posted on 2020-06-15, 18:49authored byClaire Noble, Thea Cameron-Faulkner, Andrew Jessop, Anna Coates, Hannah Sawyer, Rachel Taylor-Ims, Caroline F. Rowland
Purpose: Research has indicated that interactive shared book reading can support a wide range of early language skills and that children who are read to regularly in the early years learn language faster, enter school with a larger vocabulary, and become more successful readers at school. Despite the large volume of research suggesting interactive shared reading is beneficial for language development, two fundamental issues remain outstanding: whether shared book reading interventions are equally effective (a) for children from all socioeconomic backgrounds and (b) for a range of language skills.
Method: To address these issues, we conducted a randomized controlled trial to investigate the effects of two 6-week interactive shared reading interventions on a range of language skills in children across the socioeconomic spectrum. One hundred and fifty children aged between 2;6 and 3;0 (years;months) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: a pause reading, a dialogic reading, or an active shared reading control condition.
Results: The findings indicated that the interventions were effective at changing caregiver reading behaviors. However, the interventions did not boost children’s language skills over and above the effect of an active reading control condition. There were also no effects of socioeconomic status.
Conclusion: This randomized controlled trial showed that caregivers from all socioeconomic backgrounds successfully adopted an interactive shared reading style. However, while the interventions were effective at increasing caregivers’ use of interactive shared book reading behaviors, this did not have a significant impact on the children’s language skills. The findings are discussed in terms of practical implications and future research.
Supplemental Material S1. Family questionnaire.
Supplemental Material S2. List of books used in study.
Supplemental Material S3. Example reading diary page.
Supplemental Material S4. Box 1 - Dialogic Reading.
Supplemental Material S5. Dialogic caregiver information.
Supplemental Material S6. Box 2 - Pause Reading.
Supplemental Material S7. Pause caregiver information.
Supplemental Material S8. Control caregiver information.
Supplemental Material S9. Caregiver book reading behaviors coding scheme.
Supplemental Material S10. Descriptive statistics.
Supplemental Material S11. Regression models using post intervention parental reading scores as the fidelity measure.
Supplemental Material S12. Full analyses.
Supplemental Material S13. Data, scripts, and output files.
Noble, C., Cameron-Faulkner, T., Jessop, A., Coates, A., Sawyer, H., Taylor-Ims, R., & Rowland, C. F. (2020). The impact of interactive shared book reading on children's language skills: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1044/2020_JSLHR-19-00288
Funding
This research was funded by Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) Grant ES/M003752/1, awarded to Caroline Rowland and Thea Cameron-Faulkner. Caroline Rowland and Thea Cameron-Faulkner are members of the ESRC International Centre for Language and Communicative Development at the University of Liverpool, for which support from the ESRC (Grant ES/L008955/1) is gratefully acknowledged.