Early literacy education in rural communities: Situating development

This paper argues that literacy development is 'situated': it occurs in and through children's interactions in their local home, community and school settings. We draw on one of a linked set of early literacy research projects conducted around Australia from 2000 to 2002 with the assistance of an ARC Discovery Grant (1). The larger project focuses on the complexity of literacy development for diverse groups of children in preschools, schools and communities in five Australian research sites. The significance of the study relates to the problem that unequal access to rich preschool learning opportunities exacerbates wider social and educational inequalities. Working from theories of development and difference still new in mainstream school education, we have combined a range of theoretical and methodological tools to assist the production of a set of case-studies of literacy development. We aim to document what literacies are made available and taken up across the diversity of educational settings in which Australian children come to school. And we are arguing that situating literacy development in its place means that we rethinking many of the assumptions on which universal notions of literacy development--and developmental literacy curriculum--are based.