Maria T. de Jong

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.

Open access to living books on the internet: a new chance to bridge the linguistic gap for at-risk preschoolers?

The Dutch website Bereslim (http:// www.bereslim.nl) provides digital picture storybooks for three- to seven-year-olds for daily use. The present study investigates whether this new opportunity to enhance linguistic development actively assists preschool children from low- and high-educated families in an equal manner. We looked closely at the characteristics of the 1781 persons who visited the Bereslim website between March and October 2006, when the digital books were available free of charge. To get access, visitors had to complete a brief questionnaire about characteristics of the child (date of birth, gender, school and grade) and parents (educational level, membership library, number of storybooks bought in the last six months, and how they found the website), how the child spent his or her leisure time, whether he or she used (new) media (i.e. amount of time and content of shows/ games/books and favourite websites, programs and books), whether the parents participated in different activities from their children and if their children already are familiar with the five books on the site. We found that the bulk of low-educated families who most need this additional opportunity of literacy enhancement were absent. Attempts to create new chances for at-risk children from low-educated families have often failed, as it did this time in another natural experiment.

Video Storybooks: A Way to Empower Children at Risk

As a result of Ferreiro and Teberosky’s seminal publication and numerous follow-up studies, researchers and educators became aware that the early years may form a crucial stage in becoming literate. However, not all children come from home environments that stimulate precursors of literacy. At the time that children from less stimulating homes enter preschool, they lag behind in early literacy skills, and it would be naive to believe that the preschool curriculum alone can narrow the gap. In the current studies, we tested whether digital technology could be used to stimulate early literacy skills in at-risk populations. This chapter presents a series of randomized experiments that show the surplus value of video storybooks for understanding the storyline (e.g., understanding the actions and internal responses of main story characters) and the story’s vocabulary in groups of at-risk kindergarten children. Another promising finding is that interactive features such as multiple-choice questions can add to the learning effects of video storybooks. Final remarks concerning level-up effects are made.