Shared book reading and authentic interactions with literacy 51

a. Shared book reading

Shared  reading  is  a  collaborative  interaction  in  which  a  skilled  reader  reads  a  text  out   loud  to  a  less  or  non  skilled  person  while  showing  him  the  text  and  modelling  the   strategies  and  behaviours  that  proficient  readers  use  when  reading.  Leseman  &  De  Jong   (1998)  distinguished  four  aspects  of  home  literacy:  (i)  frequency  of  opportunities  for  

interaction  with  literacy  and  exposure  to  print,  (ii)  the  instructional  quality  or  quality   of  the  guidance  provided  by  a  more  competent  reader,  (iii)  the  degree  of  cooperation   during  the  literacy  activities  of  the  child  and  the  more  experienced  reader  and  (iv)  the   socioemotional  quality  of  the  event.    

The  National  Household  Education  Survey  in  the  US  (reviewed  in  Snow  et  al.,  1998)   provided  evidence  that  children  who  were  read  to  three  or  more  times  per  week  had   better  emergent  literacy  skills  than  children  who  experienced  less  shared  reading.  The   frequency  of  shared  reading  was  also  recognised  as  a  statistically  significant  predictor   of  the  HLE  of  a  family  (Siraj-­‐Blatchford,  2004);  it  was  associated  not  only  with  higher   initial  achievement  for  children  as  they  entered  preschool  but  also  with  larger  gains   during  the  program  year,  with  larger  gains  for  children  who  had  been  read  to  every  day   and  significantly  lower  scores  for  children  from  families  that  reported  reading  to  them   once  per  week  (Zill  &  Resnick,  2006).  However,  the  percentage  of  total  variance  in   children’s  later  literacy  achievement  that  could  be  linked  to  shared  book  reading  was   only  around  8%  (for  a  review,  see  Reese,  Cox,  Harte,  McAnally,  2003).  

There  is  increasing  evidence  that  it  is  not  shared  reading  per  se  but  the  language  and   literacy  interactions  that  take  place  during  shared  reading  that  are  responsible  for  the   positive  effect  on  language  and  literacy  development  skills.  Repeated  shared  readings   of  the  same  text  and  explanations  of  word  meanings  during  shared  reading  have  been   significantly  associated  with  increased  vocabulary  and  world  knowledge  gains  

(Biemiller,  2006).  Shared  reading  has  a  positive  influence  on  vocabulary  development   (de  Temple  &  Snow,  2003)  but  there  is  no  clear  influence  on  word  recognition  skills   (Stahl,  2003).  Furthermore,  Reese  et  al.  (2003)  showed  that  the  effects  of  shared  book   reading  on  language  and  literacy  development  also  depend  on  the  parents’  style  of   reading,  on  the  child´s  initial  skill  level  and  on  the  particular  skill  that  the  reader  wants   to  foster.  For  example,  a  describer  style  of  shared  reading  (with  low  level  descriptions   and  labels)  was  more  beneficial  for  children  with  lower  initial  vocabulary  skills,  while  a   performance-­‐oriented  style  (which  introduces  the  characters  and  asks  the  children  for   predictions  before  reading  and  provides  inferences  and  evaluations  after  reading)  was   more  beneficial  for  children  with  higher  initial  vocabulary  levels.  Finally,  there  is   evidence  that  the  effect  of  shared  book  reading  is  also  positively  related  to  the   emotional  bonding  of  parent  and  child  (Bus,  2003).  

The  presence,  frequency  and  styles  of  family  book  sharing  with  young  children  vary   across  SES  and  across  cultures.  Children  from  high  SES  families  experience  more   shared  book  reading  with  an  adult  than  their  more  disadvantaged  counterparts  (Hoff,   2005).  In  Latin  America,  the  evidence  from  different  countries  seems  to  suggest  that  

shared  book  reading  experiences  are  less  common  and  provide  fewer  opportunities  for   interaction  than  in  Western  developed  countries.  For  example,  in  Costa  Rica  only  15%   of  the  parents  of  a  low-­‐income  sample  of  families  of  preschoolers  reported  reading  to   them  while  11%  reported  giving  a  book  to  the  child  so  that  he  or  she  could  read  it   alone.  Moreover,  observations  of  parent-­‐child  shared  reading  sessions  showed  that   most  dyads  read  a  ten-­‐page  book  in  less  than  two  minutes,  sometimes  parents  did  not   read  the  text  of  the  book,  that  the  few  comments  made  during  the  book  reading  session   centred  on  the  book’s  plot  or  features  with  almost  no  connections  made  with  the  child’s   experiences  or  previous  knowledge.  Furthermore,  the  adults  involved  in  these  sessions   asked  the  child  close-­‐ended  questions  which  did  not  allow  the  child  to  expand.  Finally,   the  books  were  not  used  to  teach  the  functions  of  literacy  or  conventions  such  as  the   organization  of  the  story  or  the  place  where  the  author’s  name  goes  (Romero-­‐Contreras   et  al.,  2007).  

Many  of  the  elements  of  book  reading  in  Western  developed  countries  have  also  been   found  to  be  present  in  Chilean  society  (Susperreguy  et  al.,  2007),  with  high  SES  parents   starting  to  read  books  to  their  children  at  an  earlier  age  than  their  low  SES  peers.   However,  the  frequency  of  shared  book  reading  was  on  average  very  low  among  all  SES   groups,  with  45.5%  of  parents  not  doing  any  shared  reading  with  their  preschool  child   (Susperreguy  et  al.,  2007).  

b. Authentic literacy interactions

Printed  language  is  present  in  virtually  every  household  if  not  through  books  via   magazines,  newspapers  or  even  through  print  that  comes  on  the  packaging  of  products   (Van  Steensel,  2006).  In  their  study  of  Dutch,  Dutch-­‐Surinamese  and  Dutch-­‐Turkish   families,  Leseman  &  Van  Tuijl  (2006)  found  "strong  differences  between  these  cultural   groups  in  the  reported  frequency  of  literacy  events  such  as  shared  book  reading  and   the  caregiver’s  reading  a  book  or  newspaper  or  writing  a  letter  or  postcard  in  the   presence  of  the  child;  but...  no  or  only  small  statistically  insignificant  differences  in  the   frequency  of  the  caregiver  leafing  through  a  magazine  or  advertising  paper,  or  reading   the  instructions  for  use  of  a  certain  product..."  (p.  217).  

In  Romero-­‐Contreras´s  study  (2006)  with  193  kindergarteners  and  their  caregivers   from  six  public  schools  in  an  urban  and  semi-­‐urban  area  outside  San  José,  the  capital  of   Costa  Rica,  these  families  reported  that  they  often  used  literacy  for  instrumental   purposes  such  as  reviewing  receipts,  invoices  or  other  documents,  keeping  an  address   and  phone  books,  keeping  a  budget  and  writing  shopping  lists.  In  contrast,  only  one   third  or  fewer  of  the  families  reported  often  reading  newspapers  or  magazines,  reading   texts  for  school  or  work  and  using  dictionaries  or  encyclopaedias.    

Likewise,  Purcell-­‐Gates  (n.d.)  identified  that  some  informal  literacy-­‐related  activities   that  are  mediated  by  print  and  take  place  in  the  homes  of  Costa  Rican  low  SES  children   are  bookkeeping,  housekeeping,  cooking  and  eating.  The  texts  used  for  these  activities   are  considered  authentic  texts  because  they  are  used  for  authentic  purposes,  which  are   related  to  everyday  functioning  rather  than  academic  purposes  (Purcell-­‐Gates,  n.d.).   During  these  activities  parents  use  print  or  text  by  making  lists,  writing  memory  notes   or  reading  instructions  or  food  package  labels.    

The  modelling  of  these  purposes  and  uses  of  print  allegedly  could  have  a  positive   influence  on  their  children’s  learning  of  knowledge  about  print  and  print  conventions.   Thus,  one  of  the  aims  of  this  research  is  to  uncover  potential  authentic  literacy  

activities  that  could  be  taking  place  in  Chilean  low  SES  children´s  homes  and  that  could   be  related  to  the  language  and  literacy  skills  they  have  at  school  entry.