A Critical Analysis of Grade K Early Literacy Curriculum in Prince Edward Island

Abstract

Literacy plays a vital role in the twenty-first century. Individuals need a variety of literacies to meet the demand of the ever-increasing complexity of literate environments (Hill, 2019) in the twenty-first century. These multiple literacies, or multiliteracies, empower people to live democratically through better consumption and creation of multimodal information (Albers et al., 2015; Kim, 2016). Therefore, integrating multiliteracies is indispensable to current literacy curriculums and practices (Christison & Murray, 2020). In the same vein, multiliteracies should be embedded in early literacy education. Literacy begins at a young age, in that children are attentive to print and make meaning of the text at an early age (Gillen & Hall, 2013). When immersed in various technologies, young children are agents that can actively create meanings (Christison & Murray, 2020).

Given the significance of multiliteracies in early childhood education, this paper focuses on analyzing Grade K Literacy Curriculum in Prince Edward Island (PEI). According to the PEI Literacy Alliance (2020), PEI is facing a literacy crisis and has been ranked as having one of the lowest literacy levels in Canada. In 2022 nearly 40% of grade K students did not meet the literacy curriculum standards (PEI Literacy Alliance, 2022). In response to this problem, the Department of Education in PEI, in collaboration with the Faculty of Education at the University of PEI, initiated a literacy intervention program for Grade K students in 2022. In July 2022, I was part of this project at its beginning stage.

This study inspects PEI Grade K Literacy Curriculum, a relevant and timely endeavor. I will first demonstrate the theoretical and conceptual framework of multiliteracies (i.e., digital literacy, multicultural literacy, critical literacy, and multimodal literacy) by reviewing pertinent literature. Then, I will introduce the features of the Grade K Literacy Curriculum in PEI. Next, I will present the evidence from the curriculum to demonstrate how it is being actualized. Specifically, this report shows that literacy in the curriculum is traditionally defined as reading and writing print text. The methodology and approaches that actualize the ideology of the curriculum generally aligns with its philosophy and objectives, and the curriculum reflects how multimodality is integrated. However, this curriculum lacks the specification of critical literacy and digital literacy, and multicultural elements are demonstrated in the curriculum objectives but not in methodologies and assessments. Finally, I will discuss the findings and offer recommendations.