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were both sophisticated and varied. The paper argues, therefore, that
these two qualities of picturebooks – the peritextual features and the
page turns – are important for the purpose of inviting active and engaged
participation on the part of readers, thus contributing both to readers’
enjoyment and to their understanding/interpretation of the picturebook.
Study #1
Children Use Peritextual Features in Their Meaning-Making
Literary critic Gérard Genette (1987/1997) uses the term «paratext» to
refer to these surrounding elements as well as related elements external
to the book itself, such as interviews with the author and promotional
materials. In his discussion of paratexts, Genette distinguishes between
features included within the book (the «peritext») and outside of the book
(the «epitext»), and it is the peritext – what appears within the book itself
– that is the focus of the present study. In picturebooks, as in other literary
works, peritexts are important because they act as liminal spaces
(Turner 1969) or thresholds (Genette, 1987/1997), mediating the reader’s
transition from outside to inside the story world. Genette further observes
that, «More than a boundary or a sealed border, the paratext is, rather, a
threshold, or – a word Borges used apropos of a preface – a “vestibule” that
offers the world at large the possibility of either stepping inside or turning
back» (pp.1-2). Derrida (1981) suggests that because of the peritext,
«the text is no longer the snug airtight inside of an interiority or an identity-to-itself»
(p. 35). As a «space between», the peritext is uniquely placed
to draw attention to the materiality of the book and to provide a playful
arena for the production of textual meaning (Higonnet, 1990), as well as
presenting a rich orienting experience to the reader. While all books
include some of these features, such as covers and a title page, in picturebooks
all peritextual features are especially planned and designed so that
there is an aesthetic coherence to the entire book (Higonnet, 1990). Thus,
close examination of all of these intentionally designed features would
seem to play an important role in reading picturebooks with students.
Though Nikolajeva & Scott have devoted an entire chapter to this issue in
their book How Picturebooks Work, few other theorists have undertaken
extensive work. Still less research has considered the responses of children,
though some researchers, such as Arizpe & Styles (2003) and
Pantaleo (2003) have explored this issue.
RESEARCH QUESTION AND METHOD
The research question for this study was: In what ways do young children
(age 4-7 years) respond orally to the peritextual features of picture storybooks
before the story begins, in the context of whole class and small
group readalouds? Data consisted of a sample of 23 transcripts of both
small and large group readaloud discussions from two classrooms, drawn
from 63 total transcripts from two studies of the literary responses of
children (Sipe 2000; Sipe & Daley 2005). Criteria for selection of the sample
consisted of the following: (1) since both studies lasted for the full
school year, we skewed our selection to include more transcripts from the
last half of the academic year, on the assumption that children would
have become more familiar with the routines of readaloud response and
would therefore demonstrate a wider repertoire of response to peritextual
features; (2) we ensured that there was balance, variety, and cultural
relevance in the genres of the texts read aloud, including traditional literature,
fantasy, and contemporary realistic fiction; (3) we balanced the
sample from the Sipe (2000) study to include roughly equal numbers of
small-group and whole-class discussions; and (4) we ensured that the
total number of student conversational turns in the samples from the
two classrooms was roughly equal (1677 turns from the first study and
1670 turns from the second), so that our results would not favor one
study over the other.
The first classroom (Sipe 2000) was a combined first and second grade (6
and 7 year-olds) in a public school located in a working-class area of a
large midwestern city, and which had a long history of using children’s
literature to teach reading. The classroom teacher, a European American,
had taught for six years and conducted twice-daily readalouds with the
whole group of 27 children (23 European American, 3 African American,
1 Native American; 15 boys and 12 girls). Data from this classroom included
transcripts of 5 whole group readalouds (conducted by the teacher)
and 7 small group readalouds with 5 students (conducted by Sipe). The
second site (Sipe & Daley 2005) was a kindergarten classroom (4 and 5
year-olds) in a large northeastern urban public school district. The classroom
teacher, a European American, had taught for ten years and also
read books aloud twice each day. Student enrollment varied between 20
and 25 students over the course of the year; all students were African
American and there was a roughly equal number of boys and girls at all
times. Data from this classroom consisted of 11 transcribed whole class
readalouds. Both classrooms were rich literacy environments, each with
over 500 books readily available to the children in reading areas within
the classrooms. In both classrooms, readalouds were conducted interactively
(Barrentine 1996), with multiple opportunities for children to voice
their thoughts and interpretations; as well, both teachers devoted extensive
discussion to peritextual features of the picturebooks before beginning
to read the story.
Analysis proceeded in several stages. A first pass through the data divided
each readaloud transcript into two parts: the initial portion of each
readaloud discussion, where the teacher and children discussed the peri-
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