Teacher Inquiry in Literacy Workshops: Forging Relationships Through Reggio-inspired Practice

Teacher educator Judith T. Lysaker and her classroom teacher colleagues observed and documented their students’ talk, actions, ideas, and play in order to develop insights into young children’s literacy learning, improve their own instruction, and move the voices of children to the center of the curriculum. 

In classrooms infused with the child-centered approach practiced by the educators of Reggio Emilia, Italy, these teachers sought to make connections between the curricular construct of reading and writing workshops and their Reggio-inspired beliefs. Their narratives highlight issues of content, especially new understandings they developed about the importance of relationships, as well as issues of process, the ways in which they developed their ideas through the practice of teacher research. 

Each narrative chapter is followed by a “Research Conversation” that illustrates the ways in which teacher research becomes personally relevant classroom practice that connects teachers to children and children to their own growing knowledge. As these teachers pursue their individual research questions, they model the rich potential of teacher research: teacher empowerment, student empowerment, and supportive instruction that sees and encourages the possibilities in every child.

Louise Cadwell is co-founder of Cadwell Collaborative: Sustainability Education and School Design, a consulting firm that works with schools to design meaningful curriculum and vibrant learning communities. Louise was a fellow in Reggio Emilia, Italy, at the Diana and La Villetta schools in 1991–1992. She received her Ph.D. in 1996 from Union Institute, and she is an adjunct professor at Butler University and a Visiting Scholar at Lesley University. Louise is the author of Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: An Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education (1997) and Bringing Learning to Life: The Reggio Approach to Early Childhood Education (2002). Her work as a teacher and researcher has focused on children’s development through the arts and spoken and written language, particularly as children discover their place in the natural world.