This study examines the types of interactions and early literacy development that occur when non-verbal 4-year-old children on the autism spectrum engage with family members in read-alouds using authentic children's literature. Findings indicate the importance of quality children's literature for read-alouds. A key implication of the study is that…

A common instructional practice in early childhood classrooms is the picturebook read aloud. The purpose of this investigation was to help preservice teachers learn to plan picturebook read alouds with the goal of helping children interpret the visual affordances of picturebooks, including visual elements (e.g., cclor, line) and peritextual…

This qualitative research study explored second graders' use of visual information to understand characters in picturebooks. Students participated in whole class read-alouds of three picturebooks. Immediately following each read-aloud, students were individually interviewed and invited to talk about the visual text in pre-selected illustrations.…

The literary element of character is critical to literary meaning-making, and in picturebooks images provide information important to understanding characters. This manuscript shares results of an investigation that explored the kinds of pictorial information young children use to gain insights into the characters and provide practical ways…

Argues that when a parent or teacher reads the same story to children several times, they begin to attend to different aspects of the story than they did on the first reading. Discusses four changes in children's responses that occur with repeated readings. (FL)

A survey of 14 leading language arts, children's literature, and reading methods books, as well as professional journal articles and other notable books on reading to children, yielded a total of eight recommendations made by more than half of the authors, including the following: (1) prepare by previewing the book, (2) read with expression, (3)…

Reports on the observation of a group of kindergartners in their classroom library twice a week for eight weeks to learn more about how the nature of the texts--familiarity, predictability, and size--influence the children's use of books. (NH)