This paper targets the multimodal character of children’s play and its potential for scaffolding second language development. We follow children who are newcomers to a Swedish preschool, and analyze their interactions. Play is, we argue, based on rules or tacit agreements between children, originating in the human capacity of imitation, and creates an opportunity to test out cultural patterns. Despite their limited language abilities, the children naturally engage in bodily play interactions where different objects are deployed. This can potentially underpin second language development, not least when a child or teacher with better Swedish language proficiency participates.

This paper examines how children explore the concept of spinning during a preschool project. It takes a cultural-historical approach, and analyzes how artifacts can be used in development of abstract concepts. In line with the pedagogical goals teachers employ these in learning activities during the project in line with their pedagogical goals. Children encounter the activities with different linguistic and perceptual means; there is, however, across the project a shift towards learning activities that promote verbal explanations. The interrelation of verbal and perceptual means, suggest ways in how children dynamically develop abstract concepts out of perceptual knowledge in activities with appropriate artifacts and teacher scaffolding.

While many children grow up in linguistically and symbolically diverse communities, it is still rare that they encounter an early educational experience adapted to the complexities of their everyday communicational reality. This paper takes an ecological and multimodal approach to a preschool’s book project in a multilingual community. The study examines the web of resources that emerges from activities, actors and their interrelations during the book project. It is shown how multimodal resources emerge when supported by active pedagogical community engagement, and how resources underpinning early childhood literacy cross linguistic and modal boundaries. The paper uses a multimodal interaction analysis to show how the socioecological resources emerging during the project come together in multimodal interaction. Pedagogical potentials building on multimodal resources involving the wider ecology of actors in linguistically complex settings are discussed. 

This article examines how the environment and routines within preschools can support second language use and development. It suggests that certain imitable aspects common to Swedish preschools make the environment suitable for L2 use and development. Data build on a qualitative synthesis of two studies from which typical routine activities where children with Swedish as L2 participate are analyzed. It is suggested that properties of the preschool routine activities follow certain interactional patterns and build on imitable cultural scripts that can aid L2 use through embodied participation or nonverbal and verbal interaction. The settings are as such suitable for child participation and can afford L2 development. In children’s play, the same cultural patterns and forms of language are used, making them an extension of some routine activities and an important arena to practice cultural knowledge with the developing L2.

This paper explores how preschools can be purposefully designed to aid cultural learning through guided play practices. In recent literature, there has been a renowned interest in the role of the exogenous environment in psychological processes, including learning. The idea that the design of preschools can meaningfully be seen as cultural niche construction and that guided play practices in these environments can aid the preparation for cultural action is promoted, and a theoretical framework is presented. The empirical data draw from a synthesis from three ethnographic research sites in multilingual communities, and data are used to explore how cultural affordances are used in designed environments as part of guided play practices. The results indicate how niche construction of affordances aid cultural learning and is achieved through both direct guided play interaction between teachers and children and also in the way of the indirect design of environments that is incorporated in children’s peer play. It is discussed what this means for play research as well as for guided play practices that aim to promote cultural learning.

There is a renewed scientific interest in the role of childhood in human evolution, pointing to the explorative phase of a human's life history that shapes how children learn and develop. This study presents a synthesis from evolutionary sciences that considers biases in childhood learning through activities in play, exploration, and social interactions. The study argues that childhood education based on this framework diverges from formal education. This framework explains why common misconceptions about childhood learning arise and how to resolve them. Finally, we propose how childhood education can be changed to take advantage of biological biases in learning. 

This paper studies the scaffolding of conceptual development for children aged 4–5 years old during a science project at a Swedish preschool. It specifically examines how bodily knowledge and language are used in interaction, and how conceptual knowledge can be scaffolded with the use of external tools and artefacts. The science project was tracked for seven weeks and the analytical focus is on situations where a computer and a projected screen are used. The study shows how interactions afforded by the set-up provide a virtual-physical setting where teachers and children can interact using both language and bodily modes. As such, it provided an interactional space where teachers can scaffold children’s tactile understandings towards conceptual knowledge by building on the children’s prior experiences, and knowledge is cumulated over time during the project. This is accomplished by focusing attention on the topic and through the use of tools in interaction. Possible implications and uses for early childhood education are discussed in the light of these results.

This dissertation studies how second-language and conceptual development emerge through interactions in Swedish preschool environments. It studies how types of interaction, such as play, can scaffold children toward such developments.

The studies view interaction as multimodal and embodied and it is examined how children come to use and develop their second language or understanding of abstract concepts, through a range of communicative means other than language.

The data collection has been carried out in two separate periods. The first field-work followed two newcomer children developing a second language and the second field-work was conducted with a group of children during a project about spinning.

The results concerning second-language development show how children can engage in play activity even before they share a common language, and that this can be afforded by the character of play activity as based on rules and tacit understanding of relevant cultural patterns. Teachers also engage in so called guided play, that affords scaffolding for children. Play activities in the preschool function as an arena for children to interact, imitate the cultural rules and patterns around them and emergingly use their second language. Moreover, the preschools are structured for children’s participation through their cultural pattern and imitable structures, and that these affordances can be used by children in their play.

The results concerning conceptual development builds on the notion that children develop in relation with cultural tools and artefacts and that this is a highly perceptual and embodied process. It is exemplified how preschool’s provide environment and activities that can afford conceptual development, not least through use of digital tools, which also allows teachers to appropriate children’s play worlds to a pedagogical project. The teacher’s scaffolding interactions and use of the affordances of tools and the environment enable children to reason about the concepts in more conceptually conscious ways.

The overall conclusions of the thesis point to the importance of non-verbal and environmental resources in children’s development of a second language and abstract concepts. On these grounds, the thesis suggests a novel way to view scaffolding, by including the environmental affordances to this otherwise social process.

Many children grow up in multilingual communities characterised by linguistic heterogeneity and semiotic and cultural complexity. Translanguaging theory has provided a perspective attuned to communication and education in multilingual settings. However, translanguaging pedagogies have not yet had a broad uptake in early educational settings. The recent interest in embodiment within translanguaging studies and the study of touch combinedly provide a potential perspective for early childhood education. This study examines the role of touch in a multilingual preschool featuring 2-year-olds. The results point to two key functions for touch. One is that touch creates a shared experiential ground where languages can be learned. The other function is that touch allows children to sensorially explore and learn multicultural experiences from the diverse cultural and linguistic systems available. Based on the results, the role of touch in early childhood translanguaging is discussed as a way forward for translanguaging pedagogies for creating both equitable and diverse educational opportunities for children in multicultural and multilingual communities.

While interactive touchscreens are currently entering into educational practice, little is known about what this means for learning in early childhood and, in particular, how touchscreens shape action and communication. In this paper, we examine the interactions of 2-year-olds and their teachers in a multilingual preschool in Sweden. We analyse the communicative environment between the children, teachers and shared touchscreens and books in the context of reading. A mixed-methods analysis was used, taking a concept of action that includes both verbal, non-verbal utterances and digital touch. The analysis shows a reconfiguration to the interactional dynamic where children perform comparable amounts of actions in sessions with the touchscreen and book reading but less talk during the touchscreen sessions. However, while talking less, children display other types of communicative actions. We analyse the changing interactional dynamic that follows, its implications to learning and early childhood pedagogical practice and how interaction can be reconceptualised as cycles of communication and action in which educational scaffolding unfolds. Practitioner notes What is already known about this topic Touchscreens are a significant part of children's lives and educational curricula. There is considerable uncertainty on how touchscreens can be incorporated into early childhood education. Little is known about how educational social interaction changes with touchscreens such as iPads. What this paper adds A mixed methods multimodal analysis of the changing actions and dynamics of iPads as compared with bookreading. Children's patterns of communication change towards less talk and more bodily communication, while teachers’ actions remain somewhat similar. Touch actions change the dynamics of interaction, can alter the pedagogical situation and bring a reconceptualisation towards a cyclical and embodied view of interaction. Implications for practice and/or policy New patterns of action may require a recalibration of educational practices. Teachers need to attend to new sets of touch actions that children use to communicate and act with as displays of knowledge. The use of touch screens should be seen as complementary to established practices of language and literacy training (such as book reading) rather than replacing them.