Poster #87 - Reading Picture Books to Young Children: Effective Approaches for Early Childhood Educators

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Early childhood is a critical period for language development. One way educators support language skills is by reading picture books to young children (e.g., Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pelligrini, 1995). Teacher practices during book reading have a significant impact on young children's language development (Mol, Buss & Jung, 2009). Yet, little research focuses on the specific strategies teachers incorporate during readings.

Three book reading approaches were identified (Dickinson & Tabor, 2001). The didactic-interactional approach focuses on using books to ensure children gain academic skills. Through this approach teachers urge children to recall what they have learned about a topic, and they often ask children to identify, label, count or describe information. The performance-oriented approach consists of teachers reading stories in an expressive manner using dramatization and exaggerations with the goal of maximizing reading enjoyment (Dickinson & Tabor, 2001). Lastly, the constructivist approach focuses on teacher-child conversations to make personal connections, form predictions and inferences, and answer high level thinking questions (Dickinson & Tabor, 2001).

While reading books to young children is a widely used method of supporting language skills, specific strategies might make book reading more effective. The current study aimed at exploring the strategies most used by early childhood teachers and assessing what approaches resulted in higher levels of children engagement in book reading and higher levels of children participation.

Method

Participants were 37 early childhood educators, who were asked to record themselves reading a picture book to young children. The children’s ages ranged from 3-7 (M = 4.5), 60% of the children came from multilingual backgrounds, 45% identified as girls and 55% identified as boys.
Teachers watched their own readings and were asked to highlight which of the three book reading approaches they identified as their own. Teachers were asked to rate children’s engagement using a short rating scale (Weitzman & Greenberg, 2010). Teachers also rated children’s participation during the book reading by recording how many times children asked questions, made comments, or pointed to pictures in the book (Dickinson and Tabors 2002). The number of adult interventions during reading such as questioning or prompting were also recorded (Dickinson and Tabors 2002). In addition, the length of the book was taken into account.

Results

The results of an ANOVA comparing each reading approach, have shown that children's engagement levels were higher through the implementation of a performance-oriented approach [F(22, 13) = 8.115, p = .001]. The results also suggested that the co-constructive approach resulted in higher participation levels [F(21, 13) = 2.544, p = .04].

Regression Analysis was conducted to predict children's reading participation using number of adult interventions, length of book, and children’s age. Adult intervention (p=.001) proved significant in predicting children's participation when controlling for number of pages read and children’s ages.

Conclusion

teachers’ strategies during book reading have a significant impact on young children's language development. This study serves as a pilot and has implications for further research. The results also have implications for practice and can prove informative for educators and families.

Authors

• Raquel Plotka, Pace University
  Presenting Author

• Ruth Guirguis, Borough of Manhattan Community College