Chapter 12: Preschoolers' Developing Ownership of the Literate Register

The article, Preschoolers’ Developing Ownership of the Literate Register, by Beverly E. Cox, Zhihui Fang, and Beverly White Otto is a databased review that looks at how preschoolers develop the ability to code switch between oral and literate registers. Register is a technical term denoting a certain conventional pattern or configuration of language that corresponds to a variety of situations or contexts. Halliday (1978) equated register with “code switching.” Code Switching is the ability to switch between the language used in oral communication, often more lax, and that of literate (written) language, which uses more precise word choices. Within each register a person would want cohesive harmony, which is the intertwining and repetition of semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic cueing systems in a text.

An extensive research study had been done during the 1970s and early 1980s that was soundly criticized for its persistent view of cohesion as simple counts of specific devices (e.g., noun/pronoun pairs). This view, the critics argued, limited the studies’ explanatory power (Hasan, 1984; Mosenthal & Tierney, 1984). In addition, questions of ecological validity were raised because these studies often used specially written or very brief texts manipulating the cohesion devices to examine subjects’ interpretive expertise.

The previous study supported two hypotheses related to income and literacy development. First, it was predicted based on research with schoolchildren that if preschoolers can code switch to the cohesive options of literate register text when the situation requires it, that it would occur among those emergent readers which would more closely approximate that of conventional reading. Second, it was expected middle income would provide indicators of stronger preschool literacy and use of context-appropriate cohesive options.

The basis of the research centered on these four questions:
1. Do some preschool children independently, and in response to a verbally described change in context, modify their own oral monologue’s cohesive options appropriately to construct a literate register text for others to read?
2. If so, is such sophisticated control over oral/literate register options related to differences in economic factors (i.e., low or middle income) and/or differences in experience indicated by emergent reading performance?
3. What is the impact of other variables, naturally present within the sample: age, gender, or assumed, for example, differences in cognitive ability (i.e., being judged average or gifted)?
4. Are there qualitative differences in the children’s use of cohesive choices to develop literate register texts that align with their emergent reading ability?

The Present Study
· Examined preschoolers’ familiarity with cohesive harmony that differ by the context in which they are used.
· Brings new theoretical perspectives, design, and investigative tools to the study of cohesion and literacy.
· It merges sociolinguistic (e.g., Halliday, 1978, 1985a) and sociocognitive (e.g., Vygotsky, 1962, 1978) theory to address issues of ecological validity and past inadequacy of analytical tools.
· The study addresses the preschool age group that was generally ignored in the earlier work and how they use cohesive harmony through using children’s original texts, rather than specially written texts with experimental manipulations. Researchers also wanted to know how this brings both quantitative and qualitative indicators, grounded in linguistic theory, to bear on how cohesion is related to emergent literacy.

Theoretical Groundings for Research
Halliday believed language is a sociosemiotic system—a meaning-driven symbol system with its roots, evolution, and individual development in social interactions and functions.

Sample Information
-Forty-eight children (twenty-one 4-year-olds, twenty-seven 5-year-olds; 21 females, 27 males) from two preschool sites participated in the study. These sites were selected because if the same emergent reading categories existed at both sites and children within each category were very similar relative to cohesion knowledge.
- One site, a university, was middle income and had both a regular and a gifted program for children. All, with the exception of one African American child in the gifted program, came from homes that were European American in background. Overall, 20 children participated in the study.
o Twelve of the children (four 4-year-olds and eight 5-year-olds) attended the university’s regular preschool; gender was equally distributed within each age group.
o Eight other children attended a special preschool program at the same university for children identified as gifted.
-The other site, operated by the county, served primarily low-income families (70%). Overall, 28 children from this program were also participants in the study.
o Fifteen were 4-year-olds, 9 were males and 6 were females.
o Thirteen were 5-year-olds, 8 were males and 5 were females.
o 24 were European American; 3 were African American, and 1 was Hispanic.
-At all sites: the children were native speakers of English and knew how to handle storybooks and had literacy-related experiences at home as well as in the preschool.

Results
-Middle-income children used more literate register cohesive harmony and fewer noncohesive options than did low-income children in their literate register texts.
- Statistical significance showed the children from middle-income families or whose emergent storybook reading more accurately resemble conventional reading and use more appropriate cohesive choices and less inappropriate ones for the literate register text than did the others.
- Those who did use fewer contextually appropriate and more inappropriate cohesive options at a statistically significant level were children from low-income families and whose emergent storybook reading was less like conventional reading.
- Emergent reading data shows a relationship between the written-like category and an application level of familiarity with literate register cohesion holds despite other factors (e.g. income, cognitive and aptitude).
- Insignificant findings for the oral register text’s cohesive and noncohesive harmony indices, regardless of independent variables (i.e., income, age, gender, emergent reading category, or judged cognitive aptitude); this suggests all the children in this study were roughly equivalent in their use of cohesion to produce a readily interpretable face-to-face oral monologue.
- Familiarity and experience with various registers affects their use and therefore, it can be presumed preschoolers are lacking in the successful use of registers.
- With this assumption, if the literate register texts’ cohesive harmony indices were statistically significantly lower than the oral ones, it would suggest the children were not able to make the cohesive and wording choice adaptations needed to code switch. In contrast, if the literate register texts attained a similar level of cohesion to the oral ones, it would indicate some degree of successful code switching.
- The children as a group did not make their dictated literate register texts as cohesive as their oral versions.

This study is relevant to me since I work with Kindergarten students. This helps me to know the development that takes place in the preschool years. Since I work with mostly middle to low income students, this study brings to light the differences and similarities that occur within these classes and if it truly does have an impact on their development. Also, as I work with students in higher grades, I can give instruction on proper use of these registers through use in my classroom.