| Abstract: | Fifteen children from working-class homes attending two kindergarten classes in one school in a small town in Canada were asked to select their favourite book in October and June to read to a researcher. The storybook re-enactments were tape recorded and transcribed, and then coded according to a developmental scheme developed by Sulzby (1985) and Barnhart (1991). The results were compared with the results of Sulzby’s (1985) study with 24 children from middle-class homes. The mean score of the children in the Sulzby study was found to be significantly higher in October than the mean score of the children in the present study. Furthermore, the difference between the mean scores of the two groups had increased significantly by June. Further analysis revealed that the children in the present study did not show the same developmental progression as the children in the Sulzby study and, in fact, 11 of the 15 children did not progress at all along the developmental continuum. The results are discussed in relation to concepts of emergent literacy and socio-economic factors in early reading development. |
