U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C. (2001-2004). Directed Research Projects.Title: Citizenship in the literate community: Research into low incidence disability, development, and inclusive early childhood programming.

U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D.C. (2005-2009). Research & Innovation to Improve Services and Results for Children with Disabilities Projects.Title: The early childhood literate community: Supporting citizenship for young children with significant disabilities.

Kliewer, C. & Raschke, D. (2002). Beyond the metaphor of merger: Confronting the moral quagmire of segregation in early childhood special education. Disability, Culture, & Education, 1, 41-62.

Kliewer, C. & Fitzgerald, L. M. (2001). Disability, schooling, and the artifacts of colonialism. Teachers College Record, 103, 450-470.

Kliewer, C. & Biklen, D. (2001). “School’s not really a place for reading”: A research synthesis of the literate lives of students with significant disabilities. Journal of the Association for Persons with Severe Disabilities [JASH], 26, 1-12.

Biklen, D. P. & Kliewer, C. (2006). Constructing competence: Autism, voice and the disordered body. International Journal of Inclusive Education, 10, 169-188.

Kliewer, C., Fitzgerald, L. M., Meyer-Mork, J., Hartman, P., English-Sand, P., & Raschke, D. (2004). Citizenship for all in the literate community: An ethnography of young children with significant disabilities in inclusive early childhood settings. Harvard Educational Review, 74, 373-403.

Kliewer, C. (2003). Literacy as cultural practice. Reading & Writing Quarterly, 19, 309-316.

Kliewer, C. (in press). The Four Currents of Literacy in the Inclusive Early Childhood Classroom: Supporting All Children’s Citizenship. TASH Connections.

Kliewer, C., & Biklen, D. (2007). Enacting literacy: Local understanding, significant disability, & a new frame for educational opportunity. Teachers College Record, 109, 2579-2600.

Kliewer, C., Biklen, D., Kasa-Hendrickson, C. (2006). Who may be literate? Disability and resistance to the cultural denial of competence. American Educational Research Journal, 43, 163-192.

Kliewer, C. (2008). Seeing all kids as readers: A new vision for literacy in the inclusive early childhood classroom. Baltimore: Brookes.

Local Understanding

Literacy is the construction of meaning through visually or tactually crafted signs that compose various forms of

text.

“A text is any coherent complex of signs…Even the study of art deals with texts.”

Mikhail Bakhtin (1986, 103)Speech Genres and Other Late Essays

The Literacy Flow

The child’s construction of signs and symbols:

Narrative is given literate shape through the young child’s active and purposeful construction of visual-tactile, pictorial, and textual signs and symbols. This construction occurs as: (a) Metaphoric-creative acts of narrative meaning-making and as (b) Social tools for building a connectedness and shared-meaning with those who make up the surrounding community.

Iowa Department of Education (2009-2014). Literacy, Language, & Communication for Students with Significant Developmental Disabilities: Reaching Potentials through Systemic & Sustainable Statewide Professional Development.

U. S. Department of Education (to be submitted February 24, 2009). Foundations for Learning Grants Program: Promotion of School Readiness through early Childhood Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Development.

Title: Merging Literacy & Cultural Affirmation: A Partnership Program for Socio-Emotional Development in Head Start Classrooms

U.S. Department of Education, Washington, D. C. (under review). Steppingstones of Technology Innovation for Children with Disabilities.

Title: The Inclusive Early Childhood Literate Community Integrated Narrative Development [IND] Software System: Supporting Early Literacy & Communication for All.

Center on Literacy, Language, & Disability Studies in Early Childhood

Education