Collaborative literacy activity in print-enriched play centers: Exploring the "zone" in same-age and multi-age groupings

This study describes the collaborative literacy activity that occurred in o ne teacher's sociodramatic play center in two situations: when she taught a multi-age (K-2) class and a year later when she taught a same-age kinderga rten. In each situation, 15 hours of free play were videotaped and a detail ed transcript was made of the action and dialogue that occurred. We analyze d the data to compare the collaborative literacy interactions that occurred in the play center under the two grouping arrangements and to test the ass umption that collaborative learning always flows from "experts" to "novices a basic tenet of the zone of proximal development. Our findings showed tha t the children in the multi-age group engaged in a larger amount and a broa der range of collaborative literacy activities than did the children in the same-age kindergarten. We also found the collaborative interactions that o ccurred in the play center were more complex than the zone of proximal deve lopment would lead one to believe. Many collaborative interactions in both groups were multi-directional in nature, with the "expert" and "novice" rol es not firmly set.