in school literacy tuition.2 The chapter concludes with a glimpse of Wahida, an 11-year-old in the same class as some of the children we met in Chapter 6. Like these children, Wahida entered school at the age of 5 speaking very little English. The way in which she now ‘teaches’ her younger sister highlights dramatically
how children can take hold of school learning and make it their own in ways that few teachers would dream possible.
