Research Abstracts

    Ewers, C. A. & Brownson, S. M. (1999). Kindergartners' vocabulary acquisition as a

function of active vs. passive storybook reading, prior vocabulary, and working memory. Journal of Reading Psychology, 20, 11-20.

The purpose of this study was to examine high/low vocabulary knowledge and high/low working memory in relation to the use of active vs. passive reading methods to promote vocabulary acquisition in kindergarten children.

Sixty-six children participated in the study. The children were drawn from four suburban schools in Central New York. The children were mainly middle-class Caucasians. Their mean age was 6.0 years.

During the initial visit of the study, three measures were administered: the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R), a pretest form of the Senechal Vocabulary Test-Adapted (SVT-A), and a test of phonological working memory, the Children's Test of Nonword Repetition (CNRep).

Based on the results of the PPVT-R, children were categorized as High Vocabulary or Low Vocabulary. They were then randomly assigned to either the Active Participation group or the Passive Participation group. A storybook was read to each child individually. In the Active Participation treatment, the reader asked a what or where question immediately after each sentence containing a target word. Children responded verbally to the questions. In the Passive Participation group, the reader restated each sentence that contained a target word but used a synonym for the target word. The readers in both conditions pointed to picture representations of the target words.

After the reading, the posttest SVT-A was administered. Vocabulary acquisition was defined as the number of target words correct on the post-test of the SVT-A that were incorrect on the pre-test. The data was also recategorized, and children were categorized as High Memory or Low Memory for phonological working memory.

Both high vocabulary and low vocabulary children acquired a significant number of vocabulary words from one reading of the storybook. The high vocabulary children acquired significantly more target words than the low vocabulary children, and children in the Active Participation group acquired significantly more words than peers in the Passive Participation group. High vocabulary children acquired more target words than did the low vocabulary children.

Both high and low memory children in the Active Participation group acquired significantly more target words than children in the Passive Participation group. Although high and low memory children did differ in vocabulary acquisition, the difference was not statistically significant.

This study found that kindergartners were able to learn a significant number of new vocabulary words as a result of listening to a single storybook reading. This provides support for the use of read-aloud activities in classroom instruction. Children may acquire more new words when children are actively engaged in and responding to questions during the storybook reading. Since children with lower vocabulary knowledge were at a disadvantage in acquiring new words, it would be particularly important to incorporate Active Participation and scaffolding techniques for those children.

Faires, J., Nichols, W.D., & Rickelman, R.J. (2000). Effects of parental involvement in
    developing competent readers in first grade. Reading Psychology, 21, 195-215.

Parents provide the primary foundations for literacy learning. This study addressed the problem of parents who wish to encourage and support their children's literacy development, but lack the confidence or skills to help their children with reading. The purpose of the study was to determine if training parents in the teaching of selected reading lessons would increase first-grade students' reading levels.

The study was conducted in a first grade classroom in an urban elementary school. Thirty-five percent of the students in the classroom participate in the free or reduced-price lunch program, compared to 40% of the entire student population of the school. Out of the twenty students in the classroom, eight students were identified as reading below grade level. The parents of those children were invited to participate in the study. The children of the four parents who agreed to participate in the study became the experimental group. The children of the remaining four families became the control group. The demographic backgrounds and reading levels of the children in the two groups were said to be similar.

At the beginning of the study, a running record was taken for each of the eight students in order to determine their reading levels. Parents then participated in two 45-minute training sessions, and two parents asked for and received an additional training session. During the first session, parents were trained to use a lesson similar to the Reading Recovery model. Parents were also trained to use the Helping Hand strategy to assist their children in reading unfamiliar words. During the second training session, the teacher modeled a complete lesson with the child while the parents observed. Then the parents practiced parts of the lesson for the teacher.

Over the course of five weeks, students in the experimental group brought home book bags three times per week. The book bags held materials for reading lessons that were to be used by the parents and children together. The teacher kept a reflective journal in which she recorded observations regarding student progress in classroom reading activities.

At the end of the five weeks, the teacher again took a running record on the eight children in the two groups. The teacher also used data from the reflective journal to gain insight into the children's outcomes. The analysis of the running records indicated that there was significant improvement in reading for the experimental group, but not for the control group.

Although the sample size is small, the authors suggest that parental training and involvement in teaching reading lessons and strategies can increase first graders' reading levels. The students who received help from their parents improved significantly in their reading as compared to the students who did not participate in lessons at home. It appeared that students whose parents participated more in the program benefited the most.

Frijters, J.C., Barron, R.W., & Brunello, M. (2000). Direct and mediated influences of

home literacy and literacy interest on prereaders' oral vocabulary and early written language skill. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 466-477.

Many educators and media outlets promote parent-child book reading as a contributing factor in children's success at learning to read. The authors of this descriptive study questioned that relationship, and chose to reexamine the influence of early literacy experiences on reading and language acquisition. Frijters et al took an expanded view of home literacy to include a variety of activities, of which parent-child storybook reading is only one. The authors hypothesized that kindergartners' experiences with literacy go beyond frequency of parent-child storybook reading to include both children's interest in literacy and home literacy experiences that include storybook reading. The authors further hypothesized that one or both of these sources of literacy experience are related to early written language achievement or to oral receptive vocabulary. They also hypothesized that phonological awareness may mediate the relationship between literacy experience and literacy acquisition.

Ninety-two children (50 boys and 42 girls) from nine kindergarten classes in a Canadian city participated in the study. The children ranged in age from 63 months to 76 months. All were pre-screened for decoding and word identification skills to ensure that all children were not yet readers.

A variety of assessments were used to determine children's interest in literacy and literacy experience. The researchers used an adaptation of the Pictorial Scale of Perceived Competence and Social Acceptance for Young Children – Preschool and Kindergarten to assess children's affective responses to literacy and literacy activities. Children's print exposure was measured using a Parent Storybook Title Recognition Checklist. Parents also completed a five-item questionnaire designed to identify their efforts to enhance children's experience with literacy in the home.

Children's written and oral language achievement was also assessed. Researchers asked children to name letters and letter sounds. If children did not know the sound for a letter, they were asked to name a word that begins with that letter. The PPVT-R, Form L was used to assess children's receptive vocabulary. Phonological awareness was also assessed (four unnamed tasks were used).

A series of statistical analyses were performed on the data collected in this study. The authors found that home literacy was the only source of literacy experience related to oral receptive vocabulary, accounting for 21% of the variance in the PPVT-R scores (this is a significant amount of variance). Home literacy was also significantly correlated with phonological awareness, and with letter-name and letter-sound knowledge, but "the relationship between home literacy and letter-name and letter-sound knowledge is indirect; it is mediated by phonological awareness."

The authors conclude that "parent initiated home literacy activities have a direct influence on prereaders' oral vocabulary development but not on their acquisition of early written language knowledge. Phonological awareness mediates the influence of home literacy activities on early written language, indicating that children with higher levels of phonological awareness skill acquire more print-to-sound knowledge through such activities than children with lower levels of such skill. Home literacy is directly related to vocabulary but phonological awareness mediates its relationship with written language. The contribution of home literacy activities to acquiring early literacy skill may center on the specific literacy activities that parents use to increase letter-name and letter-sound knowledge."

Huebner, C.E. (2000). Community-based support for preschool readiness among

    children in poverty. Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk, 5, 291-

    314.

This study was designed to address the problem of the "alarming number of the nation's children who are not prepared for academic lessons when they enter formal schooling." The study tested a community-based intervention in which low SES parents were encouraged to read to their preschoolers using a "dialogic" reading method. The purpose of the study was to determine whether the intervention could be used effectively by existing community-based family support services and whether the intervention would increase the frequency of enjoyable family literacy interactions.

This study focused on 61 children and their low SES families. The families came from two different communities, one rural and one urban. The majority of the children involved in the study were between 2 and 3 years of age. The study included many parents with relatively low levels of educational attainment. Most parents reported that despite the presence of children's books in the home, parent-child reading occurred infrequently, and most reported that their children's language development was slow. Based on the results of baseline data, the author suggested that the sample represented children who were "at considerable risk for language delay."

The intervention consisted of two parent-training sessions during which parents participated in a discussion about the value of books and reading, viewed videotapes about dialogic reading and received one-to-one training in using this method of reading. Parents were given reminder sheets, reading logs, and magnets to display the reading logs. In addition, each family received three children's books. In some cases, training was held at community centers, and in other cases parents received training at home. After each training session, parents completed at-home activities with their preschoolers. This took approximately three weeks, so that the duration of the study was about six weeks.

The researcher established baseline data at the outset of the study. First, children's reading exposure was assessed through family center file reviews, parent interviews, and self-administered questionnaires. Children's language abilities were assessed through parent interviews and the MacArthur Short Form Vocabulary Checklist: Level II, a parent-report inventory of words.

Two changes occurred as a result of the intervention. Parents reported that more children enjoyed reading, and they were read to more often. In fact, after the intervention, children in one community were read to twice as often as before the study, and in the other community, the rate rose from 8% to 40%. The author also noted that the average length of children's sentences increased. At the conclusion of the study, parents reported that they planned to continue reading to their children using the dialogic reading method. They felt that the intervention had benefited their children and themselves.

Huebner concluded that, "Dialogic Reading can change the home language and literacy activities of families with young children, including those at greatest risk of school failure." The intervention increased the frequency of home reading and parents' perceptions of their preschoolers' enjoyment of shared reading. In addition, states Huebner, "the style of Dialogic Reading brought the question-and-answer language of formal schooling into the everyday experience of the home."

Jordan, G.E., Snow, C.E., & Porche, M.V. (2000). Project

EASE: The effect of a family literacy project on kindergarten students' early literacy skills. Reading Research Quarterly, 35, 534-557.

The investigators for this study recognized a need to improve the reading proficiency of students in the district. New high stakes testing placed increased expectations on students to develop high-level reading abilities by the time they attended middle school. The study was designed to evaluate the success of a family literacy project on the early literacy skills of kindergarten students. The intervention was designed to increase the frequency and quality of language interactions through book-centered activities and to give parents information about and opportunities to engage in the children's literacy development.

This study addresses two questions: Did participation in the intervention result in language and literacy gains? How did programmatic aspects of the intervention relate to language and literacy outcomes?

The study involved 248 kindergarten students and their families from four schools in a suburban school district in Minnesota. One hundred-seventy seven students in 8 classes received the intervention, and 71 students in 3 classes served as the control group. The district student population is comprised mainly of European-American, English-speaking students. The minority population is less than 5%, and ESL students account for less than 1% of the population. The four schools chosen for the intervention were Title I schools with poverty rates of 18-21%, compared to a district poverty rate of 15%.

The kindergarten classes in the four schools were similar in size, with an average of 25 students each. The teachers use a district-selected curriculum in their half-day program.

The project design included parent coaching sessions, opportunities for parents to observe and practice structured parent-child literacy activities, and take-home activities. There were five one-month units, with one parent coaching session and one practice session per unit. Three activities were sent home each month. The parent coaching sessions were held while children were in class, but were also offered in the evening.

Data was collected through a variety of instruments. Attendance records were kept, and parents completed evaluation sheets for each take-home activity. A parent survey regarding home support for literacy was conducted before the intervention program began. Children were tested on receptive vocabulary using the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R). Subtests from the Comprehensive Assessment Program (CAP) were used to assess students' vocabulary, story comprhension, sequencing in story production, letter recognition, sound awareness (beginning and ending sounds), concepts of print, environmental print, and invented spelling. These items were sorted to represent three categories of literacy: language, sound, and print. The researchers developed composites for home literacy environment and home literacy activities.

The project participants made statistically significant greater gains on the following CAP tests: vocabulary, story comprehension, story sequence, sound awareness: ending, and concept of print: reading. Participants also made statistically significant gains in language skills. Children with lower language scores at pretest showed greater gains at posttest, and these gains increased at a steeper rate for the experimental group and for children with reports of a richer home literacy environment. By the end of the intervention, project participants who started out low in language skills were doing as well as their control group peers who had started out high in language skills.

Major findings of the study indicate that language skills showed the largest effect, the amount of participation related to the size of the effect observed, and receiving this intervention had a particularly powerful impact on the children who scored the lowest at the pretest.

The researchers conclude "giving parents skills to engage in richer and more challenging conversations may make a unique contribution to children's development." They also state "parents welcome invitations to participate in promoting their children's school success, that they are happy to receive training in how to do so most effectively, and that parental efforts indeed result in children's improved language and language analysis skills."

One implication of this study is that schools can and should invite parents to participate in activities designed to increase children's language and literacy development. The present study addresses issues of increasing reading proficiency among a fairly homogeneous population of students. Similar studies conducted in more diverse populations must take into consideration the cultural beliefs and funds of knowledge of the community.

Leseman, P.P.M. & deJong, P.F. (1998). Home literacy: Opportunity, instruction,

    cooperation and social-emotional quality predicting. Reading Research Quarterly,

    33, 294-316.

Leseman and deJong sought to explore the relationship between home literacy and language and literacy development. The authors posed three questions: (1) is home literacy multifaceted, and do these facets in combination predict language and literacy development better than each facet separately? (2) Does home literacy, along with early language development and home language, mediate the effects of background factors on language and literacy development in school? (3) Does home literacy still have a statistically significant effect on language and literacy development when the effects of prior language development and home language are taken into account?

The participants in this study were 89 children from inner-city schools in the Netherlands. The children came from families of varied socioeconomic status and ethnic backgrounds. Some children were from native Dutch families, some were Surinamese immigrants, and some were Turkish immigrants. It is important to note that in the Netherlands, children begin school at age four, and are enrolled in a two-year kindergarten program. Formal instruction in reading and writing does not take place until first grade.

Background characteristics such as socioeconomic status, job content, home language, and parents' literacy were measured through interviews with parents. Home literacy was measured through the administration of a scale that was administered during the interviews and video recordings of storybook reading. Oral language development was assessed at ages 4 and 7 by a test for receptive vocabulary. The One Minute Test was used to assess word decoding at the end of grade 1. Also at the end of grade 1 a test for reading comprehension was administered.

The findings of the study indicate that the combined effects of the home literacy facets (opportunity, instruction quality, parent-child cooperation, and social-emotional quality) are much stronger than single effects. The authors found that " effects of socioeconomic and cultural background on early reading achievement are completely mediated by home literacy, home language, and early language level." They also state that, "home literacy is strongly determined by socioeconomic, cultural, and ethnic factors."

Leseman and deJong concluded, "home literacy was found to determine school literacy achievement after controlling for effects of early language level and home language." They also tentatively conclude that the "degree of opportunity for literacy interactions is important for literacy learning in school."

Morrow, L.M. (1992). The impact of a literature-based program on literacy achievement,

use of literature, and attitudes of children from minority backgrounds. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 251-275.

 

The purpose of this study was to determine whether a literature-based reading program could positively affect students' literacy achievement, use of literature, and attitudes toward reading. Specifically, the study examined the impact of the literature-based program on children's comprehension, their ability to create oral and written stories, their language complexity and vocabulary development, and their performance on a standardized reading test. It also examined the attitudes of children and teachers toward using literature in the reading program, and the performance of children involved in a home- and school-based reading component as compared to students involved in the school-based program only.

The study was conducted in 9 second-grade classrooms in two schools within a school district. Each classroom had 24 students. One hundred sixty-six children participated in the study. Two-thirds of the children came from minority backgrounds, and 22% were identified as being at-risk. Twenty-four per cent participated in the free lunch program, and were classified as being disadvantaged. The SES of participating families ranged from middle class to disadvantaged. Of the 166 children in the study, 84 were boys and 82 were girls.

All classrooms involved in the study used the district's basal program. The experimental classrooms used the literature-based program in conjunction with the basal, but less time was spent with the basal. The same amount of time was spent on reading instruction in all classrooms.

Morrow, L.M. & Young, J. (1997). A family literacy program connecting school and

home: Effects on attitude, motivation, and literacy achievement. Journal of Educational Psychology, 89, 736-742.

This study addressed the need to improve students' ability to succeed in school literacy programs. The authors wanted to motivate children to read voluntarily for pleasure and for information, and they wanted to give parents strategies for helping their children. Morrow and Young wanted to determine the effects of a literacy program on children's achievement and motivation in learning to read and write. They also wanted to determine if the program had any effect on parents' and teachers interests and attitudes about literacy development.

The participants in the study were 56 African American and Latino children in grades one, two, and three. Twenty-eight children were in the control group, and 28 were in the experimental group. The study was conducted in an urban public school district where many children are considered to be "at risk." The study took place over the course of one school year.

Children in the program received a home and school-based program. Students in the control group received only the school-based program. The school-based program consisted of experience in classroom literacy centers with teacher modeling of activities including reading aloud, storytelling, journal writing, and keeping a log of "Very Own Words." The literacy center time occurred three to five times a week for about 30- to 40-minutes per session.

The family program included all elements from the school program and similar activities to be carried out at home. Parents were asked to read aloud to children and to tell them stories. Storyboards, puppets, and other props were provided for use by parents. Parents and children were also encouraged to keep journals together. The journals included stories, lists, pictures, and other types of writing. The parents helped children record their "Very Own Words" on index cards that were kept in file boxes. Each family was given copies of the Highlights for Children magazine, and copies were also kept in the classrooms. Parents attended monthly meetings and kept records of home activities. A Parent Handbook was provided for parents.

Baseline and post-intervention measures of literacy achievement, motivation or interest in reading and writing, amount of reading at home with adults, and attitudes toward the family literacy program were procured from interviews and assessments. Children's achievement was measured with a story retelling and rewriting test, a comprehension test, the California Test of Basic Skills, and teacher ratings.

In the area of literacy achievement, students in the experimental group outscored control students on story retelling, story rewriting, and comprehension. However, the experimental group did not significantly outperform the control group on the California Test of Basic Skills. Children in the experimental group were rated by their teachers as having increased more in their reading and writing ability than the control students. The ratings for reading and writing interest for the experimental group was greater than the ratings for the control group.

Children in the experimental group reported more frequent reading on their own or with adults. The parents in the experimental group did read and write more often with their children, and chose to do more things with them than did parents in the control group.

The authors concluded that the study showed differences in the literacy achievement of students in the family literacy program compared to the control students. The children reported reading more frequently on their own and with adults. Teachers reported that many of the students were showing greater interest in reading and writing, and that some were improving in their literacy achievement. The authors believe that the success of the program was the result of the collaborative efforts of parents, children, and teachers working together.

Morrow, L.M., O'Connor, E.M., & Smith, J.K. (1990). Effects of a story reading

program on the literacy development of at-risk kindergarten children. Journal of Reading Behavior, 22, 255-275.

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of a storybook reading approach to a more traditional readiness program with at-risk kindergartners. The researchers examined the effects of the approaches on children's literacy development.

This study was conducted over the course of a school year in an urban school district in New Jersey. Twenty-six percent of the students in the district come from minority groups, and 17% are welfare recipients. Fifty-five percent of the students in the experiment were minority students. All of the children in the experiment were identified as being at-risk and were eligible for participation in a Title I funded extended day kindergarten program.

Eight classrooms were randomly selected for participation in the study, and of those eight, four were randomly selected as experimental classrooms and four were assigned to be control classrooms. The experimental group had 32 children in it, and the control group had 30 children. All of the children in the experiment participated in the district's half-day kindergarten program in which they use a basal approach to reading instruction. The children in the experiment also attended the extended day program, through which they participated in either the storybook reading approach or a more traditional readiness approach. The class size in the extended day program ranged between 7 and 10 children.

Students were pre- and post-tested on a variety of measures: the Retelling Test, the Classification Scheme for Children's Reenactment of Favorite Storybooks, the Probed Recall Comprehension Test, the Concepts about Print Test, sections of the Early Reading Test, A Child Interview, and The Search Test. The California Achievement Test (CAT) was administered by the district and was used as a post-test.

During the extended-day portion of the kindergarten program, the children in the experimental group were given a storybook reading instructional program during approximately 60 minutes of the session. The four components of this approach were quiet book reading (by both students and teacher), a teacher-directed literature activity, a recreational reading period, and a summary of the day (a 5-10 minute review of story reading events that had occurred during the day). The teacher-directed literature activity was modeled after the Directed Listening-Thinking Activity approach. This approach provides a framework for questions and discussions before and after reading.

The children in the control group were given instruction through a program called "Living With the Alphabet." In this program, one letter of the alphabet is introduced each week, and children are immersed in activities designed to teach the sound(s) of the letter. Storybook reading remained a part of the regular and extended-day kindergarten programs, but teachers were not trained in the DLTA approach or story reading strategies.

The data collected in this study was analyzed through an analysis of covariance. The researchers first compared children's scores on the Retelling Test and the Probed Recall Comprehension Test. The experimental group scored significantly better than the control group on both of these tests.

Next, the post-test scores on the Children's Attempted Readings of Favorite Storybooks were compared. The experimental group scored significantly better than the control group.

The next analysis focused on concepts about books and print. The Concepts About Print Test, the letter recognition portion of the Early Reading Test, and the Child Interview were used for this measure. There were no statistically significant differences between the groups on the Concepts About Print Test or on the letter recognition test. Children in the experimental group scored significantly higher in naming numbers of books they liked, the ability to name numbers of authors they knew, in reporting that they read at home, and in naming different types of reading material.

The final analysis compared children's performances on standardized measures of reading readiness. There were no significant differences on the Search Test or on the California Achievement Test. The control group's mean was higher on the CAT than was the experimental group's mean.

The authors concluded that the story reading approach was successful in enhancing children's comprehension of narrative and sense of story structure. The scores represented very large differences between the experimental and control groups. This seems to support the idea that the talk about books is a key ingredient in children's literacy development. The experiment did not demonstrate that the storybook reading approach was superior to a readiness program in the development of auditory and visual discrimination or letter identification.

Kindergarten programs, say the authors, should include a strong storybook component. However, it seems that a combination of approaches would best support children's literacy development.

Purcell-Gates, V. (1996). Stories, coupons, and the TV Guide: Relationships between

home literacy experiences and emergent literacy knowledge. Reading Research Quarterly, 31, 406-428.

The purpose of the study, says the author, was "to document and describe ways in which print is used in the homes of low SES families and to explore the relationships between uses of print and the emergent literacy knowledges held by the young children in these homes." Purcell-Gates also wanted to build upon the existing research in this area and to explore the relationships between home literacy and school literacy. This descriptive study documented "the range and frequency of literacy practices and measured emergent literacy knowledges" in young children. The research was framed to address three questions: (1) What are the different ways in which people in these homes use print and how frequently do they do so? (2) What knowledges of written language are held by the young children in these homes? (3) What is the relationship between the home literacy practices (both in type and frequency) and the types and degrees of written language knowledge held by the children?

Twenty low-income families from the Boston/Cambridge area participated in the study. Twenty-four children between the ages of 4 and 6 were the focal children for the study. All families were recruited by the researcher through their participation in various literacy programs or by word of mouth. The ethnic composition of the participant families was roughly representative of the area's English-speaking population. Families whose first language was not English were purposely excluded from the study.

Six research assistants conducted in-home observations of literacy practices over the course of one year. The observations were intended to represent a typical week of family activity. This was achieved by aggregating the data collected at various times over the course of the study.

The researchers collected data in the form of field notes, written language assessments, interviews, language samples, reading and writing tasks, and interviews with the children's teachers. The research assistants recorded all uses of print in the homes during their visits. They also documented evidence of reading and writing, and listed all literacy-related materials observed in the homes during their visits. In order to assess the written language knowledge of the children, the researchers administered a set of Written Language Assessment tasks. Children's knowledge of intentionality of print, written register, alphabetic principle, concepts of writing, and concepts about print were measured with a variety of tasks gleaned from earlier studies. The researchers and assistants used weekly meetings to discuss and resolve questions or concerns about the data collection.

The researcher and the research assistants coded observational data along several dimensions. A variety of categories emerged from the data. The coding was determined to be reliable. Scoring of the written language tasks was completed and also determined to be reliable.

Purcell-Gates found that all families used print for various purposes in their daily lives, but there was great variability of print use. Print was used most often as families pursued entertainment. Most reading was done at the word and clausal/phrasal level, for example, reading coupons and ads. The next most frequently used type of reading was in what Purcell-Gates referred to as "Discourse 4" or reading of adult books, magazines, etc. Most participants in the study had a "near complete understanding that print is linguistically meaningful." The children, on average, scored "below average in Concepts about Print knowledge and did not totally grasp the notion of writing as composed of letters arranged in a linear fashion."

Purcell-Gates discusses three patterns that emerged from this study. First, she states, children in homes in which print was used to a greater degree and who experience more literacy interactions with their mothers appeared to better understand the signifying nature of print and the many ways in which print can function in people's lives. The second pattern noted was that it appears that children begin to learn about language as they "experience their parents and other literate persons in the home reading and writing more complex text, both for their own purposes and for their children's." Young children could construct knowledge about written language simply by living and participating in homes where people read books, magazines, rules for games, and the TV Guide. The third pattern identified by the researcher is that parents tended to become more engaged in their children's learning once the children began formal written language instruction in school.

Purcell-Gates found that "different types of emergent literacy knowledge appeared to be related to different aspects of home and school literacy experiences for the children in this study." She also inferred that "children who experience many uses of written language to which they attend and personally experience have more opportunities to build the important conceptual basis of literacy development – that print is symbolic and serves communicative purposes." Her findings further suggest that "formal schooling plays a significant role in the construction of important literacy concepts by low-SES children." Most areas of written language were found to be significantly related to participation in schooling.

Purcell-Gates suggests that "children from low-SES homes…are learners and do learn about the ways in which written language functions to the degree to which they experience it in their lives." She concludes that the issue is "not getting them ready to learn, but rather creating literacy environments within which the learning that they already do on an ongoing basis includes the different emergent literacy concepts needed for school success."

Robbins, C. & Ehri, L.C. (1994). Reading storybooks to kindergartners helps them learn

new vocabulary words. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 54-64.

The purpose of this study was to add to existing research regarding the effects of listening to stories on children's vocabulary growth. The authors questioned whether exposure to target words in stories would improve children's knowledge of the words, whether the number of exposures to words would have an impact on word learning, and whether children's vocabulary at the beginning of the study would influence vocabulary gains.

Thirty-three kindergarten students participated in the study. All were native English speaking children enrolled in a public elementary school. The population in the school district was described as middle- to lower-middle-class. All of the children were nonreaders. Children's vocabulary was assessed with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised. The children were separated into three ability groups according to the results of the PPVT-R.

Two stories were selected, and children were assigned to hear either of the two. The study used a post-test only design in order to avoid alerting students to the target words. Each child listened to one story containing 11 target words. The stories were read to students on two different occasions, two to four days apart. The stories were discussed with the children, but the vocabulary was not discussed. After the second reading, a multiple choice vocabulary test was given to each child individually.

The authors first analyzed the data with regard to children's age, PPVT-R scores, and performance on target words. The researchers also completed regression analysis of the posttest vocabulary scores in order to determine the factors that lead to the variance in the scores (a repeated-measures multiple regression-correlational analysis was done).

The results of this study indicate that children with higher PPVT-R scores recognized more correct definitions of words than did subjects with lower scores on that test. Listening to stories was found to be an effective means of expanding children's word knowledge, and children with larger vocabularies made greater gains in vocabulary growth than children with smaller vocabularies when they are exposed to unfamiliar words in stories.

The authors claim that the results of this study support the hypothesis that kindergartners expand their recognition vocabularies when they listen to stories two or more times. Non-reading kindergartners can acquire vocabulary from listening to stories. Prior vocabulary knowledge had a statistically significant effect on vocabulary growth, with children who had larger vocabularies at the outset of the study learning more words than those with smaller vocabularies. The authors state that this is an example of the Matthew effect, the idea that the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. They project that as children get older, the gap between those with large vocabularies and those with small vocabularies will grow larger.

The authors believe that this study has implications for practice. Since the study shows that hearing stories helps students increase their vocabularies, and because vocabulary size is associated with school achievement and is implicated in reading success, teachers and parents should read aloud to young children daily. However, the authors caution, reading to children does not have as great an effect as some educators believe. The effects of reading exposure were significant but small. Also, teachers may need to provide more explicit instruction to students with smaller vocabularies.

Senechal, M., Thomas, E., & Monker, J. (1995). Individual differences in 4-year-old

children's acquisition of vocabulary during storybook reading. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 218-229.

At the time that this study was conducted, little was known about the cognitive skills involved in young children's acquisition of vocabulary or of how individual differences affect children's vocabulary development. The purpose of the study was to find out if young children with different size vocabularies differ in their ability to learn new words or the way in which they learn new words.

Two experiments were conducted for this study. In the first experiment, 32 children participated. Each was classified as either high in word knowledge or low in word knowledge based on their PPVT-R standard scores.

The children's parents completed a questionnaire to provide information on SES, home language, and frequency of storybook reading in the home. Participants generally came from middle-class homes. The children and their families spoke English in their homes. Comprehension and production vocabulary tests were constructed for each of the two storybooks used in the experiment.

Children were assigned to one of two book reading conditions. In the listening condition, children listened passively while an adult read the storybook twice. Children in the labeling condition were asked questions that required them to label illustrations representing target words in the stories.

Children participated in three sessions. During the first session, the PPVT-R and the comprehension vocabulary pretest were given, and the adult read the storybook aloud once. During the second session, the children were read the book a second time, and then were post-tested for production and comprehension vocabulary. The third session took place about one week after the second session. During this session, children were again post-tested for production and comprehension vocabulary.

During the listening condition, the adult read the text as printed. In the labeling condition, the adult asked a what or where question after reading each target word.

Results of this study were as follows:

There was a significant main effect for reading condition. Children who answered questions during the reading performed better on the comprehension vocabulary tests than children who listened to the story.

Children in the labeling condition produced more words than did children in the listening condition both immediately and at post-testing.

Children with larger vocabularies produced more words than did children with smaller vocabularies.

The labeling condition was most effective when children had the opportunity to practice retrieving new words. However, retrieval practice was not sufficient for acquisition – children did not learn all of the words they had spoken during the book reading.

Frequency of book reading at home was related to children's word knowledge. More frequent reading was associated with higher scores on the PPVT-R.

Frequency of reading at home makes a significant contribution to vocabulary acquisition over and above the influence of SES level.

The authors concluded from study #1 that opportunities to practice retrieval during book reading had positive effects on children's vocabulary development. The children with larger vocabularies at the outset produced more new words than children with smaller vocabularies.

Experiment #2:

The purpose of this experiment was to clarify the role of retrieval practice. This experiment involved three reading conditions. First, there was the listening condition, in which the adult repeated the sentences containing target words. In the pointing condition, children were asked to point to illustrations of new words introduced during the reading of the story. The labeling condition was identical to the one used in experiment #1 – children were asked questions that required them to label illustrations of target words.

Forty-eight children participated in this experiment. Again, the children were classified as having high or low word knowledge based on their PPVT-R standard scores. Children were also assessed on analytic intelligence with the Puzzle-Solving subtest of the McCarthy's Scales of Children's Abilities. Again, parents completed questionnaires that indicated that the children came from mostly upper-middle-class homes.

The storybooks from experiment #1 were used for this experiment. This time, only 10 rather than 13 target words were used. Other than the use of the analytic intelligence measure, the procedures for this experiment were the same as the ones used for experiment #1.

Results indicated that:

Children who actively responded during the reading performed better on the comprehension vocabulary tests than did the children who listened to the story.

Children with larger vocabularies scored higher on comprehension than children with smaller vocabularies.

Children in the active responding conditions scored higher on new word production than they did in the listening condition.

Additional exposure to target words was less effective for teaching vocabulary than having children speak the target words themselves during the reading of the storybook.

Frequent book reading at home makes a significant contribution to vocabulary acquisition.

The findings from these two experiments showed that all children benefited from opportunities to practice retrieval of the target words. Once children learned new words, they remembered them. The authors claim that their findings indicate that under certain circumstances, children with greater word knowledge acquire more words than do children with less word knowledge. It was further suggested that asking questions during book reading is beneficial to children who differ in word knowledge. The findings demonstrate that the frequency of book reading in the home makes a significant contribution to children's vocabulary knowledge.

Senechal, M., LeFevre, J., Hudson, E., & Lawson, E. P. (1996). Knowledge of

storybooks as a predictor of young children's vocabulary. Journal of Educational Psychology, 88, 520-536.

This article addresses the question of whether children's storybook experiences contribute to their vocabulary acquisition. According to the authors, there is substantial experimental evidence to support this hypothesis, but little evidence has been generated through more naturalistic studies. The authors conducted two studies, one of which was used to develop a measure for assessing book exposure and one in which children's book exposure was measured and compared to vocabulary acquisition.

Study I:

One hundred nineteen children and their parents participated in this study. Children were recruited from day-care centers and nursery schools in a large Canadian city. English was the only language spoken in the homes of 96 children, and English and one other language were spoken in the rest of the homes. All students received instruction in English.

The authors created two measures of storybook exposure in which parents were asked to recognize titles and authors of children's books from lists containing possible foils. They also used an adaptation of the Author Recognition Test to assess parents' exposure to adult reading material. Parents were also given a questionnaire about their children's storybook exposure. Both the questionnaire and the checklists were completed at home. Children's vocabulary was assessed with the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R). Their analytic intelligence was measured with either the Puzzle Solving subtest of the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities or the Animal House subtest of the Wechsler Preschool and Primary Scale of Intelligence-Revised (WPPSI-R). Children were tested individually at their day-care centers or nursery schools.

Significant positive correlations were found between the children's book exposure checklists and children's vocabulary scores. Children's interest in reading, the frequency of storybook reading, the number of children's books available, and library usage were positively related to vocabulary. Results of this study indicate that storybook exposure makes a unique contribution to children's vocabulary.

Study II:

The goal of this experiment was to assess children's knowledge of storybooks directly and to use this measure to predict children's receptive and expressive vocabulary. The authors hypothesized that children's knowledge of storybooks would be a powerful predictor of vocabulary because that knowledge would be a reflection of their exposure to storybooks across a wide variety of contexts.

Fifty parents and 47 children participated in this study. Participants were recruited from a nursery school and two summer recreation programs.

The parents completed the two book-exposure checklists and the home literacy questionnaire (as described in Study I). The children's language was assessed with the PPVT-R and the Expressive One-Word Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised (EOWPVT-R). Children's storybook exposure was also measured, using The Book Exposure Recall Task (BERT). Parents completed the questionnaires and checklists at home. Children were assessed individually in a quiet environment. Based on preliminary analyses, the authors used children's knowledge of book titles as the index for book exposure.

A series of statistical analyses were performed on the data. The results of this study indicate that storybook knowledge was significantly and positively related to vocabulary scores. The analyses demonstrate that the relation between knowledge of book titles and expressive vocabulary cannot be explained by individual differences in verbal ability. There were significant positive correlations between parents' performance on the storybook exposure checklists and children's performance on the BERT. This indicates that parents who were more familiar with children's storybooks had children who knew more storybook titles. The authors suggest, however, that children are likely to acquire knowledge about storybooks from a variety of sources.

According to the authors, their research is the first to demonstrate that storybook exposure explained unique variance in vocabulary knowledge after controlling for other cognitive and environmental factors. They claim that the measures they have developed for assessing storybook knowledge provide alternatives to less reliable parent-report measures.

Whitehurst, G. J., Falco, F. L., Lonigan, C. J., Fischel, J. E., DeBaryshe, B. D.,

Valdez-Menchaca, M. C., & Caulfield, M. (1988). Accelerating language development through picture book reading. Developmental Psychology, 24, 552-559.

This study was designed to test the hypothesis that maternal picture book reading has direct immediate effects on the rate of children's language acquisition.

Thirty children and their families began the study, but one dropped out before the study was concluded. The children were all from middle-class, intact families from suburban Long Island, NY. The children ranged in age from 21-35 months of age. The Denver Developmental Screening Test and the Early Language Milestones Scale were sued to determine that all children involved in the study had expressive, receptive and performance skills that fell within the normal range for their age. There was no initial difference in mean length of utterance (MLU) between the experimental and control groups.

Pre-and post-tests were used to measure children's language development. A follow-up was done nine months after the conclusion of the intervention. Language development was measured with the verbal expressive subscale of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA), the PPVT-R, and the Expressive One Word Picture Vocabulary Test (EOWPVT). Audiotapes of read aloud provided data for the study, including whether or not parents' had implemented the procedures correctly.

Two training sessions were held for parents of the children in the experimental group. During these sessions, researchers explained and then demonstrated techniques to be used. The parents were then given the opportunity to practice the techniques through role-playing activities.

The intervention program lasted four weeks. Pre-testing occurred during a first visit to the university. At the end of the four weeks, families returned to the university for post-testing. Nine months later, 22 of the original subjects were participated in follow-up testing.

Data from the audiotapes was coded and categorized in terms of parents' and children's behaviors during the activities, and was also used to determine children's mean length of utterances.

Comparisons were made of group differences in children's scores on the post-test and follow-up tests. The experimental group showed higher levels than the control group on repetition, child phrases, and child MLU. The experimental group scored significantly higher on the ITPA and the EOWPVT. The experimental group also scored higher on the PPVT-R, but the difference in scores between the two groups was not statistically significant.

The researchers conclude that variations in reading to young children can have significant effects on children's language development.

Whitehurst, G. J., Arnold, D. S., Epstein, J. N., Angell, A. L., Smith, M., & Fischel, J.E.

(1994). A picture book reading intervention in day car and home for children from low-income families. Developmental Psychology, 30, 679-689.

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a practical interactive book reading intervention for day-care, preschool, and Head Start settings.

Hypothesis: The authors hypothesized that children who were read to by teachers in daycare would show improvements in language ability when compared to children in a control group, and that children who were read to by teachers and parents would show greater gains in language ability. The authors further hypothesized that the effects would be greater on measures of expressive language than on measures of receptive language.

Whitehurst, G. J., Epstein, J. N., Angell, A. L., Payne, A. C., Crone, D. A., & Fischel, J.

E. (1994). Outcomes of an emergent literacy intervention in Head Start. Journal of Educational Psychology, 86, 542-555.

 

Hypothesis: The authors hypothesized that a combination of dialogic reading and a phonemic awareness program presented to children in Head Start daycare centers would result in improvements in the children's language, linguistic awareness, and print knowledge. A major goal of dialogic reading is to make children active participants in shared picture book reading rather than passive listeners. This is accomplished by having the adult reader pose questions to the child during the story reading.

Subjects: The sample consisted of 167 4-year-olds in Head Start centers in New York. The children's classrooms were randomly assigned to the treatment or control groups. Seven classrooms (4 full-day and 3 half-day) were assigned to the treatment condition, and eight classrooms (4 full-day and 4 half-day) were assigned to the control condition. The classrooms were rated on the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale (ECERS). There were no significant differences in any of the 7 areas assessed by the rating scale.

Procedure: The children were pre-tested using the PPVT-R, Form M; the Expressive One-Word Vocabulary Test; the expressive subscale of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (ITPA); and 18 subscales of the Developing Skills Checklist. Caregivers of the children completed the Stony Brook Family Reading Survey, which assesses home demographic and literacy related variables. The caregivers also completed an adaptation of the Quick Test, which is a test of adult IQ. Children were post-tested in the spring of the school year in which the intervention occurred.

Intervention: There were two components to the intervention. First, teachers and adult caregivers were trained in an interactive book reading program called dialogic reading. This program involved small group reading in the classroom and one-on-one reading in the home. A video and a brief role-playing exercise were used to train parents and teachers in how to read dialogically.

The program used one book per week over the course of the school year, for a total of 30 books. Book guides were provided to parents and teachers in order to provide information about the stories and hints on introducing and reading the books for parents and teachers. Books were loaned to the parents for use in the study.

The second component of the intervention was the implementation of a phonemic awareness program referred to as sound foundations. The program was begun in the classrooms in February and continued through June. Teachers and aides used a daily log to record reading activities. The log was used to assess compliance with the intervention. In addition, the researchers visited the classrooms at least once every 2 weeks, they met with parent trainers from each center every 4 to 6 weeks, and they videotaped each classroom teacher and assistant during a shared book experience. A follow-up survey was used to measure compliance of home caregivers.

Findings: Scores on pretests and posttests were compared to determine the differences between children in the experimental and control groups. Four factors were extracted from the posttest measures: Writing, Print Concepts, Linguistic Awareness, and Language.

A MANCOVA was conducted on pretest and posttest factors. Children in the intervention group, when considered individually and as classroom groups, performed significantly higher on the Writing factor and the Print Concepts factor than did children in the control group. There were no significant differences on the Language and Linguistic Awareness factors. The authors qualified this finding by pointing out that specific effects on linguistic awareness may have been masked by the use of broad factors as outcome measures.

A comparison of children's pretest factor scores and primary caregivers' frequency of shared reading, then identification rate and frequency of reading at follow-up showed that at-home reading was significantly related to language outcomes. A comparison of children's attendance and outcome factors revealed that the more children attended their Head Start program, the more they learned about writing, regardless of whether they were in the experimental or control group. However, the mean level of performance for children in the experimental classrooms was higher than for children in the control classrooms.

The researchers found that teachers in the experimental group used a more interactive style of storybook reading than did teachers in the control group, but they focused more on simple questions than on the more complicated forms of dialogical reading. This may have reduced the effects of the intervention.

Conclusions: The authors believe that the data demonstrate that children's emergent literacy abilities can be raised in statistically significant increments by the addition of the interventions discussed in this study. The interactive book reading at home increased the language abilities of the Head Start children in this study. However, it appears that the classroom-based interactive reading program did not, by itself, result in increases in children's language skills. The authors conclude that the home component was an important factor in increasing children's performance.