One‐way Traffic? Connections between Literacy Practices at Home and in the Nursery

Abstract This article reports on a small‐scale study which examined the home literacy practices of a group of 3 and 4 year‐old children in a working‐class community in the north of England and explored how far these practices were reflected in the curriculum of the nursery the children attended. The data illustrate that there was a dissonance between out‐of‐school and schooled literacy practices and that there was more evidence of nursery literacy practices infiltrating the home than vice versa. Children's literacy practices in the home were focused on media and popular cultural texts and the article argues for greater recognition of these contemporary cultural practices in early years policy documentation and curriculum guidance.