How does “playing school,” an ordinary childhood pastime, shape children’s reading abilities, classroom identities, and relative social positioning? In an ethnographic study of literacy play in one kindergarten classroom, I discovered that young children regularly combined reading and play practices to make the meanings of texts more accessible and to take up empowered identity positions in child-ruled spaces. Two examples, excerpted from the data, illustrate how reading a book while playing the teacher transformed a classroom meeting area into a pretend school space where children could assume identities as readers and leaders
