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textual features of the picturebook before beginning the story text; and
the subsequent discussion of the story. A second examination of each
transcript identified the children’s conversational turns (Sinclair &
Coulthard 1975) about each separate element of the peritext (for example,
talk about the front cover or the title page). Third, these sections of
children’s talk were analyzed at the level of the conversational turn in
order to conceptually label the purposes and subjects of the discussion.
During a fourth pass through the data, the inductive conceptual labels
were then grouped into conceptual categories representing the major
points of the peritextual discussion, following the three stage model of
Strauss and Corbin (1990). A fifth stage involved the coding of the peritextual
discussion according to the final instantiation of the conceptual categories,
with the two authors coding independently. Interrater reliability
was 94%. Following this, with the assistance of a third coder (a doctoral
student), consensus was achieved about all discrepancies and disagreements.
This process resulted in slight adjustments to the conceptual category
system. Finally, tallies and percentages for each conceptual category
were computed, along with the percentage of peritextual talk (by children’s
conversational turns) for each story and for the data set as a whole.
The finalized list of conceptual categories constituted the ways in which
the children utilized the features of the peritext to make meaning before
the story was read, thus answering the research question.
RESULTS
Results suggest that discussion of peritextual elements before beginning
the reading of the story comprised about 21% of the total student turns
– 712 turns out of a total of 3347 turns – in the readaloud discussions,
suggesting that children, with their teacher’s encouragement, were highly
engaged in peritextual response. We found that there were nine main
ways in which children responded in the initial peritextual discussion:
(1) References to conventions of picturebook construction, production, and reading.
Children demonstrated their knowledge of picturebook conventions in a
number of ways. Perhaps most simply, they named or identified particular
peritextual features such as the dust jacket, front cover, endpapers,
title page, and dedication page. In this way, they were making use of the
metalanguage of picturebooks, enabling them to identify the parts of the
peritext with precision. This metalanguage had been taught to them by
their teachers, who said, for example, «here are the endpages» or «here is
the half-title page». Children also took note of any awards that the books
had won, discussing the significance of the silver or gold Caldecott
medallions appearing on the front cover. For example, in the peritextual
discussion of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Scieszka,
1992), Julie observed that the book «got a medal». Another child specified
that it was a «Caldecott», and the children elaborated on their understanding
of the award system:
Gordon: Caldecott Honor Book.
Charles: This is second best.
Teacher: Yes, this is silver.
Although the publishing information is not a prominent feature of the
picturebook peritext, the children took great delight in discovering the
book’s date of publication, comparing it to their own birth year. They
were fascinated to find out that most books published in the United
States seem to originate in New York City:
Jim: New York again! Most books must be publishing in New York. It looks
like when they’re makin’ books, most books are made in New York.
The dedication page often inspired talk about to whom a book was dedicated
and hypotheses about the possible reasons for this dedication (in
their own book-writing, children utilized this convention, dedicating
their home-made books to their friends and/or parents).
Finally, the children were accustomed to both the routines employed by
the teachers as they conducted readalouds and the commonly occurring
elements of the peritext. Because their teachers had established these
routines, they insisted that, for example, the teacher remove the dust
jacket of the book in order to see if the board cover duplicated the dust
jacket or was different. They also insisted on examining and speculating
about the endpapers, half-title and title pages, etc. They simply would not
allow teachers to take a brief look at the front cover and then begin reading
the story!
(2) Description.
Children described or labeled details of illustrations within the peritext.
Included here are responses that seem to answer simple «what» or «who»
questions. The title page of Christopher Coady’s (1991) Red Riding Hood
contains an oval vignette of a leafless tree silhouetted against a full
moon. Sean commented, «At first there’s some red strokes over the moon,
[pointing to the branches of the tree] and down here too [pointing to the
lower left edge of the vignette].»
(3) Interpretation and evaluation.
Description was often followed by interpretation. Included in this category
were responses that went beyond simple description and seemed to
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