Big Words for Little People: Word Learning and Storybook Reading, an Intervention for Caregivers

• In Event: 34.059 - Young Children's Multimodal Literacies

Abstract

Language and learning begins at birth. Because parents and caregivers are children’s first teachers, it is essential to consider the power they possess to improve their children’s language and emergent literacy development prior to kindergarten enrollment. This preliminary study examined the effects of a caregiver workshop intervention and its influence on word learning through shared storybook reading. Caregivers were trained to implement elaborated (novel words in which instruction provided precise definitions, synonyms, and examples of meaning) and non-elaborated vocabulary instruction (novel words introduced in a quick and efficient way with simple incidental definitions provided) during shared storybook reading. Using a pre-posttest comparison group in a quasi-experimental research design, 12 caregiver/child dyads were studied to assess targeted vocabulary word learning.

Author

• Mary Kathryn Requa, University of California - Berkeley