| This article develops Kress nd Van Leeuwen?s insight that material features combine with visual and linguistic features to convey meaning, showing how this is articularly true of the meaning-making practices of children. Taking examples rom a corpus of project work by children aged 8?11 years, we identify the sorts of material resources they were drawing on and categorize the examples according to the types of meaning they carry, linking this categorization to Halliday?s three macro- unctions of semiotic esources.We then provide examples of the ways in which physical characteristics provide traces of decision making processes in the construction of a meaningful message, and of importation nd adaptation of semiotic material from elsewhere. We end by suggesting that the ractices we have observed represent a fast-changing period in the development of technologies of literacy and hat awareness of the ateriality of children?s meaning making may contribute to an understanding of the ichness and complexity of literacy development. |