ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses upon early moves in reading, where reading is understood to be making sense of the multimodal expressions of meaning that others present. This discussion of reading is situated against a short chronology of the pedagogical practices of teaching reading dating from the late 1600s to the present day. Reading as sense-making is then described through the presentation of different accounts in varied contexts with different texts of historical practices of teaching reading. Accounts are presented of young children’s reading of drawings and signs in natural contexts and the sonic, visual and graphic aspects of alphabet learning are considered. Reading of illustrated and unillustrated non-digital texts are presented alongside a discussion of the emerging literature on children reading on digital platforms and reading film. Finally, consideration is given to how children make sense of visual patterns in reading print, an area of particular emphasis in schooling.
