Chapter 6: Case Study Research: Identifying Challenges

The above vignette was used in a case study to capture contextual information and to show how an exemplary preschool teacher used storybook reading to communicate the importance of social acceptance and friendship. To develop the case study the researchers visited the preschool on one morning each week for 2 months. They observed, took field notes during each visit, met as a team to shared notes weekly, and conducted in-depth interviews with key stakeholders such as the other educators at the school. They coded interview transcripts and field notes and constructed detailed descriptions of the classroom and storybook reading. The case study report revealed that families in the community were experiencing poverty, mental health issues and dealing with family incarceration. The findings described the need for a more generative curriculum in preschool with more multicultural storybooks and more open-ended interpretive questioning about the storybooks. The case study also found that the teacher’s story book reading supported the children’s socioemotional needs as well as their academic literacy development.