The ABCs of teaching alphabet knowledge: Affordances and challenges of 'weaving' visible and invisible pedagogies

Abstract

As researchers interested in the pursuit of high-quality/high-equity literacy learning outcomes, the authors focus on the learning experiences of five early years French students, with a special regard for those who are already considered as being at risk of educational failure. The authors narrow the empirical focus to a single lesson on a mechanical concept of print — that is, matching lower- and upper-case alphabet letters. In doing so, they examine a deeply philosophical question: Which pedagogical practices (dis)enable what sorts of early years students as literacy learners? They introduce the notion of ‘weaving’ knowledge across dimensions of knowing to describe how the case study teacher ‘weaves' visible and invisible pedagogies over the four movements of a lesson. The findings reveal that different pedagogical framings have potentially different cognitive and social effects that constitute different kinds of literacy knowledge and oppressive subject positions for at-risk students.