Forms of interaction in early literacy learning and its relationship with children's prior knowledge

The purpose of this paper is to explore the effect of prior knowledge on the different forms of interaction that children exhibit when learning to read and write. We analysed a corpora of interactions-collected through non-participant observation- of 26 children attending their third year of the second cycle of Preschool Education (5-6 years old) and the first year of Primary Education (6-7 years old) in the Spanish educational system. The results show that although children with varying levels of prior knowledge display different forms of interaction, these differences were not significant. However, interaction patterns differ significantly depending on the agents involved in the interactions and the schooling level. These results are interpreted in terms of the teaching practices of teachers who participated in the study. © 2012 Fundación Infancia y Aprendizaje.