ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that adopting an alternative way of seeing the world can challenge the dominant authority of developmental psychology, potentially revealing other ways of seeing children. It offers different ways of working with, and understanding how, children's early language and literacy may be encouraged and enhanced. The chapter describes how practitioners and students engage with mainstream and alternative theories of child development using the acquisition of early reading skills and using synthetic phonics as a platform to analyse practice and regulatory guidance. It explores how implicit cultural exclusion may result from the delivery of a singular approach to language, accent and dialect. The chapter also explores the relationship between early years training, the Early Years Foundation Stage, the National Curriculum and dominant child development theory. It offers practical approaches that enable children to access and engage with the printed text without loss of identity or cultural inheritance.
