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)     

Preschool home literacy practices and children's literacy development: A longitudinal analysis.

In this 3-year longitudinal study, the authors tested and extended M. Sénéchal and J. Le Fevre's (2002) model of the relationships between preschool home literacy practices and children's literacy and language development. Parent-child reading (Home Literacy Environment Questionnaire plus a children's Title Recognition Test) and parental teaching of letters, words, and name writing were assessed 6 months prior to children's school entry. The 143 children (55% male participants; mean age = 5.36 years, SD = 0.29) attended Gold Coast, Australia government preschools. Parent-child reading and literacy teaching were only weakly correlated (r = .18) and were related to different outcomes consistent with the original model. Age, gender, memory, and nonverbal ability were controlled. Parental teaching was independently related to R. W. Woodcock's (1997) preschool Letter-Word Identification scores (R2change = 4.58%, p = .008). This relationship then mediated the relationships between parental teaching and Grades 1 and 2 letter-word identification, single-word reading and spelling rates, and phonological awareness (rhyme detection and phonological deletion). Parent-child reading was independently related to Grade 1 vocabulary (R2change = 5.6%, p = .005). Thus, both home practices are relevant but to different aspects of literacy and language development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Home literacy activities and their influence on early literacy skills.

The relationship between the home environments of 66 children (aged 5.4–6.7 yrs) and their language and literacy development was examined. Parents (aged 28–46 yrs) of the children were interviewed regarding demographic information and home visits were conducted in which parents were observed reading with their children and interviewed about specific literacy practices. Children were assessed at approximately 9 mo intervals. After accounting for child age, parent education, and child ability as indexed by scores on a rapid automatized naming task and Block Design of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scales of Intelligence—Revised, shared book reading at home made no contribution to the prediction of the literacy skills of letter name and letter sound knowledge in kindergarten. In contrast, home activities involving letters predicted modest and significant amounts of variance. For the areas of receptive vocabulary and phonological sensitivity, neither shared book reading nor letter activities were predictive. Follow-up to mid-Grade 2 underscored the importance of letter name/sound knowledge and phonological sensitivity in kindergarten in accounting for individual differences in later achievement in reading comprehension, phonological spelling and conventional spelling. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Home grown for reading: Parental contributions to young children's emergent literacy and word recognition.

This article provides an integrative review of key aspects of emergent literacy and specific home activities that empirical research has shown to support their development. Given the importance of word recognition in reading development, home contributions to word recognition as well as to four areas of emergent literacy that contribute to word recognition are highlighted. These include phonological awareness, letter knowledge, print concepts, and vocabulary. Particular attention is devoted to the activity of shared book reading to outline its different facets, changing nature, and potential impact on emergent literacy and word recognition skill. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 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)     

The comprehensive language approach to early literacy: The interrelationships among vocabulary, phonological sensitivity, and print knowledge among preschool-aged children.

This article describes 2 points of view about the relationship between oral-language and literacy skills: The phonological sensitivity approach posits that vocabulary provides the basis for phonological sensitivity, which then is the key language ability supporting reading, and the comprehensive language approach (CLA) posits that varied language skills interact with literacy knowledge and continue to play a vital role in subsequent reading achievement. The study included 533 Head Start preschool-aged children (M=4 years 9 months) in 2 locations and examined receptive vocabulary, phonological awareness, and print knowledge. Partial correlational and regression analyses found results consistent with the CLA approach and evidence of a core deficit in phonological sensitivity, interpreted in a manner consistent with the CLA perspective. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The structure of genetic influences on general cognitive, language, phonological, and reading abilities.

The etiology of individual differences in literacy, phonological awareness, and language ability is reported in 126 pairs of monozygotic and dizygotic twins. At age 6 and 7 years, more than 60% of the variance in literacy was heritable. Heritabilities for 6- and 7-year-olds were .52 and .62, respectively, for phonological awareness and .43 and .50, respectively, for language ability. After genetic effects on IQ were controlled, a separate genetic influence was identified that acted on literacy, phonological awareness, and language. No genetic link between phonological awareness and literacy independent of general language ability was found; such covariance was mediated through environmental influences. Individual differences in literacy ability are substantially influenced by genetic factors, some of which also act on phonological awareness and general language ability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Child development and emergent literacy

Emergent literacy consists of the skills, knowledge, and attitudes that are developmental precursors to reading and writing. This article offers a preliminary typology of children's emergent literacy skills, a review of the evidence that relates emergent literacy to reading, and a review of the evidence for linkage between children's emergent literacy environments and the development of emergent literacy skills. We propose that emergent literacy consists of at least two distinct domains: inside-out skills (e.g., phonological awareness, letter knowledge) and outside-in skills (e.g., language, conceptual knowledge). These different domains are not the product of the same experiences and appear to be influential at different points in time during reading acquisition. Whereas outside-in skills are associated with those aspects of children's literacy environments typically measured, little is known about the origins of inside-out skills. Evidence from interventions to enhance emergent literacy suggests that relatively intensive and multifaceted interventions are needed to improve reading achievement maximally. A number of successful preschool interventions for outside-in skills exist, and computer-based tasks designed to teach children inside-out skills seem promising. Future research directions include more sophisticated multidimensional examination of emergent literacy skills and environments, better integration with reading research, and longer-term evaluation of preschool interventions. Policy implications for emergent literacy intervention and reading education are discussed.     

Preschool instruction and children's emergent literacy growth.

Preschoolers' (N = 156) classroom language and literacy experiences, defined across multiple dimensions, and their vocabulary and emergent literacy development were investigated. Videotaped classroom observations revealed substantial variability in amount and types of language and emergent literacy activities, across classrooms and for individual children within classrooms. Generally, more time in emergent code-focused activities was associated with preschoolers' alphabet and letter-word recognition growth, whereas more time in meaning-focused activities (e.g., book reading) was related to vocabulary growth. Only teacher- and teacher-child-managed activities were associated with alphabet and letter-word growth, whereas child-managed experiences, including play, were also associated with vocabulary growth. Overall, the effect size for student-level, code-focused instruction (small group) was about 10 times greater than was its classroom-level (whole-class) counterpart. There were Child × Instruction interactions, with the impact of different activities varying with preschoolers' incoming vocabulary and emergent literacy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of a language and literacy intervention on Head Start children and teachers.

A language and literacy intervention was implemented in 10 Head Start classrooms. Teachers were trained in specific book reading and conversation strategies. The focus of the intervention was to train teachers how to increase opportunities for language and vocabulary development in young children. At the end of the year, children in the intervention classrooms performed significantly better than children in the control classrooms on the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III and the Expressive One-Word Vocabulary Test (3rd ed.). In addition, teachers in the intervention classrooms used strategies that promoted language development during book reading and other classroom activities. Head Start teachers can be trained to implement strategies that have positive effects on children's language and literacy development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Kindergarten Prediction of Reading Skills: A Longitudinal Comparative Analysis.

There is considerable focus in public policy on screening children for reading difficulties. Sixty years of research have not resolved questions of what constructs assessed in kindergarten best predict subsequent reading outcomes. This study assessed the relative importance of multiple measures obtained in a kindergarten sample for the prediction of reading outcomes at the end of 1st and 2nd grades. Analyses revealed that measures of phonological awareness, letter sound knowledge, and naming speed consistently accounted for the unique variance across reading outcomes whereas measures of perceptual skills and oral language and vocabulary did not. These results show that measures of letter name and letter sound knowledge, naming speed, and phonological awareness are good predictors of multiple reading outcomes in Grades 1 and 2. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contribution of morphological awareness to Chinese-English biliteracy acquisition.

This study is an investigation of the contribution of morphological awareness in Chinese-English biliteracy acquisition. Comparable tasks in Chinese and English were administered to test children's skills in morphological awareness, phonological awareness, oral vocabulary, word reading, and reading comprehension. The results showed that after the effect of Chinese-based predictors had been accounted for, English morphological awareness of compound structure still contributed to variance in both character reading and reading comprehension in Chinese. This finding indicates a cross-language morphological transfer in acquisition of two distinct writing systems. The transfer from English L2 to Chinese L1 is due to the bilingual children's rapidly increasing English L2 skills in their primary school years. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

A family literacy program connecting school and home: Effects on attitude, motivation, and literacy achievement.

This study connected home and school literacy contexts by involving parents in developmentally appropriate and culturally sensitive literacy activities with their children. The purpose of the program was to enhance children's achievement and interest in literacy. The family program was similar to a literature-based school program that included classroom literacy centers, teacher-modeled literature activities, and literacy center time. Meetings were held monthly, with parents, teachers, and children all working together. The program was in an inner-city school district including African American and Latino families. There were 56 children in 1st through 3rd grades (28 in the experimental group and 28 in the control). Pre- and posttest data determined achievement and motivation differences favoring the children in the family program. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of cross-language transfer on first-language phonological awareness and literacy skills in Chinese children receiving English instruction.

The present investigation consists of two studies examining the effects of cross-language transfer on the development of phonological awareness and literacy skills among Chinese children who received different amounts of English instruction. Study 1 compared Chinese students in regular English programs (92 first graders and 93 third graders) with peers who did not receive English instruction (86 first graders and 91 third graders). Study 2 was a 2-year longitudinal study that followed Chinese children from the beginning of Grade 1 to the end of Grade 2; the children attended either an intensive English program (79 children) or a regular English program (80 children). In both studies, children received phonological awareness tasks in English and Chinese, and literacy measures in Chinese. Results suggest that (a) English instruction accelerates the development of Chinese phonological awareness and Pinyin skills through cross-language transfer; (b) the pattern of cross-language transfer reflects the phonological features of English, the source language; and (c) a threshold level of 2nd language proficiency is required before any positive effects can be detected in the 1st language. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Developmental issues in Chinese children's character acquisition.

Measures of phonological processing, speech perception, and Chinese character recognition were administered to 109 Hong Kong Chinese 3- and 4-year-olds. A model predicting phonological awareness from vocabulary, verbal short-term memory, and speech perception was supported. Both phonological awareness and letter naming predicted unique variance in character recognition after controlling for other phonological processing and vocabulary skills, similar to previous studies of Western readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Growth in literacy and cognition in bilingual children at risk or not at risk for reading disabilities.

This study investigated growth in reading, vocabulary, and memory in children (ages 5 to 10) learning English as a second language identified at risk for reading disabilities (RD). A growth curve analysis showed that RD children were significantly below children not at risk in English and Spanish reading, Spanish short-term memory (STM), Spanish comprehension, and English and Spanish working memory (WM). RD children were also inferior on growth measures of English and Spanish WM and Spanish STM. Growth on measures of Spanish vocabulary, reading, STM, and WM accounted for 12% of the variance in predicting growth in English reading. However, only Spanish measures of WM growth contributed unique variance. The results show that growth in WM in the primary language predicts growth in second-language reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Young children's phonological awareness and nonword repetition as a function of vocabulary development.

The role of vocabulary growth in the development of two reading-related phonological processes was examined. In Experiments 1 and 2, 4- and 5-year-olds and a sample of first graders performed better on phonological awareness tasks for word versus pseudoword stimuli, and for highly familiar versus less familiar words. Three- and 4-year-olds in Experiment 3 performed better for words with many versus few similarly sounding items in a listener's lexicon. Vocabulary was strongly associated with nonword repetition scores for 3- to 5-year olds. The shared variance of this association was accounted for by phonological awareness measures and did not appear to be due to phonological short-term memory, as previously argued. The author proposes that vocabulary growth, defined in terms of absolute size, word familiarity, and phonological similarity relations between word items, helps to explain individual differences in emerging phonological awareness and nonword repetition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does speech rhythm sensitivity predict children's reading ability 1 year later?

There is a growing literature demonstrating that speech rhythm sensitivity is related to children's reading development, independent of phonological awareness. However, the precise nature of this relationship is less well understood, and further research is warranted to investigate whether speech rhythm sensitivity predicts the different components of reading over time. In this 1-year longitudinal study, 69 five- to 8-year-old English-speaking children completed a speech rhythm assessment at Time 1 along with other cognitive assessments and then completed a variety of reading assessments at Time 2 (1 year later). A series of hierarchical regression analyses revealed that after controlling for individual differences in age, vocabulary, and phonological awareness, speech rhythm sensitivity was able to predict unique variance in word reading and the phrasing component of the reading fluency measure 1 year later. The findings emphasize the contribution of speech rhythm sensitivity in children's reading development, and the authors argue that speech rhythm sensitivity should now be included in current models of children's reading development. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

What is morphological awareness? Tapping lexical compounding awareness in Chinese third graders.

One hundred twenty-one third-grade Chinese children were assessed with a new morphological awareness task involving open-ended lexical compounding, in addition to completing other measures. With children's age, nonverbal intelligence, phonological awareness, and previously established measures of morphological awareness statistically controlled, this compounding production task significantly explained unique variance in both Chinese character reading and vocabulary knowledge. Within this new task, subordinate and coordinative structures were significantly easier to compound than were subject–predicate and verb–object structures. Moreover, novel compounds that made use of verb morphemes were more difficult to manipulate than were those that did not contain verbs. This newly developed task of compounding production may be optimal for tapping older children's morphological awareness in the form of lexical compounding, in both Chinese and possibly other languages. In addition, these results demonstrate that linguistic manipulations within tasks of morphological awareness can influence their difficulty levels. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Intimate culture of families in the early socialization of literacy.

The intimate family culture for early literacy socialization was documented for a socioculturally heterogeneous sample of 66 children enrolled in pre-kindergarten through third grade at public elementary schools in a large U.S. city. Parents were interviewed about 3 types of indexes of their family's intimate culture: the child's engagement in various literacy-related activities at home, the parents' orientation towards the significance of literacy for early child development, and the family's routines of dinnertime, reading aloud, and doing homework for school. Basic reading competencies were assessed with the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery--Tests of Achievement, Revised Papers. Multiple regression analysis found that a significant proportion of variance in the children's literacy development was predicted by each of the quantitative indexes of intimate family culture, leaving little or no additional variance that was due to family income or ethnicity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)