A recent shift in how educators conceive of literacy and meaning making includes a recognition of the importance of all communicative modes and the impact of different environments on children's learning. This paper describes how a forest environment located on the property of an elementary school in Canada provided kindergarten children multiple affordances in relation to their meaning making and literacy development.
The elementary school where this research was conducted is located in a forested area in a large city in British Columbia, Canada. Fifteen culturally and linguistically diverse kindergarten children participated in the study. They spent half days in the forested area of their schoolyard with their teacher. While the teacher engaged the students in integrated learning activities addressing different areas of the curriculum (language arts, social studies, science and physical education), she also gave the students time to freely explore the forest and engage in child-initiated play.
Over a period of eight months, the researcher interacted with the children in the classroom and outdoors every other week. During this time, she also collected data for this study by making anecdotal notes, recording informal conversations, and conducting two semi-structured interviews with each child – one in February and one in May. During the interviews, the children were invited to share their valued school experiences in multimodal ways (photography, painting, drawing, etc.).
The children used different modalities to express their experiences and interests at school. Thirteen of the fifteen children indicated that the time they spent outside was the most significant part of their school day. The children's representations revealed that they viewed themselves as social beings who engaged in a range of meaning making activities. Their representations also indicated that they valued their interactions with their peers and the natural outdoor environment and that they could create meaning with each other in socially constructed, collaborative ways.
This research shows how natural, outdoor environments can provide children with a wide range of learning opportunities. It also supports the use of alternative learning spaces, such as forest environments, to promote children's literacy learning and development.
Research Partner
Research Category