Family literacies during the COVID-19 lockdown: Semiotic assemblages and meaning making at home

When home became the primary place for children's learning during the COVID-19 lockdown, a dominant rhetoric emerged about a literacy-skills crisis, especially involving learners from low-income and cultur-ally and linguistically diverse families. By documenting the literacies practiced and the literacy-learning opportunities created in and among households during the lockdown in the spring and summer of 2020, this study turns this deficit-oriented rhetoric on its head. Conducted by parents with their children (aged 2-15), this collective biography found that during the lockdown households were forced into spaces that were physically constrained yet replete with a wide range of semiotic resources. Parents and children used these resources, which included multiple modes, media, and languages, to produce expansive litera-cies and literacy-learning opportunities. The present study offers suggestions about how to recognize and build on learners' linguistic, cultural, and semiotic repertoires in the creation of literacy curricula.(c) 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.