The impact of book reading in the early years on parent–child language interaction

Early language development predicts later reading competence, but does reading to young children enhance the language interaction between them and their parents? Automatic assessment of language interaction now yields adult word counts, conversational turn counts and child vocalization counts. This...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of early childhood literacy Vol. 17; no. 1; pp. 92 - 110
Main Authors Gilkerson, Jill, Richards, Jeffrey A, Topping, Keith J
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published London, England SAGE Publications 01.03.2017
Sage Publications Ltd
Subjects
Audio Equipment
Childrens Literature
Conversation
Diaries
Educational Attainment
Gender Differences
Interpersonal Communication
Language Acquisition
Language Skills
Language Usage
Mothers
Native language acquisition
Parent-child relations
Questionnaires
Reading Aloud to Others
Shared reading
Statistical Analysis
Toddlers
Turn taking
Verbal Communication
Vocabulary
Vocalization
Young Children
Colorado (Denver)
mother
Reading
effect
language environment analysis
interaction
young children
language
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Summary:Early language development predicts later reading competence, but does reading to young children enhance the language interaction between them and their parents? Automatic assessment of language interaction now yields adult word counts, conversational turn counts and child vocalization counts. This study had 98 families return reading activity logs for a day coinciding with automatic language analysis, and of these, 36 reported reading with their children aged 26–61 months on that day. Reading periods yielded much higher adult word counts and conversational turns than non-reading periods, indicating a greater degree of parent–child language engagement and interaction during reading periods. Such differences were not evident in child vocalization. Adult word counts and conversational turns were high during reading for both high and low education level mothers. Gender effects during reading were evident for adult word counts (but not conversational turns or child vocalization), indicating greater adult word counts with male children. These results have important implications for practical action by parents.
ISSN:1468-7984
1741-2919
DOI:10.1177/1468798415608907