The article explored the impact of topic background knowledge (TBK) on children's language ability development and reading-related emotional factors. TBK refers to the foundational knowledge that children possess concerning a specific subject or topic. The content schemata theory suggests that a high level of TBK facilitates information processing…

Disasters, natural and human-made, occur within children's lives and often have traumatic effects on their well-being. Early childhood educators must be prepared to support children's social-emotional learning related to disasters. When teachers use quality picturebooks for interactive read-alouds, they can promote opportunities for children to…

The author compared preschool teachers' and students' responses to informational texts (nonfiction) as they read together in small groups. Drawing from reader response theory, similarities and differences were found in teachers' and students' reading behaviors. Teachers took a predominantly efferent stance toward the texts because the teachers'…

Current standards push for elementary students to have text-based and text-centric discussions of what they read. This study explored what bilingual third-grade students talked about during small-group text-based discussions of informational texts. The author conducted a qualitative analysis of 10 video-recorded discussions, five of books matched…

Purpose: Affect is central to the process of teaching and learning. The recent affective turn in literacy education has further underscored its critical potential as an act of resistance against dehumanizing forces that impact students' schooling and life experiences (Dutro, 2019; Leander and Ehret, 2019). This article, taking up the notion of…

This study explores how child and text clues were related to 31 kindergarteners' word-meaning derivation outcomes for 372 words presented in books read aloud to children. Data were analyzed using a multilevel, cross-classification, ordered logit model. Children showed no word-meaning derivation 40% of the time, indicating a need for instruction.…

While scholars have recognized the importance of page breaks in both the construction and comprehension of narrative within picture books, there has previously been limited research that focused directly on how children discuss and make sense of these spaces in the text. Yet, because of their nature as dramatic gaps in the narrative, page breaks…

This study examined how the interactive features of eBooks affect comprehension, the behaviors that participants engage in during the Read-to-Me and Read-and-Play reading modes, and the affordances and constraints of these reading modes. A repeated measures design was used to analyze the reading behaviors of 30 second grade, lower-level readers…

The current study examined the effect of pointing to the words and using highlighted text by examining eye movements when children in preschool, Grade 1 and 2 were read storybooks of two levels of difficulty. For all children, pointing to and highlighting the text was observed to increase the amount of time and number of fixations on the printed…

Due to changing demographics, our students are coming into schools with diverse life experiences, which do not always reflect the cultural reality of their schools. Given the research on the importance of using literature that is relevant to the students' background, this study sought to explore how first grade urban students connect to literature…

The Read Aloud strategy is uniquely suitable for the preschool classroom. On the peripheral, the Read Aloud is a natural, relaxed activity. With the increase of accountability and assessments in formal education (Meier, 2003), it has become more crucial for educators to prevent interruptions in the acquisition of emergent skills by preschoolers.…

This study examined interactions between preschool children and parents during shared book reading by analyzing parental self-report data. Using confirmatory factor analytic procedures and structural equation modeling, this study developed a scale measuring meaning-related and print-related reading interactions and examined their associations with…

This study uses data from the 2003 National Assessment of Adult Literacy to identify relationships between parents' demographic/socioeconomic backgrounds and their self-reported frequencies of engaging in early childhood education activities. It also examines race/ethnicity-related disparities in the frequency of reading to children and using…

Although scholars have long advocated the use of informational texts in the primary grades, gaps and inconsistencies in research have produced conflicting reports on how teachers used these texts in the primary curriculum, and how primary students dealt with them during instruction and on their own (e.g., Saul & Dieckman, 2005). Thus, to add…

Purpose: The frequency with which adults reference print when reading with preschool-age children is associated with growth in children's print knowledge (e.g., L.M. Justice & H.K. Ezell, 2000, 2002). This study examined whether prekindergarten (pre-K) teachers naturally reference print during classroom shared reading and if verbal print…