Caterpillars and Catalysts: A longitudinal Case Study of Writing Development in an Early Years Classroom Privileging Dramatic Pedagogies

Abstract

This thesis explores the impact on children’s development in a preparatory school classroom, when dramatic pedagogies were privileged in the teaching of writing. Using a qualitative case study approach, which included a selection of five illustrative cases, children’s progress from role-play to phonetic users of the alphabet was examined. Data included the artefacts produced by the children, reading records, a journal of the year, and the transcripts of videos made of teaching sessions. A self-study of the researcher as an emerging drama teacher was included in the multi-case study, alongside the literacy stories of Edward, Lucy, James and Martin, all of whom were four years old at the beginning of the school year. The pedagogy included guided drama and puppetry events in which new aspects of literacy understanding and skill were progressively inserted. These events were followed by dramatic play periods where the sets, props, costumes and literate tools were freely available for the children’s use. Children were explicitly taught alphabetic skills with a synthetic, phonetic approach, and were encouraged to employ these skills for authentic and meaningful purposes within the drama events and in subsequent dramatic play.