Adriana G. Bus

Joint Book Reading Makes for Success in Learning to Read: A Meta-Analysis on Intergenerational Transmission of Literacy:

The current review is a quantitative meta-analysis of the available empirical evidence related to parent-preschooler reading and several outcome measures. In selecting the studies to be included in this meta-analysis, we focused on studies examining the frequency of book reading to preschoolers. The results support the hypothesis that parent-preschooler reading is related to outcome measures such as language growth, emergent literacy, and reading achievement. The overall effect size of d = .59 indicates that book reading explains about 8% of the variance in the outcome measures. The results support the hypothesis that book reading, in particular, affects acquisition of the written language register. The effect of parent-preschooler reading is not dependent on the socioeconomic status of the families or on several methodological differences between the studies. However, the effect seems to become smaller as soon as children become conventional readers and are able to read on their own.The current review is a quantitative meta-analysis of the available empirical evidence related to parent-preschooler reading and several outcome measures. In selecting the studies to be included in this meta-analysis, we focused on studies examining the frequency of book reading to preschoolers. The results support the hypothesis that parent-preschooler reading is related to outcome measures such as language growth, emergent literacy, and reading achievement. The overall effect size of d = .59 indicates that book reading explains about 8% of the variance in the outcome measures. The results support the hypothesis that book reading, in particular, affects acquisition of the written language register. The effect of parent-preschooler reading is not dependent on the socioeconomic status of the families or on several methodological differences between the studies. However, the effect seems to become smaller as soon as children become conventional readers and are able to read on their own.

To Read or Not to Read: A Meta-Analysis of Print Exposure from Infancy to Early Adulthood.

This research synthesis examines whether the association between print exposure and components of reading grows stronger across development. We meta-analyzed 99 studies (N = 7,669) that focused on leisure time reading of (a) preschoolers and kindergartners, (b) children attending Grades 1-12, and (c) college and university students. For all measures in the outcome domains of reading comprehension and technical reading and spelling, moderate to strong correlations with print exposure were found. The outcomes support an upward spiral of causality: Children who are more proficient in comprehension and technical reading and spelling skills read more; because of more print exposure, their comprehension and technical reading and spelling skills improved more with each year of education. For example, in preschool and kindergarten print exposure explained 12% of the variance in oral language skills, in primary school 13%, in middle school 19%, in high school 30%, and in college and university 34%. Moderate associations of print exposure with academic achievement indicate that frequent readers are more successful students. Interestingly, poor readers also appear to benefit from independent leisure time reading. We conclude that shared book reading to preconventional readers may be part of a continuum of out-of-school reading experiences that facilitate childrens language, reading, and spelling achievement throughout their development.

Added Value of Dialogic Parent–Child Book Readings: A Meta-Analysis

Book reading has been demonstrated to promote vocabulary. The current study was conducted to examine the added value of an interactive shared book reading format that emphasizes active as opposed to noninteractive participation by the child. Studies that included a dialogic reading intervention group and a reading-as-usual control group, and that reported vocabulary as an outcome measure were located. After extracting relevant data from 16 eligible studies, a meta-analysis was conducted to attain an overall mean effect size reflecting the success of dialogic reading in increasing childrens vocabulary compared to typical shared reading. When focusing on measures of expressive vocabulary in particular (k = 9, n = 322), Cohens d was .59 (SE = .08; 95% CI = 0.44, 0.75; p < .001), which is a moderate effect size. However, the effect size reduced substantially when children were older (4 to 5 years old) or when they were at risk for language and literacy impairments. Dialogic reading can change the home literacy activities of families with 2- to 3-year-old children but not those of families with children at greatest risk for school failure. Preparation of this manuscript was supported by a grant (#411-02-506) from the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) to Adriana G. Bus.

Interactive Book Reading in Early Education: A Tool to Stimulate Print Knowledge as Well as Oral Language:

This meta-analysis examines to what extent interactive storybook reading stimulates two pillars of learning to read: vocabulary and print knowledge. The authors quantitatively reviewed 31 (quasi) experiments (n = 2,049 children) in which educators were trained to encourage children to be actively involved before, during, and after joint book reading. A moderate effect size was found for oral language skills, implying that both quality of book reading in classrooms and frequency are important. Although teaching print-related skills is not part of interactive reading programs, 7% of the variance in kindergarten children’s alphabetic knowledge could be attributed to the intervention. The study also shows that findings with experimenters were simply not replicable in a natural classroom setting. Further research is needed to disentangle the processes that explain the effects of interactive reading on children’s print knowledge and the strategies that may help transfer intervention effects from researchers to children’s own teachers.

Quality of Book-Reading Matters for Emergent Readers: An Experiment With the Same Book in a Regular or Electronic Format

An adult read to 12 children from a regular paper book. Twenty-four children explored an electronic book similar in illustrations and story content (also called CD-ROM storybook, talking book, interactive book, or computer book). For half of this group the electronic book was available with and for half without restrictions concerning the games. Twelve control children were only preand posttested. After 6 sessions the examiner elicited an emergent reading of text and separate words to test to what extent children had internalized story meaning, phrasing, and features of written text. During the book-reading sessions children’s attention to text and iconic modes differed as a function of book format and children’s level of emergent literacy. The regular book format was more supportive of learning about story content and phrasing; both formats supported internalization of features of written words.

How Well Suited are Electronic Books to Supporting Literacy

This article discusses children’s picture story books on the computer (also known as e-book, CD-ROM story book, talking book, living book, interactive book, digital book, disc book or computer book). These books minimally include an oral reading of the story instead of or in addition to printed text. We put together a collection of 55 Dutch and 5 well known English electronic books that were commercially available between 1995 and 2002 for children in the age range from three to seven years. We conducted a content analysis to find out how well books currently commercially available on CD-ROM are indeed suited to supporting children’s literacy. Our coding focused on multimedia additions, interactivity of pictures and interactive legibility. Based on studies into effects of electronic books, we describe which books on CD-ROM can serve as models for parents, teachers and publishers.

Attachment and Bookreading Patterns: A Study of Mothers, Fathers, and Their Toddlers

This study, involving 138 families rearing firstborn sons, extends work on bookreading by relating quality of parent-child interactive exchange during bookreading to contemporaneous and antecedent assessments of infant-parent attachment security. One parent and the child were observed when children were 12, 13, 18, and 20 months. At the first and third visit, infant-mother attachment security was assessed, with infant-father attachment security being assessed at the second and fourth visit. Following the assessment of attachment security at 18 and 20 months, parent and child were videotaped in a bookreading session. At 18 and 20 months, children responded to the pictures in a book by pointing and labelling, and their parents tried to initiate these reactions by following predictable routines. In contrast to other mothers, insecure-avoidant mothers were more inclined to read the verbal text and less inclined to initiate interactions around the pictures. Insecure-avoidant children were less inclined to respond to the book and were more distracted. In insecure-resistant dyads, overcontrolling and overstimulating behavior by the mother appeared to covary with ambivalence on the part of the children. The results do not support a similar pattern for the fatherchild dyads. Implications for family literacy programs are discussed.

Writing starts with own name writing: From scribbling to conventional spelling in Israeli and Dutch children

The development of childrens writing of their own names as compared to their writing of dictated words was examined on samples of children ranging from 2 to 5 years of age, who were immersed in Hebrew or Dutch and recruited from low to high socioeconomic status families. Analyses were based on four data sets collected in three studies. From a young age, children wrote their name on a higher level than they wrote other words, and name writing improved with age more rapidly than word writing across the whole age range. Furthermore, the intercorrelations between word writings, corrected for age, were generally higher than the correlation between word and name writing, indicating that children exhibit a unique approach to the writing of their own name, irrespective of other background variables. Childrens advanced skill in writing their name may suggest that name writing promotes the development of writing in general.

Patterns of attachment in frequently and infrequently reading mother-child dyads

ABSTRACT This study explored the relationship between the quality of the mother–child attachment and how often mothers read to their children. Eighteen children who were read to infrequently were matched to a group of children who were read to daily, for sex, age, and socioeconomic status. The childrens mothers read them a booklet, mother and child were observed in a reunion episode, the children completed the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (Dunn, 1965) and Frostigs (1966) test for spatial orientation, and the mothers were given the Adult Attachment Interview (George, Kaplan, & Main, 1984). The mothers in the frequently reading dyads did not need to discipline their child to focus on the reading task as often as the mothers in the infrequently reading dyads did. Mothers whose attachment to their child was less secure spent less time reading to their child and had more troublesome episodes during the reading session than mothers whose attachment to their child was more secure. The security of the mother...

Benefits and Pitfalls of Multimedia and Interactive Features in Technology-Enhanced Storybooks A Meta-Analysis

A meta-analysis was conducted on the effects of technology-enhanced stories for young children’s literacy development when compared to listening to stories in more traditional settings like storybook reading. A small but significant additional benefit of technology was found for story comprehension (g+ = 0.17) and expressive vocabulary (g+ = 0.20), based on data from 2,147 children in 43 studies. When investigating the different characteristics of technology-enhanced stories, multimedia features like animated pictures, music, and sound effects were found beneficial. In contrast, interactive elements like hotspots, games, and dictionaries were found to be distracting. Especially for children disadvantaged because of less stimulating family environments, multimedia features were helpful and interactive features were detrimental. Findings are discussed from the perspective of cognitive processing theories.