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…

Making use of the methodological framework of conversation analysis, the present study aims to investigate story-based classroom discourse with young learners of English in an EFL context. The data were collected from a private IB school following the Primary Years Programme (PYP) curriculum. The participants were 24 young learners who were under…

With authentic English input and multimedia features, English storybook apps have the potential to be used as an effective learning tool for parent-child shared reading practice in families in English as a second or foreign language settings. This cost-effective educational technology may be particularly beneficial for those children from low…

The present study builds upon established best practices in narrative comprehension instruction by redesigning a story map, to retain the benefits of text structure instruction, while also facilitating students to reach deeper levels of character-based comprehension. Framed in reader response theory, dual coding theory, and developmental theories…

To achieve an effective Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), teachers should possess appropriate sustainability attitudes to transmit those values to their future students. In this article, a holistic educational intervention around the ecofeminist movement is described and its impact on the sustainability attitudes of 188 pre-service…

Comprehension of many types of texts involves constructing meaning from text and pictures. However, research examining how second language (L2) learners process text and pictures and the relationship with comprehension is scarce. Thus, while verbal input is often presented in written and auditory modes simultaneously (i.e., audio of text with…

Language and literacy skills are critical for academic success. Shared book reading is an evidence-based practice for improving a range of language and literacy skills in young children, including those with or at risk for learning disabilities. This article describes how teachers and speech-language pathologists (SLP) can collaborate to support…

The present study examines the perceptual, linguistic, and social cues that were associated with preschoolers' (4;11) growth in word-learning during shared book-reading and guided play activities. Small groups of three preschoolers (n = 30) and one adult were video-recorded during an intervention study in which new vocabulary words were explicitly…

There is some evidence that reading and spelling are complementary processes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the extent to which contextualized spelling (i.e., spelling activities within the context of reading instruction) is used to support reading in first-grade core reading programs. Analysis of 75 lessons across five programs…

The current study assessed the impact of parents' dialogical storybook reading on their children's receptive vocabulary and reading attitudes. Forty parents and their preschoolers participated in the study. Parents were randomly assigned to experimental or control groups. The experimental group received dialogical storybook reading training.…

Children use language structures as a basis for learning how to read. Therefore, literacy learning for young children must incorporate the child's personal use of oral language. It is their personal oral language that supports them as they attempt new concepts and become better readers. Because of the important role that oral language plays in a…

Family conversations about science-related topics, including those involving storybook reading, may set the stage for children's interest in science. We investigated how parents from two cultural backgrounds engaged in science talk while reading a science-related storybook with their preschool-aged daughters and sons. Consistent with our…

Home literacy practices reported by parents of preschool children with hearing loss were compared to those reported by parents of their peers with typical hearing. Parents completed a questionnaire from Boudreau, D. (2005. Use of a parent questionnaire in emergent and early literacy assessment of preschool children. Language, Speech, and Hearing…

Theories of multimedia learning suggest that learners can form better referential connections when verbal and visual materials are presented simultaneously. Furthermore, the addition of auditory input in reading-while-listening conditions benefits performance on a variety of linguistic tasks. However, little research has been conducted on the…

The ability to deduce implicit information about relations in a text (i.e., inferencing) is essential to understanding that text. Hence, there is increasing attention for supporting inferencing skills among children in early literacy programs including shared book reading interventions. This study investigated whether embedding scripted…