Whose Reality Matters? Children’s Ontologies, Theories of Mind, and Reading

Bibliographic Data

ID7202915
AuthorsDenise Dávila (0000-0003-4899-8036, The University of Texas at Austin, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume57
Issue2
Pages217-242
Publication date2025-04-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Reading Behavior (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-4111 • E-ISSN: 1554-8430
PublisherSAGE Publishing (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1177/1086296x251330836
OpenAlexW4409728718
LanguageEN
References cited47

There is a relationship between children's ability to formulate theories of mind (i.e., metacognitive hypotheses) about persons or characters in a text and their comprehension of the text. Nevertheless, few studies examine how young children engage their ontological background knowledge to formulate their theories-of-mind. Set in a public library of a new Latinx diasporic community of the U.S. southeast, this case study examines how, within the context of family literacy program, a group of emergent bilingual children (ages 4–8) employ their ontologies to interpret the mental states of persons in a target-text. Data sources include artifacts, audio-visual recordings, and a group exit interview. Qualitative content analysis methods were employed. The results recognize children's ontologies as relevant sources of background knowledge on which to scaffold their reading comprehension

Cognitive psychology · Epistemology · Linguistics · Mathematics education · Pedagogy · Reading (process · Sociology · Early Childhood Education and Development · Education and Critical Thinking Development · Educator Training and Historical Pedagogy · Philosophy · Psychology

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