Department of Psychology
Improving Preschoolers’ Literacy and Language Development Through Mother-Child Book Reading
Barbara S. Havlik & Catherine A. Haden Cognitive Development Society Meetings, 2001
Correspondence and requests may be emailed to bhavlik@luc.edu
• Over the past 10 years, the issue of literacy and illiteracy in America has become a significant concern in the areas of psychology, education, and public policy. In fact, current research indicates that problems with literacy surface before formal schooling begins, with meaningful individual differences among children evident in the preschool years (Alexander & Entwisle,1988).
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• Consistent with Rogoff’s (1990) and Vygotsky’s (1978) views of cognitive development, literacy can be seen as a process in which adults initially take the lead and scaffold interactions with their children. • Several recent studies suggest that stylistic differences in the quantity and types of extratextual (beyond the text) comments adults make during book reading with children relate to various components of literacy (Haden et al., 1996; Reese & Cox, 1999; Whitehurst et al., 1988).
• This study is part of a larger effort to assess experimentally the benefits of maternal book reading style on preschoolers’ language and literacy development. The techniques targeted for training are represented in naturally-occurring book reading interactions that have been documented in previous research. These reading techniques emphasize the use of language to focus attention and increase understanding of story events.
• The study consists of a total of four visits including pretesting, intervention and, posttesting:
Time 1 Day 1 Pretest Begin Intervention Time 2 Day 42 7-Weeks Posttest Time 3 Day 132 3-Months Posttest Time 4 Day 222 6-Months Posttest
• Adapting an experimental pretest-posttest methodology, 24 3-year-old children were pretested on vocabulary and story comprehension. • Maternal reading style was also assessed prior to the intervention.
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• The intervention phase involved a 6-week bookreading schedule during which all mothers read a total of 12 books with their children that we had provided. The key manipulation concerned the instructions mothers received about how to conduct these sessions. Half of the mothers received no instruction other than to read the books as they naturally would. In contrast, prior to the intervention phase, the “training” group mothers participated in a session in which three general strategies were defined and discussed. • Training mothers also received specially-prepared comments accompanying each book. These comments were to be made during the reading of the books and reflected the the reading techniques that had been trained.
1. Open-Ended Questions - to invite the child’s participation during story reading. Example: “uhoh, what's going on?” 2. Associations - to link story events to the child’s prior knowledge and experience. Example: “Look, they’re going on a boat ride, just like we did.” 3. Predictions/Inferences - to emphasize feelings, desires and what might happen next in the story. Example: “How do you think the bear feels?”
Table 1. Time 1 Descriptive Statistics
Variables Parental Variables Home Literacy Environment (HLE) Maternal Education (# of years) Maternal Reading Style (total comments) Open Ended Questions Predictions/Inferences Associative Comments Child Variables Age Receptive Vocabulary Expressive Vocabulary Story Comprehension 44.17 40.50 37.63 2.52 1.59 3.45 5.36 1.32 40.73 34.00 29.00 0 47.47 46.00 47.00 5 M SD Minimum Maximum
13.33 16.71 11.78
2.14 1.78 9.15
9.00 13.00 0
17.00 20.00 28.00
1.74 2.00 .96
3.06 2.78 1.49
0 0 0
13 10 5
Figure 1. Mean Frequency of Total Target Extratextual Comments.
35 30 25 20 15 10 5 0 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Time 1 = Pretest Time 2 = 7-Weeks Posttest Time 3 = 3 Months Posttest
Experimental Control
Figure 2. Mean Frequency of Open Ended, Predictive/ Inference and Associative Comments
Open Ended Questions
12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Experimental Control
Predictions and Inferences
12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Experimental Control
Associations
12 10 8 6 4 2 0 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Experimental Control
Time 1 = Pretest Time 2 = 7-Weeks Posttest Time 3 = 3 Months Posttest Note: N = 23
Figure 3. Children’s Language and Literacy Skills
Expressive Vocabulary
42 41 40 39 38 37 36 35 34 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3 44 43 42 41 40 39 38 37 36 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Receptive Vocabulary
Experimental Control
Experimental Control
Story Comprehension
5 4 3 2 1 0 Time 1 Time 2 Time 3
Experimental Control
Time 1 = Pretest Time 2 = 7-Weeks Posttest Time 3 = 3 Months Posttest
• As shown in Figure 1, repeated measures analyses on the frequency of extratextual comments reveal that the experimental group increased their use of the target comments across all three time points significantly more than the control group, F (2, 42) = 11.62, p < .01. • Specifically, as displayed in Figure 2, mothers in the experimental group increased their use of all three techniques from time 1 to time 2. In addition, from time 2 to time 3, open-ended comments and associative comments continued to increase while predictions/inferences decreased, suggesting that this technique may be more difficult to maintain.
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• Inspection of Figure 3 reveals that when assessing children’s vocabulary and story comprehension skills, the children whose mothers were trained on the specific strategies were not significantly different from children whose mothers did not receive the intervention.
• The results presented here suggest that the training techniques were indeed successful. Mothers who experienced the training increased their use of openended questions, predictions/inferences and associative comments relative to baseline assessments, and to control mothers. • Although there were no obvious influences of mothers’ reading style for children’s language and literacy skills over time, a fourth time point (6-months after the training) may reveal such an effect. Indeed, it may be that the benefits of a change in mother’s reading style become apparent only after a long period of time. • Based on the magnitude of these effects, positive results might have practical implications for accelerating the development of narrative and language skills.