Using literacy for a range of purposes

All texts and media, consciously and unconsciously, represent ideas, perspectives, and world views. Exploring diverse perspectives supports mokopuna to develop metacognitive and metalinguistic skills – skills that help them to create, make meaning and ask questions of different texts and media.

Supporting mokopuna explore diverse perspectives helps them to be confident and capable contributors to society. It also enables them to become aware of, develop and express their own views about the positions that texts ask them to take, and consider the possibility of other positions. This supports mokopuna with their developing sense of agency and social conscience.

From the earliest ages, mokopuna possess meaning-making capabilities. Research by developmental psychologists and educators shows that young children are “highly activated” when they engage with texts and media (Aladé, 2023, p. 92). As they develop, mokopuna become increasingly capable of questioning meaning, seeing and developing alternative perspectives, and thinking critically.

In supporting mokopuna to explore diverse perspectives, kaiako can start with the strands of Te Whāriki. For example, one of the goals of the Mana whenua | Belonging strand highlights the importance of affirming and extending connecting links with the family and the wider world in the early learning environment and pedagogy.

Kaiako can give practical effect to this goal and the associated learning outcomes by ensuring all mokopuna have regular access to a range of texts that positively reflect them and their whānau. This includes paying attention to the interests of mokopuna and including texts that align with their passions and curiosities, as well as their identity, language, and culture.

An interest and pleasure in learning about the wider, unfamiliar world is part of the Mana whenua | Belonging strand. Kaiako can support mokopuna curiosity about diversity by ensuring the range of ‘texts’ in the service (for example, books, stories, images, videos, waiata, and related resources) reflect the diversity of people, places, and things in the centre and local community, and wider society.

An area that may interest mokopuna is exploring the different homes they live in. Where mokopuna live, who they live with, if they have pets and what they like to do at home are some of the things they may like to talk about. During storytelling mokopuna can share their own observations and experiences and come to appreciate there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ type of family and home. Mokopuna can transform and create alternative versions of stories, based on their home or family experience. They can also develop empathy and begin to understand that each child’s home and whānau is shaped by things like culture, different experiences and values.

Kim and Hachey (2021) suggest that a strategy of kaiako modelling and encouraging “counter-storytelling” helps mokopuna explore diverse perspectives, develop empathy, and an awareness of social justice, which provide a foundation for later critical literacy. As they put it, “It is important for teachers to value young children’s voices as storytellers and create a fluid and dynamic literacy atmosphere where young children explore their voice in exciting, intriguing, and multimodal ways” (p. 633).

Below are some strategies you can use to support mokopuna to explore diverse perspectives.

Model reflective strategies

Use strategies such as conversational reading with mokopuna where you together imagine, ask questions, wonder, predict outcomes, and relate a story to experiences together. A useful starting point can be kaiako sharing their own experiences or perspectives (as appropriate) and inviting children to share theirs (for example, ‘I don’t have any pets at home. How about you?’)

Model strategies for querying and checking the reliability of information

Culturally we are conditioned to assume that what is presented in a written text, online or in a video is authoritative. Often it isn’t ‘wrong,’ but there are other ideas, perspectives and experiences from the local community and wider society that can be brought to the understanding of texts. With digital media kaiako can wonder aloud with mokopuna about how we know if information presented in digital media is reliable. Kaiako can support mokopuna to look for corroborating information, and prompt mokopuna to ask if information could include other ideas, perspectives, and experiences.

Encourage discussion

Encourage mokopuna to express their own ideas and opinions about the various texts they engage with, including transforming and creating alternative versions.

Ask open-ended questions or ‘wonder’

Prompt mokopuna to think critically about the text and make predictions with ‘’wonderings such as, "I wonder why they [a character] made that choice?" or "What do you think will happen next?"

Connect Texts to real-world issues

Help mokopuna make connections between the texts they read and real-world issues and experiences. For example, after engaging with a text or video about nature, you can discuss with mokopuna how nature helps their wellbeing and the small things we can do to benefit the environment.