Personalized Book Intervention Favorably Promotes Children´s Words Utterance and Dyads’ Engagement During Shared Reading

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

Abstract

Based on exploratory evidence of the engagement and enjoyment of parent-child dyads when sharing personalized books (where the child is the protagonist, carrying out his/her favorite activities) (Kucirkova, Messer, & Whitelock, 2013), our intervention experimentally examined whether the repeated reading of a personalized book increased parents’ and children’s engagement during shared reading. The intervention was carried out with 201 families with children between 2 and 3 years of age, recruited from childcare centers serving low-income families in Santiago, Chile. The participants were randomly assigned to three conditions. After watching a video modeling shared reading, caregivers at home in the personalization (n = 81) and comparison (n = 63) conditions were given a book. Both books had the same length and the same basic story in the two conditions, but the book in the personalization condition featured the child as a character and included the child’s favorite activities (reported by parents in a questionnaire). Parents were asked to read the book with their children at least three times a week for two weeks, and to audio-record these readings. Families in the control group (n=53) were given the same materials as the comparison group after the post-intervention assessment. The first recording submitted by each family (personalized = 67; comparison = 49) was transcribed using the CHAT system (21% were double-transcribed, getting 97.3% of agreement for number of words, and 94.2% for number of utterances). Engagement was measured by the number of utterances and words expressed by children and parents. On average, children in the personalized condition used more words (M = 46) than those in the comparison condition (M = 32) (Kruskal Wallis = 1,973, p < .05) (Table 1).
Transcripts were also coded for the following codes: laughter, expressions of enjoyment, questions, comments, identification with character, positive appraisal of the book, parents’ evaluation of child’s comment, turn initiation, negative appraisal of the book, request for book manipulation, refusal, low involvement, assertion or repetition, and labeling (the last 7 codes only applied to children). Inter-rater agreement was kappa = 0.77. Both children and adults exhibited significantly more laughter, enjoyment, and identification with characters in the personalized condition (Table 2). Results also showed impact of some codes of engagement, since child and adult exhibited more laughter, enjoyment, and identification with the character when reading a personalized book. In addition, children in the personalized book condition exhibited more uttered words. We will discuss implications for early reading exposure interventions targeting families from low-SES homes.

Authors

• Susana Mendive, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Presenting Author

• Katherine Strasser, Pontifical Catholic University of Chile
  Non-Presenting Author

• Francisca Pozo, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
  Non-Presenting Author

• Natalia Kucirkova, Norwegian Centre for Learning Environment and Behavioural Research, University of Stavanger
  Non-Presenting Author