The differential effect of storybook reading on preschoolers' acquisition of expressive and receptive vocabulary

The present study was conducted to assess the effect of didactic techniques used during storybook reading on young children's acquisition of new vocabulary introduced in storybooks. Thirty children for each group of three- and four-year-old children were read one storybook individually. The study included three storybook reading conditions: single-reading, repeated-reading and questioning. In both the repeated-reading and the questioning conditions, the storybook was read three times. Children in the questioning condition were asked, during each reading of the storybook, to label target items with the novel words. Listening to multiple readings of a storybook facilitated children's acquisition of expressive and receptive vocabulary, whereas answering questions during the multiple readings was more helpful to the acquisition of expressive than receptive vocabulary. These findings suggest that, under certain conditions, didactic techniques used by adults have differential effects on preschoolers' receptive and expressive vocabulary.     

Unlocking the door: Is parents' reading to children the key to early literacy development?

Parents are encouraged to read to their children, and they frequently engage in shared book reading on the belief that the experience will foster their children's literacy development. In this article, the authors draw on a body of published studies to argue that shared book reading often does not lead to the benefits expected of it. The studies show that during parent-child shared reading, the adults typically do not draw the children's attention to features of the print and the children most often will attend to the illustrations and not to the print. As a consequence, shared book reading often does not advance children's early literacy development. However, the authors point to research showing that when shared book reading is enriched with explicit attention to the development of children's reading skills and strategies, then shared book reading is an effective vehicle for promoting the early literacy ability even of disadvantaged children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's recall of television and print news: A media comparison study.

An experiment was conducted (a) to compare children's recall of news information presented either audiovisually or in print, and (b) to establish whether the relative effectiveness of both media in conveying the news is dependent on children's reading proficiency and expectation of a memory test. A sample of 152 4th and 6th graders was presented with a sequence of 5 children's news stories, either in their original televised form or in a printed version. In each condition, half of the children were led to expect a memory test, whereas the other children were not. The results of a cued-recall test indicated that children who had watched the news on television remembered more than those who had received the same news in print, regardless of their reading proficiency or expectation of a memory test. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

To read or not to read: A meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood.

This research synthesis examines whether the association between print exposure and components of reading grows stronger across development. We meta-analyzed 99 studies (N = 7,669) that focused on leisure time reading of (a) preschoolers and kindergartners, (b) children attending Grades 1–12, and (c) college and university students. For all measures in the outcome domains of reading comprehension and technical reading and spelling, moderate to strong correlations with print exposure were found. The outcomes support an upward spiral of causality: Children who are more proficient in comprehension and technical reading and spelling skills read more; because of more print exposure, their comprehension and technical reading and spelling skills improved more with each year of education. For example, in preschool and kindergarten print exposure explained 12% of the variance in oral language skills, in primary school 13%, in middle school 19%, in high school 30%, and in college and university 34%. Moderate associations of print exposure with academic achievement indicate that frequent readers are more successful students. Interestingly, poor readers also appear to benefit from independent leisure time reading. We conclude that shared book reading to preconventional readers may be part of a continuum of out-of-school reading experiences that facilitate children's language, reading, and spelling achievement throughout their development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Knowledge of storybooks as a predictor of young children's vocabulary.

Shared book reading provides a rich source of linguistic stimulation for young children. The authors examined whether variations in knowledge of storybooks (assumed to index factors such as frequency of shared reading) were related to vocabulary scores for 3–6 yr olds. In Exp 1, parents' knowledge of storybooks explained unique variance in children's receptive vocabulary scores after controlling for children's analytic intelligence, parents' exposure to adult reading material, and parents' education. In Exp 2, children's knowledge of storybooks explained unique variance in their receptive and expressive vocabulary scores after controlling for parents' exposure to print and socioeconomic status level. Children's knowledge of storybooks indexed cognitive factors as well as exposure. The findings obtained in the 2 experiments suggest that storybook experiences during the preschool years may be an important influence on the development of children's language skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Verbal encoding effects on the visual short-term memory of learning disabled and normal readers.

Investigated the hypothesis that reading difficulties of learning disabled children are attributable to deficiencies in verbal encoding. Adopting a probe-type serial memory task, 60 normal and learning disabled readers matched on CA (9 yrs old), IQ, and sex were compared on recall performance after pretraining of named and unnamed stimulus conditions. The named condition for normal readers was superior in terms of recall performance. Consistent with the findings of F. Vellutino et al (1972, 1973, 1975), no difference was found in recall of nonverbal stimuli between normal and learning disabled readers. These data suggest that primary reading deficits in learning disabled children are related to verbal encoding deficiencies (visual–verbal integration) and not to deficiencies of visual memory, as suggested by the perceptual deficit hypothesis. (19 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Age-related changes in verbal and nonverbal memory during early childhood.

In the present experiment, age-related changes in verbal and nonverbal memory performance by 2- to 4-year-old children were assessed. All children participated in the same unique event, and their memory of that event was assessed after a 24-hr delay. Overall, children's performance on each memory measure increased as a function of age. Furthermore, children's performance on both the verbal and nonverbal memory tests was related to their language ability; children with more advanced language skills reported more during the verbal interview and exhibited superior nonverbal memory relative to children with less advanced language skills. Finally, children's verbal recall of the event lagged behind both their nonverbal recall and their general verbal skill. It is hypothesized that despite large strides in language acquisition, preschool-age children continue to rely primarily on nonverbal representations of past events. The findings have important implications for the phenomenon of childhood amnesia. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Children's inferences with print and pictures.

The primary purpose of this study was to determine whether there is a difference in children's ability to answer inferential questions from pictures, print, and print with pictures. A secondary purpose was to determine whether there is a difference between more skilled and less skilled reader's ability to answer inferential questions in the different modes. The participants in the study were 116 fifth- and sixth-grade students. The materials consisted of 15 photographs and 15 passages of 150 to 200 words. Each student participated in each condition by answering 25 inferential questions. The results indicated that the students performed significantly better in the picture-only and the print-with-picture conditions than in the print-only condition. Although the more skilled readers scored significantly better than the less skilled readers in the print-only condition, there were no differences between the two ability groups in the two picture conditions. Qualitative analyses were also conducted on the students' responses for determining possible sources of errors. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Do early talkers become early readers? Linguistic precocity, preschool language, and emergent literacy.

25 children, selected for verbal precocity at 20 mo of age, participated in a longitudinal study investigating predictors of later language and literacy skills. Although children remained verbally precocious, there was a low incidence of precocious reading. Exposure to instruction in letter names and sounds was a significant predictor of children's knowledge of print conventions, invented spelling, and phonological awareness at age 4? yrs. Frequency of story reading in the home and child engagement in a story reading episode at age 24 mo were significant predictors of children's language ability at age 2? yrs and 4? yrs and knowledge of print conventions at age 4? yrs. It is concluded that story reading with parents as well as literacy instruction contributes to the development of emergent literacy in verbally precocious children. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Quality of book-reading matters for emergent readers: An experiment with the same book in a regular or electronic format.

An adult read to 12 children from a regular paper book. Twenty-four children explored an electronic book similar in illustrations and story content (also called CD-ROM storybook, talking book, interactive book, or computer book). For half of this group the electronic book was available with and for half without restrictions concerning the games. Twelve control children were only pre- and posttested. After 6 sessions the examiner elicited an emergent reading of text and separate words to test to what extent children had internalized story meaning, phrasing, and features of written text. During the book-reading sessions children's attention to text and iconic modes differed as a function of book format and children's level of emergent literacy. The regular book format was more supportive of learning about story content and phrasing; both formats supported internalization of features of written words. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Three-year-olds' difficulty with the appearance–reality distinction: Is it real or is it apparent?

Four experiments investigated 3-year-olds' understanding of the appearance–reality distinction using both J. Flavell, F. Green, and J. Flavell's (1986) typical verbal response paradigm and a new, nonverbal response paradigm. Both paradigms require verbal questioning, but the former involves a verbal response and the latter a nonverbal one. In the nonverbal paradigm, children were shown a deceptive object and asked to respond, nonverbally, to 2 different functional requests, 1 concerning the object's apparent property and 1 its real property. In the verbal paradigm, children were asked to state what the object looked like and what it really was. In the verbal paradigm, children were about 30% correct (a rate matching that in the literature), whereas over 90% of the same children were correct in the nonverbal paradigm. Participating in the verbal paradigm first had a detrimental effect on the children's performance in the nonverbal paradigm, but the reverse order had no effect. These results suggest that 3-year-olds can represent two conflicting properties of a deceptive object and thus understand the appearance-reality distinction in the nonverbal domain. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Supportive or suggestive: Do human figure drawings help 5- to 7-year-old children to report touch?

The authors examined the accuracy of information elicited from seventy-nine 5- to 7-year-old children about a staged event that included physical contact-touching. Four to six weeks later, children's recall for the event was assessed using an interview protocol analogous to those used in forensic investigations with children. Following the verbal interview, children were asked about touch when provided with human figure drawings (drawings only), following practice using the human figure drawings (drawings with instruction), or without drawings (verbal questions only). In this touch-inquiry phase of the interview, most children provided new information. Children in the drawings conditions reported more incorrect information than those in the verbal questions condition. Forensically relevant errors were infrequent and were rarely elaborated on. Although asking children to talk about innocuous touch may lead them to report unreliable information, especially when human figure drawings are used as aids, errors are reduced when open-ended prompts are used to elicit further information about reported touches. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Dialogic reading and morphology training in Chinese children: Effects on language and literacy.

This study investigates the effects of parent-child shared book reading and metalinguistic training on the language and literacy skills of 148 kindergartners in Hong Kong. Children were pretested on Chinese character recognition, vocabulary, morphological awareness, and reading interest and then assigned randomly to 1 of 4 conditions: the dialogic reading with morphology training (DR + MT), dialogic reading (DR), typical reading, or control condition. After a 12-week intervention period, the DR intervention yielded greater gains in vocabulary, and the DR + MT intervention yielded greater improvement in character recognition and morphological awareness. Both interventions enhanced children's reading interest. Results confirm that different home literacy approaches influence children's oral and written language skills differently: Shared book reading promotes language development, whereas parents' explicit metalinguistic training within a shared book reading context better prepares children for learning to read. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychophysics of reading. XVIII. The effect of print size on reading speed in normal peripheral vision

Reading in peripheral vision is slow and requires large print, posing substantial difficulty for patients with central scotomata. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effect of print size on reading speed at different eccentricities in normal peripheral vision. We hypothesized that reading speeds should remain invariant with eccentricity, as long as the print is appropriately scaled in size--the scaling hypothesis. The scaling hypothesis predicts that log-log plots of reading speed versus print size exhibit the same shape at all eccentricities, but shift along the print-size axis. Six normal observers read aloud single sentences (approximately 11 words in length) presented on a computer monitor, one word at a time, using rapid serial visual presentation (RSVP). We measured reading speeds (based on RSVP exposure durations yielding 80% correct) for eight print sizes at each of six retinal eccentricities, from 0 (foveal) to 20 deg in the inferior visual field. Consistent with the scaling hypothesis, plots of reading speed versus print size had the same shape at different eccentricities: reading speed increased with print size, up to a critical print size and was then constant at a maximum reading speed for larger print sizes. Also consistent with the scaling hypothesis, the plots shifted horizontally such that average values of the critical print size increased from 0.16 deg (fovea) to 2.22 deg (20 deg peripheral). Inconsistent with the scaling hypothesis, the plots also exhibited vertical shifts so that average values of the maximum reading speed decreased from 807 w.p.m. (fovea) to 135 w.p.m. (20 deg peripheral). Because the maximum reading speed is not invariant with eccentricity even when the print size was scaled, we reject the scaling hypothesis and conclude that print size is not the only factor limiting maximum reading speed in normal peripheral vision.     

The cognitive and linguistic foundations of early reading development: A Norwegian latent variable longitudinal study.

The authors present the results of a 2-year longitudinal study of 228 Norwegian children beginning some 12 months before formal reading instruction began. The relationships between a range of cognitive and linguistic skills (letter knowledge, phoneme manipulation, visual–verbal paired-associate learning, rapid automatized naming (RAN), short-term memory, and verbal and nonverbal ability) were investigated and related to later measures of word recognition in reading. Letter knowledge, phoneme manipulation, and RAN were independent longitudinal predictors of early reading (word recognition) skills in the regular Norwegian orthography. Early reading skills initially appeared well described as a unitary construct that then showed rapid differentiation into correlated subskills (word decoding, orthographic choice, text reading, and nonword reading) that showed very high levels of longitudinal stability. The results are related to current ideas about the cognitive foundations of early reading skills. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accelerating language development through picture book reading: Replication and extension to a videotape training format.

G. J. Whitehurst et al (see record 1989-02401-001) taught mothers specific interactive techniques to use when reading picture books with their preschool-age children. This intervention program, called dialogic reading, produced substantial effects on preschool children's language development. However, the costs of one-on-one training limit the widespread use of dialogic reading techniques. In this study the authors aimed to replicate and extend the results of the original study of dialogic reading by developing and evaluating an inexpensive videotape training package for teaching dialogic reading techniques. Mothers were randomly assigned to receive no training, traditional direct training, or videotape training. Results supported the conclusions of Whitehurst et al: Dialogic reading had powerful effects on children's language skills and indicated that videotape training provided a cost-effective, standardized means of implementing the program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Instructional modeling and the development of visual- and verbal-mediation skills by TMR children

A study-recall paired-associate (PA) learning task administered to 40 TMR children under one of four instructional-modeling conditions: imagery, verbal mediation, imagery and verbal mediation, and a control condition. On one-half of the PA-learning study trials, the children were provided modeled mediating responses (connective pictures and/or sentences) and on the other trials no model was provided. The children's use of mediating responses on study trials was evaluated as was their recall performance. Each instructional-modeling condition resulted in more effective mediator use and better recall than the control condition. Verbal-mediation training was more effective than instruction in the use of visual imagery. Generation of mediators was most apparent when youngsters were first provided with models and then required to generated their own mediating responses. Gains in mediator use and recall were retained over a period of several days.     

Development of gaze aversion as disengagement from visual information.

Older children, but not younger children, were found to look away more from the face of an interlocutor when answering difficult as opposed to easy questions. Similar results were found in earlier work with adults, who often avert their gaze during cognitively difficult tasks (A. M. Glenberg, J. L. Schroeder, & D. A. Robertson, 1998). Twenty-five 8-year-olds and 26 5-year-olds answered verbal reasoning and arithmetic questions of varying difficulty. The older children increased gaze aversion from the face of the adult questioner in response to both difficult verbal reasoning questions and difficult arithmetic questions. In contrast, younger children (5-year-olds) responded less consistently to cognitive difficulty. It is concluded that adultlike patterns of gaze aversion in response to cognitive difficulty are certainly acquired by 8 years of age. The implications of appropriate gaze aversion for children's management of cognitive processing resources are considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Viewing bilingual multicultural educational television: An empirical analysis of children's behaviors during television viewing.

Presents a methodology for reliably observing and recording children's behaviors during television viewing. 385 1st-, 2nd-, and 3rd-grade Mexican-American, Puerto Rica, Cuban-American, and Anglo-American children viewed 2 Carrascolendas pilot programs, and their visual attention, facial expressions of mirth, verbal and nonverbal imitations, and program- and nonprogram-related verbalizations were measured. The relationships of these behaviors to each other, to perceptual-cognitive ability, to language used in the home, and to family socioeconomic and educational status; the stability of the behaviors over time and across programs; and the effects and interactions of ethnic group membership, grade level, and sex on behavior were examined. Findings of ethnic differences may be related to either (a) differential understanding of portions of the programs due to the language spoken, or (b) differential appeal of the material, (c) culturally determined differences in the degree, frequency, and pattern in which the behaviors studied are produced in each of the ethnic groups, or (d) cultural differences in the observers. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading storybooks to kindergartners helps them learn new vocabulary words.

In sessions conducted individually, 45 kindergartners who were nonreaders listened to an adult read the same storybook twice, 2–4 days apart, and then completed a posttest measuring their knowledge of the meanings of 22 unfamiliar words, half of which had appeared in the story. Some target words occurred twice in the story and some only once, so children heard some words 4 times and some words twice. Children recognized the meanings of significantly more words from the story than words not in the story, indicating that storybook reading was effective for building vocabulary. Gains were greater among children with larger entering vocabularies. Four exposures to words appeared to be necessary but not sufficient for higher rates of word learning. Findings confirm that story listening contributes modestly to young children's vocabulary growth. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)