Using Wordless Picture Books during Shared Reading Boost Language Production in Preschoolers (original) (raw)
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Wordless picture books boost preschoolers’ language production during shared reading
Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 2017
Prior research shows that shared book reading promotes preschoolers' language and literacy skills. However, little is known about the potential role of books' features-in particular, the role of using wordless picture books compared with books with text-in children's spontaneous language production and teachers' instructional support. In this study, we transcribed verbal interactions of thirteen Colombian teachers reading to groups of children (aged 43-55 months) during reading sessions in Spanish using a wordless picture book (condition 1) and a prototypical storybook with text (condition 2). Books were matched for page length, type and theme. Using Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN), we found that in the wordless-picture-book condition children produced significantly more word tokens, word types and utterances, and teachers showed higher levels of instructional support. Regression analyses revealed a significant association between children's language production and teachers' quality of feedback during literacy instruction, suggesting that wordless picture books may boost children's language by enhancing instructional support.
A novel corpus of naturalistic picture book reading with 2- to 3-year-old children
2023
Substantial literature suggests that reading to children is positively associated with language outcomes, but the causal pathways are less well understood. One possibility is that reading to children promotes language input that is particularly useful for some aspects of language learning. To better understand the language that is produced during picture book reading, we built a sharable corpus of caregiver-child interactions during book reading recorded in homes. Caregivers overwhelmingly read the book text. However, books varied in the language they generated, with some books promoting more conversational turns and extra-textual language, while others promoted more overall words, unique words, and longer utterances. Relative to other conversational contexts, books generally generated overall more words, more lexically diverse talk, and longer utterances. We see different profiles of language generated during book reading that are all plausibly linked with language skills. If a causal pathway exists between shared book reading and language outcomes, a sensible candidate may be that reading provides a varied range of linguistic experiences.
Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research
Purpose Research has indicated that interactive shared book reading can support a wide range of early language skills and that children who are read to regularly in the early years learn language faster, enter school with a larger vocabulary, and become more successful readers at school. Despite the large volume of research suggesting interactive shared reading is beneficial for language development, two fundamental issues remain outstanding: whether shared book reading interventions are equally effective (a) for children from all socioeconomic backgrounds and (b) for a range of language skills. Method To address these issues, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of two 6-week interactive shared reading interventions on a range of language skills in children across the socioeconomic spectrum. One hundred and fifty children aged between 2;6 and 3;0 (years;months) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a pause reading, a dialogic reading, o...
Picturebooks: an effective tool to encourage children's English L2 oral production
TEANGA, the Journal of the Irish Association for Applied Linguistics
The purpose of this research-to-practice paper is to delve deeper into the rich potential of picturebooks for eliciting children’s spontaneous speech production during face-to-face conversational interaction. Specifically, it analyses how children apply their existing communicative skills during exposure to the non-textual elements of picturebooks. This in turn enables to get wider understanding of how children learn and use English L2 at an early bilingual immersion school. The study examines the oral narrative production of Spanish-speaking English learners in an early bilingual immersion school. The analytical framework of the study is influenced by studies in the field of child language acquisition. The data are drawn from a 2.5 years longitudinal study of four children (aged 4-5 years at the first recording) from four different classrooms. The conversational interactions created by looking and talking about picturebook illustrations were audio-recorded and the utterances obtain...
Comparing the effects of different book reading techniques on young children’s language development
Reading and Writing, 2020
The purpose of this research study is to compare the effects of digital, dialogic and traditional reading on children's language development aged 48-66 months. Fiftysix randomly selected children enrolled in three different classrooms in a public preschool in Turkey participated in the study. The three classrooms were again randomly assigned as digital, dialogic and traditional reading groups. During the reading activities, a total of 24 storybooks were read by each group every three times in 8 weeks. While the children's language scores (the receptive and expressive language scores) resulted in a significant increase in dialogic reading, the children's language scores in a digital and traditional reading group slightly changed during the intervention. Alternatively, qualitative data suggested that the interaction between teacher and children and between children and children were very limited in a digital and traditional reading group and that limited interaction during reading was the underlying cause of the insignificant increase in children's language scores.
The Words Children Hear: Picture Books and the Statistics for Language Learning
Psychological science, 2015
Young children learn language from the speech they hear. Previous work suggests that greater statistical diversity of words and of linguistic contexts is associated with better language outcomes. One potential source of lexical diversity is the text of picture books that caregivers read aloud to children. Many parents begin reading to their children shortly after birth, so this is potentially an important source of linguistic input for many children. We constructed a corpus of 100 children's picture books and compared word type and token counts in that sample and a matched sample of child-directed speech. Overall, the picture books contained more unique word types than the child-directed speech. Further, individual picture books generally contained more unique word types than length-matched, child-directed conversations. The text of picture books may be an important source of vocabulary for young children, and these findings suggest a mechanism that underlies the language benefi...
How Reading Books Fosters Language Development around the World
Child Development Research, 2012
Research on literacy development is increasingly making clear the centrality of oral language to long-term literacy development, with longitudinal studies revealing the continuity between language ability in the preschool years and later reading. The language competencies that literacy builds upon begin to emerge as soon as children begin acquiring language; thus, the period between birth and age three also is important to later literacy. Book reading consistently has been found to have the power to create interactional contexts that nourish language development. Researchers, pediatricians, and librarians have taken notice of the potential for interventions designed to encourage parents to read with their children. This article reviews research on the connections between language and later reading, environmental factors associated with language learning, and interventions developed in varied countries for encouraging book use by parents of young children.
Journal of child language, 2024
This study investigated differences in adult-child language interactions when parents and their three-to-four-year old children engage in wordless book reading, text-and-picture book reading and a small-world toy play activity. Twenty-two parents recorded themselves completing each activity at home with their child. Parent input was compared across contexts, focusing on interactive and conceptual domains: use of open prompts, expansions or extensions of children's utterances, and use of decontextualised (abstract) language. Use of linguistic expansions was greater during book reading than toy play. Parents used open questions and added contingent conceptual information more often when reading wordless books than in both other conditions. Findings suggest that wordless books may combine the benefits of open-endedness and linguistic content based around a narrative. Parents' use of abstract language also varied by condition. This study extends understanding of the role of activity context in shaping children's language learning environments.
Journal of Educational Psychology, 2001
The effects of a book reading technique called interactive book reading on the language and literacy development of 4-year-olds from low-income families were evaluated. Teachers read books to children and reinforced the vocabulary in the books by presenting concrete objects that represented the words and by providing children with multiple opportunities to use the book-related words. The teachers also were trained to ask open-ended questions and to engage children in conversations about the book and activities. This provided children with opportunities to use language and learn vocabulary in a meaningful context. Children who were in the interactive book reading intervention group scored significantly better than children in the comparison group on Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III and other measures of receptive and expressive language. Book reading and related activities can promote the development of language and literacy skills in young children.