We examined intervention programs using an e-book with expansions for promoting story comprehension developed for this study. In program (a), teachers received coaching on how to support the children while activating the e-book with expansions aimed at supporting the story content; in program (b), the children worked independently with the e-book…

This study examined the effects of a classroom-focused intervention on different domains of early literacy. The intervention consisted of shared e-book reading combined with a print referencing technique done via a SMART board. The specific goal of the study was to examine whether children could be instructed simultaneously in print knowledge,…

In the context of the critical need to support children's early language development, teacher knowledge may enhance children's opportunities to build linguistic skills. In this study we explored how early childhood teachers' (n = 86) pedagogical content knowledge for language and vocabulary, and their book-reading implementation across the school…

Tender Shoots is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for parents aimed at improving preschool children's oral language skills relevant for later reading. Parents of 72 preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to either a Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition, a Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition, or an…

To relieve young children of a burden and to encourage informal literacy practices such as shared book reading, the Chinese Ministry of Education implemented an early education policy that forbids the teaching of formal literacy (e.g., Chinese character recognition and Pinyin) as well as more ambitious literacy teaching practices (e.g., Teaching…

Previous studies on discourse have employed a self-paced sentence-by-sentence paradigm to present text and record reading times. However, presenting discourse this way does not mirror real-world reading conditions; for example, this paradigm prevents regressions to earlier portions of the text. The purpose of the present study is to investigate…

The development of preschoolers' language skills is influenced by literacy environments and individual differences in storybook exposure. Extant research is limited as most studies (a) investigate the effects on lower level language (LLL; e.g., vocabulary, grammar), but not the effects on higher level language (HLL; e.g., comprehension monitoring,…

Emotional inferences are conclusions that a reader draws about the emotional state of a story's protagonist. In this study, we examined whether children and adults draw emotional inferences while reading short stories or listening to an aural presentation of short stories. We used an online method that assesses inferences during reading with a…

Several researchers have shown that children's ability to make inferences is related to their reading comprehension. The majority of research on this topic has been conducted on older children. However, given the recent focus on the importance of narrative comprehension in prereaders, the current study examined the relationship between inference…

This study examined differences between adults with low literacy skills and typically achieving children, who were matched on decoding ability, on their production of morphologically complex words (MC) in oral and written stories. In addition, we collected data on their morphological awareness, spelling, and vocabulary skills. Both adults and…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of digital and non-digital storybooks on low-income preschoolers' oral language comprehension. Employing a within-subject design on 38 four-year-olds from a Head Start program, we compared the effect of medium on preschoolers' target words and comprehension of stories. Four digital…

In this exploratory study we examine the value of exposure to the spelling and pronunciation of word forms when introducing the meanings of new and difficult vocabulary words. Kindergarten English learners were randomly assigned to one of two types of storybook reading delivered by tutors. Students in both treatments listened to short stories…

This study examined the impact of direct instruction and interactive instruction on immigrant kindergarten children's vocabulary learning during storybook reading. (In the present study the terms "immigrants" and "second language learners" are used alternatively meaning kindergarteners from immigrant families who are in the…

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…

The goal of the present intervention research was to test whether guided invented spelling would facilitate entry into reading for at-risk kindergarten children. The 56 participating children had poor phoneme awareness, and as such, were at risk of having difficulty acquiring reading skills. Children were randomly assigned to one of three training…