Parents’ and Children’s Questions While Sharing Digital and Print Books

• In Event: Media and Technology in Early Childhood

Abstract

This study examined parent-child questions during the shared reading of a print book, a Leapfrog book and two digital books. Twenty parent-child dyads from English speaking middle class families read those four books at their home. Audio-taped shared reading sessions were analyzed using systemic functional linguistics. Findings showed that dyads used more WH questions in the print book context, while they used more Y/N questions in the other three reading contexts. Moreover, they used more follow-up questions in the print book and Leapfrog book contexts than in the two digital books. Thus, this study suggests that different features of the formats influence parent-child discussion during shared reading, which ultimately influences the children’s language, literacy and cognitive development.

Author

• Ji Eun Kim, The University of British Columbia