Parent–child reading in English as a second language: Effects on language and literacy development of Chinese kindergarteners

This study investigated the effects of dialogic parent–child reading in English on 51 Hong Kong kindergarteners learning English as a second language. Children were pre‐tested on nonverbal IQ, reading interest and receptive vocabulary, word reading and phonological awareness in both Chinese and English. They were then assigned randomly to one of three conditions involving different levels of parent–child interactions: dialogic reading (DR), typical reading (TR) or control. Though inter‐group comparisons showed nonsignificant interaction effects across time among the three groups, intra‐group gains across the 12‐week intervention suggested that parent–child reading could enhance English word reading skills, while dialogic reading could promote phonological awareness in both Chinese and English. These results highlight the potential benefits of English parent–child reading and dialogic reading on children learning English as a second language, and the possibility of linguistic transfer from parent–child reading in English as a second language to Chinese as a first language.     

Comparing the effects of different book reading techniques on young children’s language development

The purpose of this research study is to compare the effects of digital, dialogic and traditional reading on children’s language development aged 48–66 months. Fifty-six randomly selected children enrolled in three different classrooms in a public preschool in Turkey participated in the study. The three classrooms were again randomly assigned as digital, dialogic and traditional reading groups. During the reading activities, a total of 24 storybooks were read by each group every three times in 8 weeks. While the children’s language scores (the receptive and expressive language scores) resulted in a significant increase in dialogic reading, the children’s language scores in a digital and traditional reading group slightly changed during the intervention. Alternatively, qualitative data suggested that the interaction between teacher and children and between children and children were very limited in a digital and traditional reading group and that limited interaction during reading was the underlying cause of the insignificant increase in children’s language scores.

     

The impact of a dialogic reading program on deaf and hard-of-hearing kindergarten and early primary school-aged students in Hong Kong

The present study investigated the effects of a special interactive dialogic reading method developed by Whitehurst et al. (1988) on deaf and hard-of-hearing children in Hong Kong. Twenty-eight deaf and hard-of-hearing children in kindergarten, first, or second grade were pretested on a receptive vocabulary test and assigned to one of three conditions, dialogic reading, typical reading, and control, with age and degree of hearing loss matched. After an 8-week intervention, the children were re-tested. The dialogic reading group had a significantly greater improvement in vocabulary scores than did the other two groups. Parent-child interactions of high quality and the use of pictorial materials are likely the key successful factors in the program. The educational value of this intervention is discussed.     

Developing pre‐literacy skills via shared book reading

Abstract

This paper reports on a low cost intervention program implemented into the homes of 34 preschool children at risk of reading failure. The intervention was targeted at families where there was a history of reading disability. Families were instructed in dialogic reading via videotaped examples of good practice. The intervention took place over eight weeks. Pre‐ and post‐ measures of language and literacy were taken for experimental and control groups. The intervention was successful in raising levels of concepts about print for the experimental group; receptive vocabulary and alphabet knowledge improved for the control group. There were no significant changes in measures of expressive vocabulary, rhyme and initial sounds. For students in both groups, gender was associated with rhyme, and concepts of print; parent educational level was associated with alphabet knowledge, and expressive vocabulary.     

The effect of preschool dialogic reading on vocabulary among rural Bangladeshi children

The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention with rural Bangladeshi preschoolers with the intention of increasing their expressive vocabulary. Eighty preschoolers randomly selected from five preschools participated in the 4-week program. Their expressive vocabulary, measured in terms of definitions, was tested on 170 challenging words before and after the program and compared with that of control children who participated in the regular language program. Both groups were read in Bangla eight children's storybooks with illustrations, but the dialogic reading teacher was given a set of “wh” and definitional questions to enhance children's verbal participation. The mean vocabulary scores of dialogic program children increased from 26% to 54% whereas the control children remained at the same level. Results are discussed in terms of the successful application of dialogic reading to low-resource preschools.     

Early intervention in the home for children at risk of reading failure

In this study, Ruth Fielding‐Barnsley and Nola Purdie evaluate the effects of an eight‐week dialogic reading intervention with an experimental group of 26 at‐risk children in the year prior to formal schooling. The results on measures of literacy taken during the first year of formal schooling, compared with results of a control group of 23 children, will encourage all those working to involve families in early intervention.     

Enhancing parent-child relationship through dialogic reading

Dialogic reading (DR) has been identified as an effective strategy for enhancing children’s literacy skills in Western and Asian contexts. Given that storytelling is a shared experience between adults and children, parent–child relationships is hypothesised to be enhanced by DR. Despite this possibility, there has been no systematic attempt to examine the possible impacts of DR on the parent–child relationship. This study bridges this gap in the literature by studying the relationship between adults and children before and after training in the practice of dialogic reading techniques. Forty-eight Cantonese-speaking parents with children aged between 3 and 12 were recruited from schools. They were assessed prior to and after undergoing a four-hour dialogic reading training programme with a two-hour follow-up session using the Parent–Child Relationship Inventory. The results of this study suggest that DR has considerable potential for improving parent–child relationships. The findings are discussed in relation to the situation of Chinese learners in the Hong Kong context.     

犬辅助干预对儿童阅读的影响

阅读能力不足是困扰学龄儿童发展的一大问题,然而仅从阅读本身来寻找解决该问题的方法并不是唯一的突破点。基于动物辅助干预的基本思路,犬辅助阅读以“给犬朗读”和“对话式阅读”的方式对以往阅读课程学习模式进行扩展,更加关注犬与儿童的互动和情感联系,能够帮助儿童(尤其是特殊儿童)形成独特的阅读环境,减轻阅读压力,提升对阅读任务的兴趣价值、能力信念和阅读技能。鉴于此,基于以往犬辅助阅读的研究成果,本文将从阅读动机、阅读技能和阅读环境三方面来探讨犬辅助干预对儿童阅读的影响,以期展现犬辅助阅读研究的基本脉络。     

The utility of Chinese tone processing skill in detecting children with English reading disabilities

The utility of Chinese tone processing skill in detecting children with English reading difficulties was examined through differences in a Chinese tone experimental task between a group of native English‐speaking children with reading disabilities (RD) and a comparison group of children with normal reading development (NRD). General auditory processing, English phonemic processing and English reading skills were also tested. We found differences between groups in Chinese tone processing skill, as well as general auditory processing and English phonemic skills. The RD group was significantly poorer than NRD on tasks of Chinese tone, phonemic and frequency modulated (FM) tone processing. Another finding was a different pattern of relationship between RD and NRD groups in Chinese tone, phonemic and FM tone processing as predictors of reading skills. For children with RD, FM tone processing was a significant predictor of pseudoword reading; for NRD, phonemic and Chinese tone processing skills predicted real word reading. These findings contribute to improved understanding of the roles of general auditory processing and phonological processing skills in RD, with implications for assessment and intervention with children who have English reading difficulties.     

Cognitive processing skills and developmental dyslexia in Chinese

The purpose of the present study was twofold: (a) to examine the extent to which Chinese dyslexic children experience deficits in phonological and orthographic processing skills and (b) to examine if Chinese dyslexia is associated with deficits in Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive (PASS) processing. A total of 27 Grade 4 children with dyslexia (DYS), 27 Grade 4 chronological age (CA) controls, and 27 Grade 2 reading age (RA) controls were tested on measures of phonological awareness, rapid naming, phonological memory, PASS, reading accuracy, and reading fluency. The results indicated that the DYS group performed significantly poorer than the CA and RA groups on both measures of phonological awareness and on a measure of orthographic processing but comparably to the RA group on a measure of rapid naming and both measures of phonological memory. In regard to the PASS processing skills, the DYS group performed worse than the CA controls on Successive and Simultaneous processing but comparably to the RA group on all PASS processing skills. Implications of these findings for early identification and intervention of reading difficulties are discussed.     

Pilot study evaluating the impact of dialogic reading and shared reading at transition to primary school: early literacy skills and parental attitudes

Previous studies have demonstrated the positive impact of shared reading (SR) and dialogic reading (DR) on young children's language and literacy development. This exploratory study compared the relative impact of parental DR and shared reading interventions on 4‐year‐old children's early literacy skills and parental attitudes to reading prior to and following school entry. Parents were trained using a self‐instruction training DVD. The children's rhyme awareness, word reading, concepts about print and writing vocabulary were assessed before and after 6 weeks over the summer period and again after one term in school. Four illustrative case studies are presented, which reveal the differential impact of the interventions on the families who participated. Findings indicated that DR had a positive impact on children's enjoyment of reading, concepts about print, parent–child reading behaviours and parental attitudes to joint storybook reading. The children who experienced shared‐book reading during the intervention also demonstrated improvements in word reading. There were no changes in rhyme awareness or writing vocabulary for either group. Changes in print concept awareness were not maintained at follow‐up, but improvements in writing vocabulary and word reading scores were noted. The reasons for this are discussed with reference to the formal literacy instruction the children received during their first academic term.     

Dialogue with a conversational agent promotes children’s story comprehension via enhancing engagement

Dialogic reading, when children are read a storybook and engaged in relevant conversation, is a powerful strategy for fostering language development. With the development of artificial intelligence, conversational agents can engage children in elements of dialogic reading. This study examined whether a conversational agent can improve children's story comprehension and engagement, as compared to an adult reading partner. Using a 2 (dialogic reading or non-dialogic reading) × 2 (agent or human) factorial design, a total of 117 three- to six-year-olds (50% Female, 37% White, 31% Asian, 21% multi-ethnic) were randomly assigned into one of the four conditions. Results revealed that a conversational agent can replicate the benefits of dialogic reading with a human partner by enhancing children's narrative-relevant vocalizations, reducing irrelevant vocalizations, and improving story comprehension.     

Reading comprehension,working memory and higher-level language skills in children with SLI and/or dyslexia

This study examined (1) whether working memory and higher-level languages skills—inferencing and comprehension monitoring—accounted for individual differences among Chinese children in Chinese reading comprehension, after controlling for age, Chinese word reading and oral language skills, and (2) whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) or dyslexia showed deficits in these skills. Eighty-two Cantonese Chinese-speaking children between the age of 7; 8–9; 5 were assessed. Regression analyses on the full sample offered support for the first question. The children were also classified into four groups: Typically-developing (TD; N = 34), specific language impairment-only (SLI-only; N = 18), SLI-dyslexia comorbid (SLI-D; N = 22) and dyslexia-only (D-only; N = 8). Pair-wise comparisons focusing on the second question revealed that both the SLI-only and the D-only group performed worse than the TD group in reading comprehension after controlling for age and nonverbal intelligence. The SLI-only and the D-only group showed a different profile of deficits: only the SLI-only group performed worse than the TD group in working memory, comprehension monitoring, and inferencing. The SLI-D comorbid group did worse than the SLI-only, but not the D-only group, in reading comprehension. The SLI-D comorbid group did not do worse than either single diagnosis group in the higher-level language skills associated with reading comprehension. These findings suggested adopting different intervention approaches for reading comprehension difficulties in children with SLI versus children with dyslexia.     

A comparison of two reading interventions for children with reading disabilities

This study compared the effectiveness of two reading interventions in a public school setting. Forty-five second-grade children with reading disabilities were randomly assigned to a 6-week phonological awareness, word analogy, or math-training program. The two reading interventions differed from each other in (a) the unit of word analysis (phoneme versus onset-rime), (b) the approach to intervention (contextualized versus decontextualized), and (c) the primary domain of reading instruction (oral versus written language). Results indicate that children in both reading programs achieved significant gains in beginning reading skills, learning the specific skills taught in their respective programs, and applying what they had learned to uninstructed material on several transfer-of-learning measures, in comparison to children in the control group. For children in both reading intervention groups, the most significant mediator of growth in oral reading fluency was a child's initial level of word identification skill. Implications of these findings are that systematic, high quality reading intervention can occur in a small group, public school setting and that there are several different paths to the remediation of children with reading disabilities.     

A synthesis of read-aloud interventions on early reading outcomes among preschool through third graders at risk for reading difficulties

A synthesis and meta-analysis of the extant research on the effects of storybook read-aloud interventions for children at risk for reading difficulties ages 3 to 8 is provided. A total of 29 studies met criteria for the synthesis, with 18 studies providing sufficient data for inclusion in the meta-analysis. Read-aloud instruction has been examined using dialogic reading; repeated reading of stories; story reading with limited questioning before, during, and/or after reading; computer-assisted story reading; and story reading with extended vocabulary activities. Significant, positive effects on children's language, phonological awareness, print concepts, comprehension, and vocabulary outcomes were found. Despite the positive effects for read-aloud interventions, only a small amount of outcome variance was accounted for by intervention type.     

An intervention programme for enhancing kindergarteners' cognitive engagement and comprehension skills through reading informational texts

The purpose of the present study was to investigate whether systematic instruction of informational texts can enhance kindergarteners' cognitive involvement in text discussion and comprehension skills. The sample consisted of 15 children aged 5–6 years old in a kindergarten classroom located in a rural area in Rethymno, Crete. A four‐phase intervention programme was implemented within a 2‐month period. During the first phase, activities were carried out in order to familiarise children with the features of informational texts. During the subsequent phases, reciprocal teaching, What I know ‐ What I want to learn ‐ What I learned (KWL) practice and dialogic reading were used to help children comprehend text information, enhance their cognitive involvement in text discussion and train them in asking literal and inferential questions. The teacher's reading‐aloud sessions were recorded and transcribed. Data showed that the intervention programme helped children recognise the features of informational texts, enhanced their cognitive involvement in text discussion and motivated them to demonstrate comprehension skills that are related to information processing.     

Reading comprehension intervention for high-functioning children with autism spectrum disorders

Abstract

The prevalence of children with autism spectrum disorders appears to be on the increase and educators are becoming more aware of their educational and social needs. In particular, many students with high-functioning autism have a deficit in reading comprehension. As a consequence, there is now a greater determination by educators to design the most appropriate reading interventions to address their specific learning impairments. This article outlines a balanced instructional framework for reading comprehension intervention that includes a three-levelled structure incorporating language decoding, language comprehension and metacognitive processes. Research suggests that reading comprehension intervention should focus on reading for meaning by incorporating visual and verbal cognitive strategies to enhance the development of local and global inferencing skills. The framework highlights the need to develop language, social and self-regulation abilities in association with dialogic interaction.     

Causal Connections Between Mathematical Language and Mathematical Knowledge: A Dialogic Reading Intervention

The acquisition of early mathematical knowledge is critical for successful long-term academic development. Mathematical language is one of the strongest predictors of children's early mathematical success. Findings from previous studies have provided correlational evidence supporting the importance of mathematical language to the development of children's mathematics skills, but there is limited causal evidence supporting this link. To address this research gap, 47 Head Start children were randomly assigned to a mathematical language intervention group or a business-as-usual group. Over the course of eight weeks, interventionists implemented a dialogic reading intervention focused on quantitative and spatial mathematical language. At posttest, students in the intervention group significantly outperformed the students in the comparison group not only on a mathematical language assessment, but on a mathematical knowledge assessment as well. These findings indicate that increasing children's exposure to mathematical language can positively affect their general mathematics skills. This study is an important first step in providing causal evidence of the importance of early mathematical language for children's general mathematical knowledge and the potential for mathematical language interventions to increase children's overall mathematics abilities.     

Development of lexical tone awareness in Chinese children with and without dyslexia

This paper describes two studies that examined the lexical tone awareness of Chinese children both with and without dyslexia at different primary school ages.Study 1 examined the contributions of lexical tone awareness to distinguish children with and without dyslexia with respect to their Chinese character reading skills. Two hundred and seventy Chinese children participated in Study 1. Ninety of these were children with dyslexia (equally recruited from second, fourth, and sixth grades). Moreover, ninety children functioned as a chronological-age control group, and an additional ninety children functioned as a reading-level control group. The participants were tested for nonverbal intelligence, Chinese character reading, and cognitive-linguistic skills and lexical tone awareness. Our results revealed a later developmental ceiling in Chinese children with dyslexia than in those without dyslexia. Furthermore, children’s lexical tone awareness could serve to distinguish children with dyslexia from typically developing children in all primary school years.Study 2 compared the lexical tone awareness and Chinese character reading skills of Chinese children with dyslexia both before and after introducing the Perceptual Training Method. The participants in this study consisted of all the participants with dyslexia from Study 1, and the measurements were the Chinese character reading test and the lexical tone awareness task from Study 1. Our results revealed that only second-grade children with dyslexia gained substantially from the training on both lexical tone awareness and character naming, whereas those in the fourth grade obtained a significant improvement only on lexical tone awareness.     

Enhancing parent–child shared book reading interactions: Promoting references to the book's plot and socio-cognitive themes

The study examined the efficacy of an intervention designed to promote parents’ and preschoolers’ references to storybooks’ plot and socio-cognitive themes during shared reading within a sample of 58 families from low-SES background. All parents were given four books, one new book weekly, and were instructed to read each book four times per week to their children. Parents in the control group were given no further guidance, whereas parents in the intervention group were guided in reading the books interactively with their children using Bruner's (1986) structure of the complete storybook reading experience. These parents were taught a four-reading model that guided them to first focus on the book's plot aspects (vocabulary, sequence of events, story structure) and then move on to its socio-cognitive aspects (mental terms, mental causality, references to the child's life). After the intervention, parents and children in the intervention group referred more than their control counterparts to both the book's plot and its socio-cognitive themes. The advantages of the intervention were maintained beyond effects of parental education and of children's gender, vocabulary, and social cognition level. The study revealed the importance of direct guidance of parents and the potential of shared reading contexts for eliciting rich conversations between parents and children. Discussion emphasized the importance of encouraging parents to refer to both the book's plot and its socio-cognitive themes.