Caregiver Reminiscing and Book-Sharing Styles and Children’s Language and Literacy Development in Costa Rica

• In Event: Home Language and Literacy Environment in Latin America – Family Processes, Child Outcomes, and Intervention Efforts

Abstract

Parent-child book sharing and reminiscing conversations are important home activities that promote preschoolers’ language and literacy skills. Yet research has focused almost exclusively on middle-class Anglo-European families, with little attention to styles of book sharing and reminiscing in other cultural contexts. This study investigated the conversational styles of Costa Rican mothers during book sharing and reminiscing with their preschoolers and the impact of those conversations on preschoolers’ language and literacy skills. Three reasons justify the need for research about the role of the home environment on early learning in Costa Rica. First, the low language and literacy scores recently observed in Costa Rican preschoolers require further examination. Second, the impact of caregivers’ conversational styles on children’s language and literacy remains unexplored in Costa Rica, despite strong international evidence of their contributions. Third, it is relevant to explore these links in cultural contexts like Costa Rica, where there is a strong oral language tradition and limited exposure of children to books. We tested the following hypotheses: (1) We predicted most mothers would use an elicitor style during reminiscing conversations, characterized by the use of many open-ended questions and a limited use of provisions of information. (2) We predicted most mothers would use a storyteller book sharing style. This style is characterized by close adherence to the text while reading, the inclusion of descriptions of the book contents, and a limited amount of child-directed questions. (3) We expected mothers’ reminiscing style to be a stronger predictor of children’s early language and literacy development than mothers’ book sharing style. This study included 108 low-income children and their mothers. All children were Costa Rican, native Spanish speakers from San José. Children completed a language and literacy assessment at school. Mothers provided sociodemographic information, discussed past events, and read a book with their child during home visits. Results from cluster analysis identified two different elicitation styles for reminiscing in the sample: a low-elicitor style (66.7%) and a high elicitor style (33.3%). Cluster analysis also identified two conversational styles for book-sharing: a storyteller style (65.7%) and a story builder style (34.3%). These results were consistent with predictions made in hypotheses one and two. Results from hierarchical regressions (Table 1) controlling for children’s age, vocabulary, and maternal education indicated that mothers’ use of a high-elicitor style during reminiscing was a positive, significant predictor of children’s print concepts and a negative, significant predictor of children’s narrative ability. Mothers’ use of a story-builder style during book sharing was found to be a marginally significant predictor of children’s narrative ability. These findings provided partial support to hypothesis three. Altogether, they highlight the need to further culturally appropriate research about parent-child conversations and its role on children’s early skills.

Authors

• Ana Maria Carmiol, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR)
  Presenting Author

• Alison Sparks, Amherst College
  Non-Presenting Author

• L. Diego Conejo Bolanos, Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica
  Non-Presenting Author