Narratives and Critical Literacy in Health Websites for Children

This paper deals with the story-telling narratives that are created in edutainment websites that inform children about health and well-being, from a critical literacy approach. These story-telling narratives are employed by the website designers to capture the interest of children, to nurture empathy and to encourage participation. The research results are presented highlighting key points and relevant strategies for text interpretation by the children, considering: the critical literacy of children of different ages; observing the development of strategies for interpretation of meaning; and the strategies adopted to overcome semiotic confusion or possible misinterpretation that could hinder the aims of fostering equitable interconnections. This paper furthers understanding of the role story-telling plays in websites designed by adults to inform children and aids safe child autonomy and multiliteracy skills. This fosters communication ecology across generations and communities of practice. Better multimodal text construction that involves both adults and children, rather than just adults, can lead to greater child empowerment, participation and social action. Child metalanguage and child recognition of reading pathways in-line with their digital and critical literacy development is also analysed. Guidelines and best practices for greater child empowerment are also presented.