Verbal Interactions and Engagement in Shared Reading: A Bilingual Chinese American Family's Literacy Practices

• In Event: AERA Roundtable Session Thursday 7:45 am
  In Roundtable Session: Curriculum in collaboration: Exploring multilingual family and community literacy practices as resources for curriculum development

Abstract

1. Purposes
The current study focused on one Chinese immigrant family in the United States. The purpose of this study was to address the following research questions:
1). How do mother and her young children use questions to construct meaning and sustain engagement during the shared reading?
2). How do translingual practices during the read-aloud support children’s comprehension and biliteracy development?

2. Theoretical Framework
This study is grounded in Vygotsky’s (1978) social constructivist theory and translanguaging. Dialogic reading (DR), an evidence-based shared reading approach, emphasizes reading with rather than to children and reflects Vygotsky’s emphasis on socially mediated learning. Lonigan et al. (2007) classify CROWD questions into three levels—from lower-order (completion, recall, Wh-) to higher-order (open-ended, distancing). Translanguaging, as defined by García et al. (2011), centers on bilinguals’ fluid communicative practices rather than fixed language systems. This aligns with the study’s focus on how translanguaging emerges during shared reading in bilingual immigrant homes, where multiple languages and modes—such as song lyrics—contribute to holistic literacy experiences.

3. Methods
This qualitative single-case study (Yin, 2017) examined shared reading sessions between a mother and her two young children through discourse analysis (Gee, 2014), focusing on their bilingual interactions.

4. Data Sources and Analysis
The participants included Li, a native Chinese mother, and her U.S.-born children—Chengcheng (4) and Meimei (2). Of 12 recorded sessions, Peanut Butter & Cupcake (Border, 2014) was selected for analysis, as all three participants actively engaged in this reading. For question 1, the author used CROWD prompts from dialogic reading to categorize questions and analyze corresponding replies. For question 2, she conducted a discourse analysis (Gee, 2014) to examine translingual practices.

5. Results
During the 8-minute read-aloud, Li asked 20 questions, all categorized as Level One CROWD prompts—focusing on recall and simple wh-questions. In contrast, Chengcheng asked seven questions (five at Level Two), showing deeper engagement through “how” and “why” questions. Meimei asked four questions, mostly in Mandarin, reflecting her early oral language development. Li demonstrated fluid translingual practices, reading in English and translating into Mandarin.

Chengcheng posed four questions entirely in Mandarin, two questions that consisted of the English word, and one that combined both English and Mandarin, indicating a developing capacity for translingual practices. Though Meimei asked all of her questions entirely in Mandarin, she was listening to an English book read-aloud. During these eight minutes, Meimei demonstrated her developing oral language in Mandarin and listening vocabulary in English. Chengcheng’s emerging bilingualism was evident in his mix of Mandarin and English, while Meimei listened in English but responded in Mandarin, indicating receptive bilingual development.

6. Scholarly significance
This study contributes to the “Inquiry, Transformation, and Communities” section by offering a culturally grounded, qualitative analysis of shared reading in a bilingual Chinese American family, highlighting how everyday literacy practices can serve as sites of inquiry, transformation, and community-building. Through dialogic and translingual interactions, the study reveals how immigrant families navigate language, culture, and identity in ways that foster early literacy and relational engagement.

Author

• Shuling Yang, University of Maryland - Baltimore County