Susan Sonnenschein

The influence of home-based reading interactions on 5-year-olds’ reading motivations and early literacy development

Abstract In order to understand the impact of home-based reading practices on young children’s literacy development, we need to consider both the types of comments made while reading as well as the affective quality of the reading interaction. Five-year-olds, during the summer prior to kindergarten, were observed reading both a familiar and an unfamiliar book with a member of their family, usually a parent but in one-third of the cases, an older sibling. Children came from either African-American or European-American families. Most of the children (about 83%) came from low income families. Both the nature of comments made about each book and the affective quality of the interactions were coded. Parents also were interviewed about the frequency with which their children engaged in reading activities at home. Children’s phonological awareness, orientation toward print, and story comprehension were assessed during the spring of kindergarten; their motivations for reading were assessed at the start of first grade. Comments about the content of the storybook were the most common type of utterance during reading interactions. Reported reading frequency was the only significant correlate of children’s early literacy-related skills. In contrast, the affective quality of the reading interaction was the most powerful predictor of children’s motivations for reading. These results emphasize the importance of the affective quality of reading interactions for fostering children’s interest in literacy.

Parental Beliefs about Ways to Help Children Learn to Read: The Impact of an Entertainment or a Skills Perspective.

The Early Childhood Project is a longitudinal investigation of the contexts in which children from different sociocultural groups learn to read. The data discussed here were collected from 41 families when the focal children were in prekindergarten and kindergarten. Data sources were diary reports of childrens activities, parental answers to interview questions, and childrens performance on a broad‐based battery of literacy‐related tasks. Parents’ responses to a question about the most effective way to help their child learn to read were coded for an entertainment perspective or a skills perspective. There was some consistency between parental beliefs about how to foster reading development and the nature of experiences made available to the children. That is, parents having an entertainment perspective spontaneously reported in their diaries that their child engaged in more such activities. Taking the view that literacy is a source of entertainment was positively related to childrens scores on the lit...

The Relation Between the Type and Amount of Instruction and Growth in Children’s Reading Competencies

A latent growth model was used to investigate the longer term efficacy of phonics and integrated language arts instruction as well as amount of such instruction on children’s reading development, using the nationally representative Early Childhood Longitudinal Study data set (kindergarten through fifth grade). Type and amount of instruction were derived from teachers’ ratings. Children’s entry-level skills and ethnicity were predictors of children’s reading scores at the end of kindergarten. Ethnicity and parents’ education level predicted rate of growth. Type and amount of reading instruction predicted children’s reading scores. However, effects for type of instruction were time-sensitive, occurring only in kindergarten and first grade. Although children benefit from instruction in decoding and comprehension skills, instruction may not be optimally tailored to children most at risk.

The Development of Communication: When a Bad Model Makes a Good Teacher.

Abstract Five experiments were conducted on what 6-year-old children learn about communication by switching listener and speaker roles with competent and incompetent adults and peers. Experiment I demonstrated that children become better communicators to adults after listening to competent adults, competent peers, and incompetent peers, but not incompetent adults. The age of the listener was shown to have an effect in Experiment II, with children becoming less effective communicators when speaking to a peer after listening to an incompetent peer but better communicators when speaking to an adult after listening to an incompetent peer. Experiments III, IV, and V were designed to determine why children do not improve or deteriorate after listening to incompetent adults. It is not deficient memory: Children remember well the ambiguous messages of adults (Experiment IV). It is not implicit demands to be polite to an adult (Experiment III). It is that children think the ambiguous messages of an adult are competent (Experiment V). Mixing the authority and prestige of an adult with incompetent messages leads the child to ignore the adults behavior as a standard for his or her own performance. These results suggest that social learning of communication skills might occur best when the child can learn what not to do by interacting with peers and what to do when interacting with adults.

Parents' Beliefs about Children's Math Development and Children's Participation in Math Activities

This study explored associations between parents’ beliefs about children’s development and children’s reported math activities at home. Seventy-three parents were interviewed about the frequency of their children’s participation in a broad array of math activities, the importance of children doing math activities at home, how children learn math, parents’ role in their children’s math learning, and parents’ own math skills. Although the sample consisted of African Americans, Chinese, Latino, and Caucasian parents in the United States, the majority were Chinese or Caucasian. Several important findings emerged from this study. Parents’ beliefs about math development and their role in fostering it were significantly related to children’s math activities. There was important variability and relatively limited participation of children in math activities at home. There were age-related differences in children’s engagement in math activities. Chinese and Caucasian parents showed somewhat similar beliefs about how children developed math. Although further research is needed to confirm the findings with a larger sample and to include measures of children’s math competencies, these findings are an important step for developing home-based interventions to facilitate children’s math skills.

Training referential communication skills: The limits of success

Abstract We explored why an effective speaker-training technique failed to generalize to listener skills by comparing the relative effectiveness of speaker and listener training. Our hypotheses were that: either listening tasks utilize different skills than speaking tasks (thus one should not expect transfer), or the acquisition of listener skills precedes the acquisition of speaker skills (thus the transfer patterns tested in our previous research—speaker to listener—violated the normal developmental sequence), or there is no spontaneous transfer between tasks in different modalities (even though such tasks require the use of some of the same skills). This research utilized a referential communication paradigm. Five-year-olds received either speaker training, listener training, or both speaker and listener training. Children were tested for transfer on speaking and listening task after a 1-week delay. The results suggest that although speaking and listening tasks appear to require, at least in part, certain of the same skills, preschoolers do not exhibit spontaneous intermodality transfer. Theoretical implications for the relationship between speaker and listener skills are discussed.

The development of referential communication skills: Some situations in which speakers give redundant messages

Although theorists disagree as to the source of young childrens communicative deficits, there is general agreement about there being a developmental increase in the production of informative communications. However, researchers typically have not studied different types of informative messages but have treated what is a category of message types as if it were one type. The problems in doing this become apparent when one considers research on listening skills which indicates that different types of informative messages are effective in different situations. Comparable findings might occur with speaking skills. That is, speakers might vary the type of informative message to be congruent with situational demands. These two studies investigated developmental and contextual changes in the production of redundant messages (including more than the minimal necessary to be informative) a type often used by speakers. First-and fifth-graders in Experiment I described one of several groups of pictures so that a fictitious peer listener would be able to select it. Of interest were the type of redundancy used and whether usage differed as a function of various task factors known to affect listening performance. The data indicated that fifth-graders, but not first-graders, use verbal redundancy in a manner indicating their sensitivity to various task demands. The data from Experiment II suggest that first-graders fail to give redundant messages because they do not realize that redundancy, in certain cases, will help their listeners. Discussion focuses on the importance of considering different types of informative messages within the context of specific task demands.

The effects of redundant communications on listeners: Why different types may have different effects

Much of our communication is redundant in that we say more than necessary to be informative. How listeners respond to verbal redundancy is important because of its frequency of occurrence and because such knowledge should enable us to increase our understanding of the development of listening skills. Previous research indicated qualitative developmental differences in how listeners respond to differentiating redundancy (several distinguishing features of a referent are mentioned). The present research compared performance with two forms of redundancy: differentiating and structured (e.g., mentioning a distinguishing referential feature and a feature shared by several contiguous stimuli) and investigated causes of differences in responding to the two forms. First- and fifth-graders participated in a referential communication paradigm. Results were discussed in terms of a processing capacity model: Redundancy should facilitate performance only if it decreases processing demands on a listener. Which processing demands will be affected will depend on the specific redundancy and the specific task.

Race/Ethnicity and Early Mathematics Skills: Relations Between Home, Classroom, and Mathematics Achievement

ABSTRACT This study used Early Childhood Longitudinal Study–Kindergarten Cohort data to examine influences of the home and classroom learning environments on kindergarten mathematics achievement of Black, Latino, and White children. Regardless of race/ethnicity, children who started kindergarten proficient in mathematics earned spring scores about 7–8 points higher. There was significant variability in the home and classroom learning environments of Black, Latino, and White children and associations with these childrens mathematics scores. Nevertheless, reading at home was a significant predictor for spring mathematics scores for all groups. If children started kindergarten proficient in mathematics, the Latino-White mathematics gap, after controlling for home and classroom factors and other covariates, was no longer significant. However, the Black–White mathematics gap remained significant. If children did not start kindergarten proficient in mathematics, both the Latino–White and Black–White mathematics gaps remained significant.

Development of Referential Communication Skills: How Familiarity with a Listener Affects a Speaker's Production of Redundant Messages.

In order to be an effective verbal communicator, one needs to give messages that reflect the demands of the task and the needs of ones listener. This study investigated developmentally how sensitive speakers are to the needs of their listeners. Of interest was whether children vary their production of redundant messages (saying more than the minimal necessary to be informative) as a function of sharing common experiences with a listener. First- and fourth-grade speakers gave messages to a fictitious listener (represented by a drawing) who was supposed to be either a stranger or a friend. Both first and fourth graders were more likely to give redundant messages to an unfamiliar listener than to one with whom they shared common experiences. Fourth graders, however, gave a different type of redundant message, one more sensitive to a listeners needs. Fourth graders included several differentiating features in their messages, whereas first graders included both differentiating and nondifferentiating features. Discussion focuses on the development of verbal communicative skills and how studying the production and comprehension of different types of informative messages can increase our understanding of communicative development. To become competent users of language, we need to develop a means of effectively verbally communicating our ideas and needs. Although most researchers agree that communicative skills evolve and change with development, there is controversy over how best to conceptualize the development of communication and what is the nature and type of changes that occur (e.g., Shatz, 1983; Whitehurst& Sonnenschein, 1985).