Early childhood literacy education is being reshaped by the growing presence of digital media and artificial intelligence in the learning environments of young children. However, early literacy pedagogy often remains grounded in print-centric and school-readiness models that fail to account sufficiently for children’s multimodal, digitally mediated meaning-making practices. This study introduces a conceptual framework, rather than an empirical study, that reimagines early literacy for the 21st-century preschool classroom by integrating insights from early literacy research, digital literacies, and emerging scholarship on AI in education.
The framework synthesizes existing theoretical and empirical work into three interrelated domains: multimodal meaning-making, AI-mediated learning ecologies, and pedagogical intentionality. Multimodal meaning-making positions young children as active designers who draw on a range of resources, including visual, verbal, gestural, dramatic, spatial, tactile, and digital elements, to construct meaning within culturally situated contexts. AI-mediated learning ecologies conceptualize AI not merely as a tool, but as a sociomaterial actor that participates in literacy activity through adaptive storytelling, responsive feedback, and interactive digital environments, while simultaneously raising ethical, developmental, and equity-related considerations. Pedagogical intentionality foregrounds educators’ critical role in mediating these ecologies to ensure developmental appropriateness, cultural responsiveness, transparency, and data-ethical safeguards. By articulating the relationships among these domains, the framework offers a coherent theoretical lens for understanding how AI can be thoughtfully integrated into early literacy pedagogy without displacing relational, play-based, and culturally grounded practices.

Authors:
Vahide Yigit-Gencten, Emirates College for Advanced Education, United Arab Emirates

About the Presenter(s)
Dr Vahide Yigit-Gencten is currently working as an assistant professor at Emirates College for Advanced Education in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

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https://www.linkedin.com/in/vahide-yiğit-gençten-390a694a

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