Introduction

Given the increasing emphasis on early critical-literacy pedagogy, a growing number of studies have documented the significance of critical literacy as a medium for helping young readers read beyond the text and voice their ideas [1,2,3,4]. Literature-based instruction also enhances children's higher-level thinking skills and critical engagement with texts [5, 6]. Through incorporating literature in literacy instruction, early readers can develop not only cognitive and literacy skills but also emotional intelligence, creativity, and social skills [7]. During the last few decades, there have been volumes written about the value of children's literature as a basis for teaching children beyond simple literacy skills (e.g. [5, 7,8,9]. For example, [10] argued that children's literature serves as "the window of the world" (p.3), as it provides an avenue for children to explore creativity, culture, history, and traditions. Norton and Norton [7] supported this notion by arguing that children's literature enables children to learn about cultural diversity and human experiences by giving them a chance to explore different parts of the world. Yet, few previous attempts have been made to investigate how to incorporate children's literature effectively to enhance early critical literacy in preschool and kindergarten classrooms. In South Korea in particular, a critical-literacy practice is greatly lacking, because the Korean education system emphasizes the traditional teaching method of providing the correct answers in reading, instead of encouraging students to find their own interpretations [11]. Many early childhood teachers in the US also rarely incorporate a critical-literacy approach in their classrooms due to the influence of standards-based assessments [9]. Given this situation, there is a startling lack of knowledge about the implementation of literature-based critical literacy in early childhood classrooms to promote preschool or kindergarten-age children’s critical and creative thinking.

The current article explores how a critical-literacy practice can help young children critically engage in children's literature and shape their own voices. As part of a larger research project, this particular study focused on early critical-literacy curricula in two lower-grade classrooms in a metropolitan city in South Korea. Specifically, this study was guided by the following two research questions: (a) How do teachers use both critical literacy and children's literature to help children critically investigate texts and shape their own voice? (b) How do children create and recreate meaning through negotiation and social interaction during critical literacy activities? By investigating these questions, the study aims to provide insights into how teachers can incorporate critical literacy and children's literature in early childhood classrooms to enhance young children's engagement with texts and develop their critical perspectives in reading.

Theoretical Foundations

In an effort to investigate the intersections between young children’s development of critical literacy and their interactions with children's literature, the study drew from different disciplinary and theoretical foundations. First, the study adopted Freire's [11] notion of critical literacy to clarify the meaning of critical thinking. According to [12], reading involves a constant interplay between the words and world. Literacy, including children’s literature, is socially situated and influenced by conflicting discourses in accordance with ideological representations of reality [13]. The teaching of literacy is also not a neutral medium but a form of politics that embraces a particular ideology in decision-making [14]. Because literacy is constructed as a means and proof of power, readers need the ability to look at the meaning and purpose of written texts and question the values underneath, behind, and beyond them [4, 12]. As a pedagogical approach to help readers explore the power relations being communicated by the author, critical literacy helps readers question textbook ideologies and connections among words, social practices, representations, and power, and think beyond the text to form diverse perspectives [15]. Informed by critical literacy perspectives, this study defines early critical literacy as a process in which young readers explore the diverse perspectives of texts while challenging the dominant ideologies embedded therein.

Second, in order to understand the nature of children's interactions with literature and literacy activities within their social contexts, the study was influenced by a sociocultural theory, which highlights the importance of social interaction in learning. According to Luke [16], critical literacy subscribes to a sociocultural view of literacy in which learning is a situated act constructed within social, institutional, and rhetorical contexts. Literacy learning is a matter of sharing and negotiating, rather than being an abstract concept, because cognitive tools are internalized by learners to form mental constructs through the zone of proximal development [17]. Since literary responses are socially and culturally influenced, it is important to provide children with opportunities to develop their literary responses by sharing ideas through social interactions [18].

Also central to this study were reader-response theories, particularly Rosenblatt's [19] transactional theory. According to these theories, reading is a complex process involving the activities of selecting, revising, and organizing the substance of responses. During reading, readers "transact" with the verbal symbols in the written text by bringing their experiential reservoir, knowledge, feelings, and literary history. Reading involves a constant interplay between the reader and text, and thus meaning is socially constructed within internal and external social contexts [20]. Informed by these theoretical perspectives, the study sees the teaching of literacy as process and transformation, inextricably linked with the particular histories and social trajectories of individuals and groups, rather than as a set of autonomous and discrete skills. In a similar vein, young children are defined as active social participants who create and recreate meanings by interacting with other members of their communities.

Method

Setting and Participants

This study was conducted in two classrooms at a private childcare center in a metropolitan city in South Korea. Of the seven classrooms at the center, Ms. Park's kindergarten classroom and Ms. Ha’s preschool classroom (note: all names used in this study are pseudonyms) were considered for this study because of their expressed beliefs in the benefits of children's literature and critical literacy, and thus they were willing and enthusiastic about incorporating them into their regular language and literacy instruction. Although they had not received any kind of training relating to critical literacy, they stressed that their previous teaching experience had taught them the importance of encouraging children's critical attitudes in reading/writing. 12 children in Ms. Park’s class and 12 in Ms. Ha's class participated in this study with their assent and parental permission. All of the participating children came from similar cultural, linguistic, social, and economic backgrounds: all were of Korean ethnicity from middle- to upper-middle-class families. Table 1 exhibits the details of the participants.

Table 1 Descriptions of participants
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Focal Literacy Activities

Ms. Park and Ms. Ha incorporated "poem writing" and "alternative texts" respectively for early critical literacy activities. In these classrooms, the teachers read the children diverse children's books, including fairytales, fables, and multicultural children's literature during the read-aloud sessions, and discussed the stories as a whole group. After the discusThe current study was carriedsions, the children created either poems or alternative texts about the stories. The goal of these activities was to help the children to “talk back” [21] to the literature and develop their own ideas about what they read, rather than simply conforming to the author’s voice. All books were carefully examined and selected by the teachers according to their quality and the appropriateness of their content for young readers,and the reading sequence was decided according to the difficulty level. Taking into account the large volume of data obtained in the study and the limited size of this article, the study focused on three books; 그레이스는 놀라워 [Amazing Grace] [22], 핸리의 자유상자 [Henry's Freedom Box] [23], and 백설공주 [Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs] [24].


Ms. Park's class (kindergarten) During the semester, a total of eighteen children’s books were read in Ms. Park's classroom, including two fairytales, three Korean folktales, seven multicultural stories, three nonfiction books, and three picture books. When the children discussed the stories, Ms. Park encouraged the children to connect their own experiences and background knowledge with the texts, and helped broaden their thinking by asking open-ended questions that required critical thinking. She also encouraged positive social interactions among the children, including sharing diverse ideas, listening to others, and respecting different opinions. Then the teacher asked the children to write free-form poems connected to what they had discussed or to any related thoughts that came to their minds. When the children completed writing their poems, Ms. Park asked what they had written, and asked further questions to extend their thinking, or gave positive and encouraging comments on their poems. Then the children were encouraged to draw relevant pictures on the backgrounds of their poems. Later on, each of the poems was displayed in the classroom, on a bulletin board or on a wall for all to view and read. The poem-writing sessions usually lasted about 30–40 min, after 40–50 min of reading and discussing the books.


Ms. Ha's class (preschool) Ms. Ha also actively incorporated children's literature in her classroom to create a more supportive critical-literacy surrounding. Seventeen children's books, seven fairytales, two wordless picture books, five picture books, and three multicultural books were read during the observation period. Before the activity, the teacher frequently asked open-ended questions about the story, with the aim of prodding her students to think about alternative perspectives. She also encouraged them to share ideas and add details to their responses in order to help them understand the story more deeply. With the teacher's assistance, the children discussed alternative perspectives of the stories as a whole group, and created their own "alternative texts" through drawings that represented marginalized voices in the story. During this activity, the teacher often encouraged them to perceive the text in a different way and challenge the author’s message. She also helped them to connect prior experience with new knowledge, and create their own voices.

Research Design


Data Collection The current study was carried out as part of a large-scale research project on early critical-literacy education in South Korea. In this study, qualitative research methods [25,26,27] were adopted for four reasons: (a) to explore how critical-literacy practices affect the children’s development of critical and creative thinking; (b) to gain an in-depth understanding of the transformative journey of children using critical literacy; (c) to capture the complexity of the children’s writing process within their social and cultural surroundings; and (d) to evaluate the processes and effectiveness of critical-literacy practices through the participants’ frames and an insider’s point of view [27]. The data were collected over a five-month period, following the guidelines of the ethical standards of the committee on human experimentation responsible and the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, through multiple sources such as observations, in-depth interviews with the participants, and written materials.

The researchers visited the classroom once a week for approximately 90–100 min during the observation period. As participant observers, the researchers minimized their roles in the classroom in order to not hinder natural interactions between the children and teacher. The story readings and subsequent critical-literacy activities were video/audio recorded in each classroom. In order to include every subtle detail, field notes were also taken during each observation, focusing on the children’s responses, literary discussions, and interactions with their peers and teacher. Fifty-four field note specimens were created in each class using a variety of sources of information, including copies of the children’s written assignments, reflective memos, and handwritten observation notes. Materials such as copies of the children’s written texts and drawings were also collected and recorded during and after their creation to capture the complexity of the children’s negotiations and representations of their voices and stories. A total of 381 written texts were collected from the 24 participating children during the observation period.

Two semi-structured interviews [28] were conducted with the teachers, one at the beginning of the program and the other at the end. The first focused on the teachers’ teaching philosophy and experience and the goals of their critical literacy curricula. The second centered on the benefits and their concerns in implementing the activities in their classrooms. Parents were interviewed once, focusing on their efforts to teach critical perspectives in reading at home and their views on the critical literacy activity. Table 2 displays the interview protocols.

Table 2 Interview protocols
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All questions were created in advance, yet several follow-up questions were asked based on each participant’s answers. In order to ensure high-quality interviews, an interview protocol was designed following Patton [26] and Castillo-Montoya [29], and adapted by changing the language of the proposed questions from formal academic language to daily conversation style.


Data Analysis The data analysis was based on a thematic approach examining the essential elements of the phenomena in a three-step process. First, using Emerson et al. [30] preliminary coding methods, all data were transcribed immediately after each observation or interview. In the first stage, the data were pulled apart to determine patterns [26] by conducting line-by-line and whole-document analyses; and through this process, 137 initial codes were developed. In order to organize the large number of codes, in the second stage, the data were coded into meaningful segments. After the codes were identified through reiterative reading of the data, flexible categories were generated to integrate emergent themes into the initial categorization scheme. The goal of this stage was to find integrity across the data by unpacking the interconnectedness among the codes. Based on axial coding methods [31], the researchers employed 91 descriptive codes to sort the data into 43 categories, which were finally organized into 21 meaningful clusters, including racial/gender bias, diversity, resistance, family, and culture. Table 3 shows some examples of the descriptive codes and theme categories.

Table 3 Examples of descriptive codes
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Then the researchers grouped the data for each literacy activity, selecting certain events based on the research questions. After identifying the focal activities, the data were translated into English by a professional Korean translation service to increase the validity of the study.

The final stage involved triangulating the data sources to increase the internal validity of the data analysis and enhance reliability [32, 33]. In an effort to verify the data analysis and validate the consistency of the findings generated by the different data-collection methods, the study adopted the “member check” [33] and “triangulation” [26] methods. All of the coding of the data was reviewed by other professionals in the field of early childhood education to confirm the categories and gain additional insights about emerging themes. The researchers also shared the findings with other professionals, received feedback from them, and discussed their interpretations to avoid potential bias and validate the data analysis. Lastly, using the triangulation method, the researchers compared the different data sources, including the classroom observations and interviews, in order to check the consistency across oral and written responses, and reconfirm matches and mismatches in the data. Table 4 summarizes the processes of data collection and analysis.

Table 4 Data analysis process step
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Findings

The purpose of this investigation was to examine the viability of a literature-based early critical-literacy curriculum for creating a space where young children can examine texts critically and articulate their voices. In this study, children expressed their ideas about children's books through critical-literacy activities, where they also posed questions, shared opinions, and developed critical perspectives on the story. These children also had opportunities to challenge dominant or taken-for-granted interpretations and to voice their perspectives. The findings in this section discuss the children's critical engagement with the stories and recreation of them, focusing on four instructional episodes.


Exploring "my ability and potential." The critical literacy activities provided the children with valuable opportunities to explore who they are and what they can do. In Ms. Park's classroom, the children created "alternative texts" after reading 그레이스는 놀라워 [Amazing Grace] [22], a story about a Black girl named Grace who fulfilled her desire to perform Peter Pan in a play. As the book dealt with the issues of racial and gender stereotypes, such as why Peter Pan should always be a White boy, the children were able to ponder not only gender-based discrimination but also their own potential. The following excerpt from the discussion reveals the children's comments about their talents and abilities: (note: the conversation was spoken in Korean originally but translated into English by a third person. The accuracy of the translation was checked through official Korean Translation Services).

Teacher: Because we talked about why Grace was amazing, now, let's talk about why "you" are amazing and what you can do.

Bin: I can play soccer!

Minwoo: I can play baseball, because I am a big boy!

Soojin: Girls can play soccer too!

Teacher: Right, both girls and boys can play sports, because we can do everything. Gender is not important.

Sunny: Teacher, you know what? I am a girl but I wanna be a president!

Teacher: Oh, Sunny wants to be a president of Korea! Yes, you will be a great president for sure. If (we) try hard, everybody can be a president!

Sunny: I like to help people.

Soojin: (Raising a hand) I want to be a doctor and take care of sick people.

Teacher: Great! Yes, we can do everything regardless of gender or skin color, if we have a strong will to do it!

The teacher used the story of Amazing Grace to prompt and promote the children’s critical thinking and further develop their ideas about their own abilities. When Bin and Minwoo answered by pointing out their abilities based on their gender identity, the teacher did not attribute an ability to one gender over the other. Rather, she emphasized “we” as a human beings, and moved the discussion away from the gender debate. Through the literature-based conversation about what Grace did in the story, the children were able to link Grace’s story to their own lives. Such opportunity helped them understand that boys and girls have the same abilities as human beings, and that it is important to respect all people as equals.

The children's ability to understand gender equality was further refined through creating their own written texts after the reading. In these, the children expressed their own ideas about what they can do regardless of race or gender, what makes them special, and what they want to do. Examples of their writing reveal the children's perceptions of human equality and self-identity. The title of Soojin's text was "I can be everything." In her essay, she indicated that there are many things that she wanted to be in the future, such as "a magician who plays a magic trick," and "a nurse or doctor who takes care of sick people in Africa" (See Fig. 1) (note: all figures were included in a separate paper). Bin also wrote about what he liked and what he wanted to do, and expressed his desire to be a football player (See Fig. 2). Minwoo also expressed his inclination toward sports, indicating that he would like to be a famous baseball player, like Hyun-Jin Ryu (See Fig. 3). They seemed confident of achieving their dreams, as they believed that all humans have the capability of succeeding at what they want, regardless of gender, race, or physical differences. Through sharing their ideas and experiences, the children were able to revisit the story of Grace from their own perspectives, and this engagement helped them develop their own stories about dreams and human equality.

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Soojin's text

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Fig. 2
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Bin's text

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Minwoo's text

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Creating "my voice." The children's critical engagement with children's literature was also evident in their texts created after reading the book핸리의 자유상자 [Henry's Freedom Box] [23]. It told the story of a young slave boy who sought to gain his freedom by mailing himself in a wooden crate. While reading the book and having a conversation about it, the children shared their ideas about the story with their peers and teacher. The conversation provided the children with the chance to speculate about the atrocities of slavery and to develop their own emergent notions about freedom. The following sample shows how the teacher initiated a critical discussion about the meaning of freedom with the children:

Teacher: We know what freedom means and why it is important. Then, what kind of freedom do you have?

Jeon: To play!

Teacher: Yes, we have freedom to play.

Minwoo: To play baseball!

Teacher:Yes, we have freedom to "play" and "play baseball." What else?

Sunny: To play with my friends.

Teacher: Yes, we have freedom to play with friends.

Dongsoo: To eat Gal-bi. I love it!

Teacher: Yes, that is delicious. I like it too!

Sunny: I can go to market and buy the things I want.

Teacher: That's right. We have freedom to go to market. (To Sunny) So, what things do you want to buy at the market?

Sunny: Many things like… chocolate, strawberries, and…

Teacher: Yes, with freedom, you can buy them and eat them.

Junseo: I can do a hula hoop.

Teacher: Right! We have freedom to do a hula hoop. That is fun.

Junseo: Yep!

While having the conversation about the book, the teacher often attempted to provide an opportunity for the children to connect Henry’s story to their own lives and to their perception of freedom. In the excerpt above, when Dongsoo mentioned that he had freedom to eat a Korean food, Gal-bi, which is his favorite food, the teacher responded to Dongsoo’s answer by agreeing that she also liked Gal-bi. As the conversation progressed, Sunny and Junseo jumped into the conversation, and expressed their own freedoms without squelching the overall atmosphere of the conversation. As the teacher encouraged self-expression, the children were able to connect the notion of freedom to their own contexts, such as "playing baseball", "going to a market", and "doing a hula hoop." This process enabled the children to grasp a deeper understanding of why freedom is desirable in their lives. The children's critical exploration of the notion of freedom was often reflected in their drawings: In Jeon's text, he questioned and answered the meaning of freedom by bringing his own background knowledge and experiences. For him, freedom meant "playing whenever he wants" and "going to the zoo" (See Fig. 4). In Song's text, he expressed his desire to "live in the world that has more freedom." In his text he said, "I always wear the clothes my mom wants, but wish to wear what I want," and "I wish to play more " (See Fig. 5). Through writing, the children explored the meaning of freedom from their own contextualized perspective.

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Jeon's text

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Song's text

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Recreating the story as authors The critical literacy activity also worked effectively in Ms. Ha's preschool classroom, as it provided the children with a valuable opportunity to explore diverse perspectives and “talk back to the text” [21]. Ms. Ha helped the children to deconstruct the original story by having an in-depth conversation about what they had read. Her deliberate effort enabled the children to explore previously unheard voices, and playfully manipulate the story using their creativity and imaginations. For example, creating alternative texts about 백설공주 [Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs] [24] encouraged the children to analyze the story from multiple perspectives, and create a different "happy ending." In the original version, Snow White was rescued from her difficult situation by Prince Charming. However, critical examination offered the children the chance to explore the stereotypical gender representations in the story and recreate the ending. The following excerpt reveals how the children’s analytical conversation about the ending of the story assisted them in developing multiple perspectives:

Ms. Ha: So, who is happy at the end?

Sunny: Show White.

Jinwoo: The prince!

Ms. Ha: Right! They are happy because they got married! Then, what about the queen? Do you think she is happy too? Yes, Sunny.

Sunny: No. She is not happy.

Ms. Ha: She is not happy. So, how do you feel about her?

Sunny: She is poor. I wish everybody would be happy at the end.

Suna: (With an excited voice) The queen can say sorry to her.

Ms.Ha: That is a great idea! So, you mean that the queen says sorry to Snow White? Right?

Suna: Yes!

Hayoung: And the princess accepts it. Because she is kind.

Ms. Ha: Great! Yes, apologies can help the queen make up with the princess.

Yun: Then, they play together.

Hayoung: All together! Then, everybody is happy!

Ms. Ha: I love that idea! They play all together, and lived happily ever after. Right? That is a great new story!

By having an in-depth conversation with their peers and the teacher, the children were able to begin to reexamine the story, deconstructing the conventional happy ending of fairytales. Marriage is often depicted as an important component of “a happy ending” in fairytales, yet the children were able to reconstruct the ending by playfully manipulating the story. In the excerpt above, Sunny shared her wish for everyone in the story, including the queen, to be happy, and Suna suggested that apologies would be a great way to restore the broken relationship between the queen and the princess. With Sunny and Suna's comments, Hayoung developed their idea, and suggested "a different happy ending." Such exploration was also reflected in their written texts. For instance, in Suna's text, she indicated “the queen gave the princess a blue dress as a token of her apology” (See Fig. 6). Hayoung also focused on the theme of apology, and suggested the resolution of the unsettled relationship between the queen and Snow White; she said “The queen regretted the wicked things she did to the princess, so she brought apples to the princess’s cottage to express her apology, and they made apple jam together” (See Fig. 7). While the apple was used as a means of destroying the relationship between the queen and princess in the original story, here it was used to restore their broken relationship. These examples show that the children read the text critically and participated in a constant conversation with the author, reexamining the story as active readers, and exhibiting their own authorship. During an interview with the teacher, she also indicated how this activity helped her students to think more deeply about the reading and to explore diverse perspectives:

Fig. 6
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Suna's text

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Hayoung's text

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Ms. Ha: I believe that it is important to teach young children critical and creative thinking skills. Critical literacy is a powerful medium for supporting young children's learning. In my classroom, children's books and the critical-literacy activity really helped the students to think critically and creatively. People might think that critical literacy is for older students, but I think this kind of practice can be implemented in any classrooms because preschoolers are very capable of having critical conversations about books.

Interviews that were conducted with parents after the program also supported the potential benefit of an early critical-literacy practice enhanced by children's literature. The following two excerpts reveal such support:

Minwoo’s mother: I remember that Minwoo showed me his poem; it was something about freedom. As I read his poem, I was amazed because I didn't even expect him to know the word "freedom." I talked with him about his "freedom," and I really enjoyed having the conversation about it. He still uses the term a lot, especially when he wants to get permission to go outside to play.

Sunny’s mother: Sunny used to not ask questions when I read a book to her. But these days she asks critical questions during and after reading, and her questions make our reading time more enjoyable. I think that the (critical literacy) activity really helped her develop her critical-thinking skills.

In the interviews, the parents indicated that, after the program, their children started to express their ideas in more critical and creative ways. The parents also stressed that such positive changes provided them with the opportunity to think about how they could better help their children develop critical-thinking skills.

Discussion

The current study investigated how literature-based critical-literacy practices can be implemented in early childhood classrooms to promote children’s critical thinking and meaning-making of the texts. Our findings reveal that critical literacy in conjunction with reading children’s literature helped the children to explore their ideas, construct the meaning of the texts, and shape their own voices. In this study, the teachers decentered themselves and took the role of facilitator to help the students connect the literature to their own personal lives. Ms. Park, for example, initiated the discussion of Amazing Grace by encouraging her students to connect the story of Grace to their own experiences, and helped them think about why they are amazing. She had conversations with the children, ra´ther than telling them about the story from a superior position. With the teachers’ support, the students were able to have meaningful discussions of the texts with their peers, sharing their sophisticated literary responses. In this process, they could revisit the stories from different perspectives and create their own voices. This learning practice connects not only to a sociocultural theory of learning [17, 34] but also a transactional theory, which highlights the reader’s active role in constructing meaning out of the text during the reading process [19, 20, 35].

Also, the findings are aligned with results from previous studies that emphasized young learners’ capabilities in making meaning of texts and participating actively in literary discussions. Young children understand the dialogical principle of conversation, as they have a strong pragmatic competence, which refers to “knowledge of the structure of language, as well as knowledge of social conventions and conversational rules” [36], 51). They construct and refine the meaning of a text through an active meaning-making process [34]. The children in this study actively participated in the conversation and seemed to understand the dialogical principle of conversation. Sunny and Junseo, for example, showed their compliance with normal patterns of speech—waiting for the previous speaker to finish talking, focusing on the main topic, etc.—markers that they were aware of the social conventions and conversational rules. Such examples support the notion of high pragmatic competence, including conversational strategies [36].

The findings also reveal the pedagogical potential of critical literacy as a powerful tool for enhancing children’s creativity and authorship. In this study, the participating children were able to interact with literature critically and creatively, as they had a chance to revisit the stories through critical literacy. For instance, the "alternative texts" activity in Ms. Ha's class helped the children reexamine the story from different angles and develop their own ideas about what they read, rather than simply conforming to the author’s voice: Hayoung, in the third text example, suggested the idea of the queen using an apple to apologize, instead of following the ascribed meaning for the apple in the story. The results for the children's critical engagement with fairytales is aligned with those from previous studies that stress the role of critical literacy in enhancing students’ abilities to construct and express their ideas in early childhood classrooms (e.g. [2, 4]).

Implications

The current study validated the incorporation of early critical-literacy practices and children’s literature in early childhood curricula for enhancing young children’s critical engagement with texts. Since such inclusions are exceedingly rare, the findings of this study are valuable to both early childhood teachers and literacy educators. Yet, in making this claim, the researchers acknowledge some methodological limitations associated with the issues of subjectivity and generalizability. The data were collected from a small number of children from affluent families with college-educated parents, and thus the particular characteristics of the participants may not be able to applied to different socio-economic contexts. Also, the case investigated in this study was not representative of a wider body of early childhood classrooms in different countries. The methodological limitations call for robust research on early critical-literacy practices in different racial, ethnic, socio-economic, and cultural settings. Looking into early critical-literacy practices in other curricular areas, using different methodological approaches, is also recommended, to enhance our understanding of the literature-based critical-literacy practices.

In spite of these limitations, the study consolidates our understanding of the existing literature and further suggests some ideas and implications for teaching and designing early literacy lessons. First, we suggest literacy teachers implement children's literature in their literacy curricula, not only to teach literacy skills but also to promote preschool or kindergarten-age children’s critical and creative thinking. Although children’s literature can provide numerous benefits, it can also reinforce the hegemony of the society as manifested in power struggles, imbalanced power relationships, and the ascribed social ideologies in a given society [13, 37]. Thus, it is important that teachers provide young children with materials, experiences, and social support that encourage them to read texts critically. The implementation of a literature-based critical-literacy program in early childhood classrooms help children become active participants who learn to read and write, expand their creative ideas, and develop critical viewpoints. In order to enhance young children’s critical engagement with the literature, it is important that the teachers invite them to take the center position in the lesson, and offer them alternative landscapes within which to deconstruct the dominant discourse of the texts and create their own voices.

We also suggest that teachers include a multimodal pedagogical approach in their literacy lessons, such as verbal discussions, literature-response writing, and drawing. Young children use a variety of symbolic modes in their meaning making [35, 38]. Their flexibility in using different semiotic modes facilitates their social, emotional, and cognitive development, providing them with multiple avenues for producing and consuming texts [39]. Young children's critical-literacy abilities are developed not only by sharing ideas with others but also by reflecting on their own ideas and their peers’ through multiple activities [38]. Implementing multimodal critical-literacy lessons provides the environment for children’s exploration of the meaning of texts and development of critical viewpoints. Thus, it is crucial that teachers offer young children the chance to draw and write their creative ideas so they can revisit them. It is also vital to value young children’s voices as storytellers and to foster an environment in which the children are encouraged to read and write “against” texts through multimodal literacy activities.

Conclusion

This research is situated in critical-literacy, literature-based instruction in which children are viewed as active inventors [34] and social participators [40] in their literacy learning. We propose discussions and response writing as crucial components of literature-based instruction to enhance children’s own ideas and critical thinking about the text. Young children have the capacity to analyze story elements and create/recreate their current knowledge through personal connections [35]. Thus, it is vital that early childhood teachers create a supportive and inclusive atmosphere in which young children can make personal connections and listen to diverse voices. Literature-based critical-literacy pedagogy can offer early childhood teachers a rich context for early instruction by positioning preschoolers as capable critical-literacy thinkers. In order to meet the demands of 21st-century early literacy instruction, the development of critical and creative thinking skills should be a central focus [41]. To this end, teachers should help young children develop not only emerging skills in reading/writing but also the 21st-century skills of collaboration, communication, and creativity. Through well-planned early critical literacy programs, young children can express their unique experiences and perspectives in more active and intriguing ways.