The study examined the efficacy of an intervention designed to promote parents' and preschoolers' references to storybooks' plot and socio-cognitive themes during shared reading within a sample of 58 families from low-SES background. All parents were given four books, one new book weekly, and were instructed to read each book four times per week…

Storybooks are the most frequently chosen genre for read alouds in preschool classrooms. However, growing evidence suggests that genre may influence the quantity and quality of talk produced outside of the text. The current study compared twenty preschool teachers' extratextual talk across read-aloud sessions with a storybook and an information…

Participation in shared-reading experiences is associated with children's language and literacy outcomes, yet few standardized assessments of shared-reading quality exist. The purpose of this study was to describe the psychometric characteristics of the Systematic Assessment of Book Reading (SABR), an observational tool designed to characterize…

This study investigates the effects of rich explanation, baseline vocabulary, and home reading practices on English language learning (ELL) preschoolers' sophisticated vocabulary learning from storybook reading. Eighty typically developing preschoolers were pretested in L1 (Portuguese) and L2 (English) receptive vocabulary and were assigned to…

This study utilized a large sample of two-parent families from low-income rural communities to examine the contributions of father education and vocabulary, during picture book interactions with their infants at 6 months of age, to children's subsequent communication development at 15 months and expressive language development at 36 months. After…

Evidence strongly suggests that shared book reading at home and in preschool is important for young children's development of the foundational skills required for the eventual mastery of decoding and comprehension. Yet the nuances of how learning from book reading might vary across these contexts and with children's skills are not well understood.…

Most studies of parent-child bookreading have focused on mothers reading to their children. Though the role of fathers in children's lives is widely emphasized, we know almost nothing about father-child bookreading, particularly among low-income families. The present study was designed to examine how often low-income fathers report reading to…

Evaluated whether parents can affect their children's interest in shared reading. Found that after 1 week, children in the interest intervention group were more interested in shared reading than children in the attention-control group. After 4 weeks, intervention parents still reported increased child interest, although direct observations…

Examined effects of two types of storybook reading experiences on acquisition of vocabulary of 36 preschoolers behind chronological age in expressive vocabulary. Found that children in the dialogic-reading condition made significantly larger gains in vocabulary introduced in the books, as well as gains on a standardized expressive vocabulary test,…

Examined the effects of infant age on parent-infant interactions during picture-book reading. Subjects were 3 groups of parent-infant dyads with infants aged 9, 17, and 27 months. Found that parents reading to younger infants used more attention-recruiting verbalizations and more elaborations, compared with parents reading to older infants, who…

The impact of home-based reading practices on young children's literacy development was examined, considering the types of comments made while reading as well as the affective quality of the reading interaction. Phonological awareness, orientation toward print, and story comprehension were assessed. Findings emphasize the importance of the…

Examined the knowledge level of 20 preliterate kindergartners about information books at kindergarten entry and after three months during which time information books were read aloud almost daily. Found that pretend readings of unfamiliar wordless information books in September contained key features of information book language; December readings…

Examined intervention strategy designed to provide access to literacy materials and opportunities for parent-child storybook reading in three Head Start centers. Found that text type affected patterns of interaction and that parents' reading proficiency influenced conversational interactions, with different text types serving as scaffolds for…

A study was done extending work on children's literacy by relating quality of parent-child interactive exchange during book reading to assessments of infant-parent attachment security. Compared to secure mother-child pairs, insecure-avoidant pairs and insecure-resistant pairs were more inclined to encounter distraction and ambivalence on the part…

Examines adults' literacy-assisted behavior, roles, and role-taking during spontaneous play of three and four year olds in three literacy-based play settings. The descriptive observations point toward commonalities among adults' facilitation of literacy play, accepted play intervention techniques, and adult behavior in storybook reading contexts.…