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Running head: PARENT-INFANT BOOK ENGAGEMENT
Parents reading with their toddlers: the role of personalisation in book engagement
Natalia Kucirkova
The Centre for Education and Educational Technology, The Open University, United
Kingdom
David Messer
The Centre for Education and Educational Technology, The Open University, United
Kingdom
Denise Whitelock
Institute for Educational Technology, The Open University, United Kingdom
Corresponding author: Natalia Kucirkova, The Open University, FELS/CREET, Briggs
building, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, MK7 6AA, UK. Telephone: 01908 655019. Email:
n.kucirkova@open.ac.uk
Funding
This research was supported by a studentship funded by the Centre for Research in Education
and Educational Technology at the Open University.
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Parents reading with their toddlers: the role of personalisation in book engagement
Abstract
The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of personalised books on parents’ and
children’s engagement during shared book reading. Seven native English parents and their
children aged between 12 and 33 months were observed at home when sharing a book made
specifically for the child (i.e. a personalised book), a comparable book with no personalised
content, and a favourite book of the child. The interactions were videotaped and later coded
to provide information about the frequency of behaviours that indicated engagement with the
books. Statistical analyses revealed that with the personalised books in comparison to the
non-personalised books, children and parents showed significantly more smiles and laughs.
In addition, there was significantly more vocal activity with the personalised than with the
non-personalised and child’s favourite books. It appeared that most of the children’s positive
affect with the personalised books was in response to the content of the book, while the
parents' smiles occurred mostly in response to a smile or laugh of the child. These findings
are among the first to suggest that personalised features of books result in specific, distinct
responses in parents and children during shared book reading.
Keywords
shared reading, parent-child interactions, Books for babies, young children, story book
interactions
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Introduction
Parent-child shared book reading has been identified as one of the most ecologically valid
and powerful contexts in which to study and foster children’s early language and literacy
skills (van Kleeck et al., 2003; Justice and Kaderavek, 2002; Senechal and Lefevre, 2002).
Numerous research efforts and investigations have been concerned with the questions of how
much and in what way shared book reading benefits children’s early literacy development.
Correspondingly, the premise of many early parent book reading programs is that the earlier
parents start reading to their children, the better for their educational development (for
example Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, see http:// imaginationlibrary.com). Research
findings indicate that early engagement in book reading is predictive of children’s oral
language (Crain-Thoreson and Dale, 1992)
and associated with reading achievement (Connor et al., 2009). Reading aloud with babies
has been therefore considered as one of the best predictors of children’s early reading success
( Neuman et al., 2000) and this since pioneering research on parent- child and teacher-child
book reading (see Heath, 1982 and Cochran-Smith, 1984 respectively). However, despite a
relatively large literature about shared book reading with pre-schoolers and its significance for
children’s development, little is known about very young children’s engagement with
different types of books.
Early shared book reading usually involves the use of commercial books from
publishers which are designed for young children. These books are adapted to the age and
interests of children and for the youngest children often include visual and tactile features
such as pop-up pages, textured material and other features designed to capture the interest of
children who are starting to become familiar with books and their purposes. The content of
these books is not always aligned with the world of young children and their parents, and
recently there have been calls for the development and distribution of more socio-culturally
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relevant children’s books (see for example Janes and Kermani, 2001). We define books that
are socio-culturally sensitive and which have a personal meaning for a child personalised
books. A crucial feature of personalised books is that they contain information which is
meaningful and relevant to one particular child. The books’ personalised character is
achieved by embedding text and pictures which are unique to a specific child. The level of
personalisation in children’s books can vary from commercially produced books which
merely substitute the main character’s name with the child’s name (see for example
Demoulin, 2003), to books made entirely by parents (or main caregivers) specifically for a
child (see Kaderavek and Pakulski, 2007). It is the latter which constitutes the focus of the
present study, guided by the recent concern about the personal meaningfulness and socio-
cultural relevance of book reading for children across families (Taylor et al., 2008).
Theoretical framework
In our research, we adopt a neo-Vygotskian emphasis on socio-culturally meaningful and
sensitive inclusion of families in learning and activities promoting literacy such as shared
book reading. Following the work of Moll and his colleagues within the funds of knowledge
framework (see Gonzalez et al., 2005), this investigation acknowledges the cultural-historical
context of early literacy acquisition, leading to personalised literacy instruction. In accordance
with this research agenda, creating and sharing personalised books paves the way for new
directions in home shared book reading. For parents, this process promotes feelings of
empowerment, ownership and agency in their children’s literacy instruction (Janes and
Kermani, 2001). For children, personalised books are part of personalised learning, which has
been recently described as revised code for education (Hartley, 2007). In Gonzalez and
colleagues’ words, through self-made personalised books, families’ funds of knowledge (i.e.
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parents’ own cultural and personal experiences, traditions and home languages), become part
of literacy education.
The second theoretical premise which frames the present study is the
acknowledgement of multiple or transactional influences in shared book reading (see Fletcher
and Reese, 2005; Anderson et al., 2009, April). Each shared book reading session is unique
and needs to be evaluated in the light of the specific characteristics of all three session
participants: adult, child and the book. The transactional position goes beyond general
recommendations advising parents on how often or how best to read to their children (cf.
Whitehurst et al., 1988), as it takes into account the type of book being read, children’s and
parents’ language competence and other unique characteristics of each shared book reading
session, such as for example the influence of different book genres, formats or media on
parent-child interaction (see Kim and Anderson, 2008; Moody et al., 2010). In line with
findings from cross-cultural shared book reading research, different parents’ reading styles
promote different skills in children and what works for some families may not work for others
(Reese and Cox, 1999). Thus, our investigation considers both parent’s and child’s
engagement in relation to different types of books.
Personalisation: promoting parent-child engagement with books?
Parent-child engagement with books is a desired outcome of many early reading intervention
programs and engagement with books can be investigated using a range of qualitative and
quantitative techniques. Obtaining valid self-reports of the feelings and views of young
children is extremely difficult and because of this it was decided to carry out a quantitative
coding of both the children’s and parent’s engagement during their shared book reading.
Another factor that influenced this decision was the comparative ease in identifying
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behaviours which provide good indications of engagement with both young children and
parents.
Engagement has been operationalized in a range of different ways (see for example
Lynch, 2009; Moody et al., 2010). As Baker et al. (1996: xv) have written: ‘the specific
meaning attached to the term varies from writer to writer, the general sense is that engagement
is a highly desirable characteristic of reading’. When broadly defined, engagement includes
concepts like a child’s interest, involvement and active participation in book reading (Cline,
2010). In a study of traditional and e-book engagement of 25 pre-schoolers, Moody et al.
(2010) considered engagement in terms of child’s persistence, compliance, or enthusiasm
during the session. In pre-schoolers and older children, engagement is often defined as
involving joint attention, and has been found to be related to children’s future language skills
(Tomassello and Farrar, 1986). In our study, engagement was defined to reflect young
children’s active participation in shared book reading and to identify specific characteristics of
engagement which can be quantified through observation of a small group of parents and their
children. Specific behaviours that were coded as engagement were identified through a
comprehensive literature review and included the number of pointing gestures, frequency of
vocal activity, number of smiles and laughs, as well as the frequency of behaviours that
signify disengagement (such as yawns or restless movements).
Children’s engagement with personalised books
There are a number of reasons to expect that personalised books will promote aspects of
children’s book engagement. Personalised books are created by people who know their
children best (usually their parents), and who can capitalise on parent-child shared
experiences and preferences when creating the books. The books are inherently full of
parents’ positive affect and as a result are expected more than any other books to positively
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engage children. Bus (2003: 12), following a series of studies on parent-child attachment and
book reading behaviour, concluded that a child’s motivation and learning depend on the
‘parental ability to bridge the child’s world and the world of the book by using their intimate
knowledge of the child’s personal experiences’. A child’s interest in a personalised book may
be further facilitated by his or her increased comprehension of the story: in Bracken’s (1982)
pioneering work with struggling readers, story comprehension was enhanced by embedding in
the standard story some personal information (such as substituting the main character’s name
with the child’s name). In Demoulin’s work (2003), merely personalising some elements of
books for kindergartners was found to improve their reading recall by nearly 50%. In
addition, personalised books offer the opportunity to build directly upon children’s knowledge
and make the engagement in a learning task more meaningful. Parents who are sensitive to
their children’s literacy, and in particular, language abilities, can adjust the book and their
interaction level to the child’s zone of proximal development (see Vygotsky, 1978),
encouraging children’s participation at their own developmental level. This is likely to lead to
increased interest and attention, as autonomy, competence and relatedness are known
motivational factors in learning (McCaleb, 1995).
Parents’ engagement with personalised books
Just as personalised books might be anticipated to engage young children, one might also
expect that their content will promote parents’ engagement. Namely, given that personalised
books generate a positive emotional response in children, they are likely to spark interest also
in the books’ authors (i.e. children’s parents or their main caregivers), who through the book
creation, feel empowered and involved. Parents’ enjoyment and engagement with
personalised books was investigated by Janes and Kermani (2001). Caregivers of an
immigrant and low-income community participating in the Family Literacy Tutorial Project
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reported that having to read pre-selected books was perceived as ‘punishment’ (Janes and
Kermani, 2001: 480). It was only when parents were encouraged to create their own books
for children that their overall perception of reading shifted from ‘reading as punishment’ to
‘reading as pleasure’ (Janes and Kermani, 2001: 461). Cross-cultural research further
indicates that a miss-match between book content and parental values reduces parental
involvement in shared book reading. Studies show that there is a widely documented cross-
cultural variability in parents’ beliefs of what constitutes appropriate literacy materials and
early teaching at home (van Kleeck, 2006), with limited resources and lack of confidence
being barriers to parents’ positive engagement in book reading (Persampieri et al., 2006).
While book gifting schemes such as Bookstart address the tangible constraints to home book
reading (see www.bookstart.org.uk), socio-culturally based research has been concerned with
parents’ competency constraints as a barrier to their interest in shared book reading (Ada,
1988; Delgado-Gaitan, 1994). In this tradition of research, parents’ involvement in book
construction, and importantly, in the choice of book content, is considered as an
empowerment tool for parents’ reading engagement. In her case study of family socialisation
documented in households of Mexican-American and Mexican-immigrant families, Delgado-
Gaitan (1994), encouraged parents to link the book content to their own lives. This led, inter
alia, to parents’ more engaged interaction when reading with their children. Consequently, it
might be expected that parents will be more engaged and positive about books that they have
had some role in creating and that they can relate to their own and their children’s lives.
Therefore, in addition to child’s engagement, we decided to investigate the influence of
personalised books on parents’ engagement during book reading. In order to match the
measures of children’s behaviour, we coded instances of parents’ pointing gestures, vocal
activity, smiles and laughs and less engaged behaviours.
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Parent-child mutual positive engagement with personalised books
As conceptualised in the current study, personalised books created by parents can successfully
bridge the worlds of the book and of the child to capitalise on parents’ and children’s
knowledge and values associated with shared book reading (Ada et al., 1988; Janes and
Kermani, 2001). There is therefore a good reason to believe that personalised books will not
only promote parents’ and children’s positive engagement, but also support a more equal
contribution from both in the interaction, which is a further prediction that we wished to
investigate. Balanced interactions may have various benefits for children. It is likely that
equality of positive involvement is associated with more balanced scaffolding where both
child and parent contribute to the interaction process, rather than one person dominating the
interaction with a likely failure to build on the other’s interest or preferences. In their
recommendations to assessors concerned with the ‘success’ of a book reading session,
Kaderavek and Sulzby (1998) suggest that successful shared book reading involves parents
and children who are ‘in tune’ with each other, are both actively participating in the session
and jointly co-constructing knowledge and shared understanding (see also van Kleeck et al.,
2003). Furthermore, previous investigations indicate that this type of interaction appears to be
supportive of children’s future language skills and independent narrative (Dickinson, 1991),
and has been linked to strong affective relationships (Cameron and Pinto, 2009).
Accordingly, we decided to examine whether personalised books resulted in a more equal
distribution of positive engagement behaviours than occurred with other comparable books.
Given that smiles and laughs are widely recognised as signals that participants, including
infants (see Keller et al. 1988), are happy and approve of the situation, we defined positive
engagement as the frequency of child’s and parent’s smiles and laughs during the observed
interaction.
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Another aspect of our consideration of parent-child enjoyment of the session (see
Kaderavek and Sulzby, 1998) and related to our focus on the transactional influences in
shared book reading (Fletcher and Reese, 2005), was an interest in whether the reading
partner or the content of the book appeared to be the source of smiles and laughs. To this end,
we coded parents’ and children’s positive engagement behaviours as either a ‘smile preceded
by look at the book’ or ‘smile preceded by child’s or parent’s reaction’ (depending on whether
coding children’s or parents’ smiles). In this way we aimed to provide information about
which of the triad in the interaction (child, partner or book) was instrumental in bringing
about any observed positive affect and ways in which child and parent influenced one another.
This was an exploratory measure, with no clear predictions regarding the effects of
personalised books.
Aims of the present study
With the above considerations in mind, we decided to compare shared book reading involving
a personalised book constructed with the help of the parent with reading that involved a non-
personalised book containing similar information, but without any reference to the child or
their interests. Based on the the findings on the attractiveness of books with personalised
features (Janes and Kermani, 2001), we predicted that personalised books would generate
more engagement and more equal positive interaction than a non-personalised book. In
addition, we compared shared book reading involving a personalised book with shared book
reading involving a favourite book of the child, i.e. book which was very familiar to the child
and which provided a benchmark for high levels of engagement. As a result, the parent-child
engagement behaviours in the observed sessions were analysed to address the following
research questions:
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Do personalised books result in higher levels of engagement than non-personalised
and a child’s favourite book in both young children and their parents?
Do personalised books result in more equal patterns of positive interaction and is this
attributable to the book characteristics and/or one of the reading partners?
Method
Participants
Parents and children were recruited to meet the following eligibility criteria: the parent was a
native English speaker and the child had typical language development and was aged between
1 and 3 years. Participants were recruited initially through advertisement in the local media.
However, because we failed to recruit enough participants in this manner, we also used
snowball sampling, in which one participant recommended another family etc. This
procedure resulted in a sample of seven parent-child dyads.
Details about the children in the study were supplied by the parents who reported no
concerns about children’s cognitive or language development and at the home visit, all
children appeared to be developing typically, with no concerns regarding their language or
cognitive development. There were three boys and four girls in the study, aged between 12
and 33 months, with a median age of 22 months. Four children had older siblings; three
children were an only child. Out of the seven families, two fathers and five mothers took part
in the study. When enquired about their child’s general engagement in book reading, six
parents rated their child’s general engagement in book reading as ‘a lot’ and one parent as ‘a
bit’ on a four-point scale of 1=a lot; 2= a bit; 3=not much; 4=not at all. The same response
pattern was obtained from parents rating their own engagement in book reading, with one
parent rating his general engagement in reading with his child as ‘a bit’ and six parents as ‘a
lot’. All parents reported that their children asked for reading on a regular basis. In all the
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families that were visited, reading to children was a clearly established routine, with all
parents regularly reading to their child at bedtime, some in the mornings (N=4) and some
‘anytime during the day’ (N=2). Three parents reported that they first started reading to their
child when he or she was younger than 6 months, four parents said they introduced the first
book after the child turned one year (but was younger than 2 years). Four parents indicated
they read with their child 7-9 times per week and three parents more than 10 times per week.
Only one parent had created a book for her child before, based on her daughter’s pictures,
with the aim to ‘share a story of her life’.
Study protocol
There were three different types of books used in the study: a personalised book, a non-
personalised book and the child’s favourite book. In order to create personalised books,
parents were asked to take seven pictures of any things, places or activities their child enjoyed
and to provide a simple storyline to accompany them. The draft text and parents’ pictures
were then formatted using RealeWriter software, which offered an easy-to-use and efficient
way of creating electronic books. The non-personalised book was a book created by the first
author of the study, using the RealeWriter software and photographs and text showing similar
objects and activities as in the personalised book, but with no pictures or text featuring the
target child as the protagonist. The personalised book was taken as a model for the creation of
the non-personalised book, with a similar story structure, pictures, and grammatical
complexity of the text. This procedure ensured that the two books had the same or almost the
same number of words and pictures, a method followed in previous book comparison studies
(cf. Kim and Anderson, 2008). The books were then printed and laminated by the researcher
and given to the parent on the day of the home visit. The favourite book was a book chosen
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by the parent on the day of observation, following researcher’s prompt: ‘Would you like to
choose one of your child’s current favourite books?’
Procedure
The families were visited at home. Before the videotaped reading sessions, parent who
volunteered to participate in the study was given a short questionnaire to complete and was
interviewed about the family’s general reading practices at home (see description of
participants). Parents were then given the personalised book and non-personalised book to
share with their child and were asked to choose one of their child’s current favourite books.
To control for possible order effects, the three books were presented in counterbalanced order
across participants. Parents were asked to read the books as they normally would with their
child, in a room of their choice. The interaction was recorded with a non-intrusive video
camera.
After the reading session, parents were given a short questionnaire asking them to rate
their and their children’s engagement when reading the three books. Data obtained from these
additional measures are not reported here, but the findings mirror those obtained using the
video analyses.
Analysis of all video clips was performed using Focus II software. This enabled a
detailed annotation of behavioural categories. To measure the reliability of the coding
procedure, six video sessions were viewed independently and re-coded by a second coder.
These sessions were chosen randomly, across each parent-child pair (resulting in a total of 21
sessions). Cohen’s weighted Kappa was used as a measure of agreement; all items were
reliable at or above 0.85 level. Any disagreements were resolved through discussion to arrive
at a final rating used for data analyses.
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Measures
The coding system provided information about the frequency of behaviours and was based on
behaviour categories identified in a pilot study and used in previous research (Moody et al.,
2001; Hynd, 2006). A description of these behaviours, which include pointing, vocal activity,
smiles and laughs and less engaged behaviours, along with some examples and relevant
research sources are shown in Table 1. In addition, the smiles and laughs of each partner were
coded to ascertain whether this type of reaction /behaviour was preceded by a look at the book
or a look at the partner; a separate analysis was carried out for the children and for the parents.
Table 1 to be inserted about here
Results
Children’s engagement
The mean numbers of behaviours that occurred with each type of book are given in Figure 1,
with the mean values displayed above the columns. To check whether the behaviours were
independent of each other, Pearson correlations were calculated between all the frequencies of
children’s behaviours. These were all non-significant at p > .05, indicating independence of
observed children’s behaviours.
Figure 1 to be inserted about here
The Kolmogorov-Smirnov one sample test was used to check whether the data were normally
distributed; when this was not the case, non-parametric statistics were employed.
Across the three conditions, there was a significant difference in the children’s vocal activity
(repeated measures ANOVA, F (2, 7) = 6.57, p =.012, η2 =.523) and smiles and laughs
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(Friedman test statistic χ2 (2) = 3.93, p =.049), but no significant difference in pointing or less
engaged behaviours. Post-hoc comparisons showed higher frequency of children’s vocal
activity with the personalised than with the non-personalised book and these were significant
at p = .069, (t(6) = 2.216) and between personalised and the child’s favourite book significant
at p =.011, (t(6) = -3.610). There were significantly more smiles and laughs with the
personalised than with the non-personalised book (Wilcoxon signed rank test Z = -2.06, p = .
039). All other comparisons were statistically non-significant.
Parents’ engagement
Initial correlation analyses showed that all behaviours coded for parents were independent
from each other at p < 0.05.
Figure 2 to be inserted about here
As can be seen in Figure 2, there were no examples of the parents producing behaviours that
would involve negative or less engaged behaviours. Across the three conditions, ANOVAs
revealed that there was an overall significant difference in parents’ vocal activity (F (2, 7) =
5.5, p = .02, η2 =.479) and smiles and laughs (F (2, 7) = 5.7, p = .018, η2 = .487), but no
significant difference in pointing. Post-hoc comparisons showed that there were significantly
more instances of parental smiles and/or laughs when reading the personalised book than the
non-personalised (t = -.263, p = .039) or child’s favourite book (t = -.249, p = .047). Also,
when reading the personalised book, parents were significantly more verbal than with the
favourite book (t = -.319, p = .019) and the non-personalised book (t = -.265, p = .038).
Mutual parent-child positive engagement
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For each type of book, the frequency of children’s smiles and laughs was expressed as a
proportion of the total number of smiles and laughs of both the child and his or her parent.
Figure 3 shows the degree of correspondence between parents’ and children’s smiles and
laughs, (represented by the position of the division line between parents’ and children’s
proportions). To evaluate whether any of the books provided a more equal proportion of
parents’ and children’s smiles and laughs, a calculation was made of the difference between
50% and the lowest proportion of smiles and laughs that had been calculated for either the
child or his/her parent. Complete equality produced a score of 0% (i.e. 50% - 50%) and if one
person only demonstrated a particular behaviour this gave a score of 50% (i.e. 50% - 0%). A
repeated measure ANOVA in these proportions across the three types of book did not reveal
any significant differences. Therefore, the personalised book was not found to promote a
more equal distribution of positive behaviours between the two participants.
Figure 3 to be inserted about here
We were also interested in finding out whether the source of parents’ and children’s smiles
and laughs was the book or the partner. For this purpose, an analysis of parents’ and
children’s positive engagement behaviours were coded according to whether smiles and
laughs were preceded by a look at the book or a look at the reading partner; this was done
separately for children and parents. An initial ANOVA involving parent/child as the between
subjects factor with type of smile (look at book or look at partner) and type of book (favourite,
personalised and non-personalised) produced a significant 3 way interaction (F (2, 24) =
7.624, p = .003, η2 = .388). This provided the justification for planned comparisons using
repeated measures one way ANOVAs to investigate whether there were differences between
each type of smiling across the three types of book for children and for parents (i.e. repeated
measures ANOVA 3 books x 2 types of smile). For children there was a significant effect of
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‘smiles preceded by looks at books’ (F (2, 7) = 7.3, p = .008, η2 =. 549). For parents, there
was a significant effect of ‘smiles preceded by child’s reaction’ (F (2, 7) = 17.211, p = .001, η2
= .741). Paired sample t-test showed that for children, there was a significantly higher
proportion of smiles triggered by looks at the book for the personalised as opposed to the non-
personalised book (t = -3.06, p = .022) and for the personalised as opposed to favourite book
(t = -2.56, p = .043). For parents, there were significantly more instances of smiles resulting
from child’s reactions for the personalised than with non-personalised books (t = -6.58, p = .
001) and than the child’s favourite books (t = -4.47, p = .004). Thus, it seems that instances of
parents’ and children’s smiles and laughs were most frequently observed with the
personalised books, but they were brought about by different mechanisms in parents and
children.
Discussion
We set out to answer the question of whether shared book reading which involves
personalised books is different from shared book reading with other comparable books. There
were several differences in the observed sessions according to the type of book that parents
and children shared, and these are discussed in relation to observations about the children, the
parents and aspects of joint interaction.
Children’s engagement with personalised books
Using measures of engagement that have been identified in previous research and in pilot
work, the detailed video analysis showed that the highest frequencies of children’s
engagement occurred with the personalised books. The frequency of the children’s vocal
activity and smiling/laughing were significantly higher in the personalised than the non-
personalised and favourite book conditions. However, there was no statistical difference in
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the amount of children’s smiles and laughs between the personalised and favourite book.
Children’s smiles following looks at the book were more frequent in the personalised than
non-personalised condition.
The findings suggest that personalised books have the potential to foster children’s
language development through the promotion of speech and discussion during the session.
Flood’s early research (1977) with pre-schoolers has indicated that most of the variance in
children’s language gains from shared book reading can be explained by the total number of
words spoken by the child during the reading session. Consequently, our finding of higher
levels of children’s vocal activity with personalised books is particularly encouraging when
considering longer-term benefits of this form of shared book reading.
It was anticipated that children’s engagement with their favourite books would be
high, particularly because of the importance of familiarity with the reading material and the
repetitive nature of book reading interactions with young children (Horst et al., 2011). The
analyses allowed an examination of whether or not personalised books had an equivalent
attraction to a favourite book. No significant differences in the children’s smiles and laughs
were found between the personalised and favourite books. This suggests that personalised
books have an immediate attraction to young children and this is equivalent or similar to that
of books which have an established track record of child’s interest and engagement.
However, a degree of caution is needed here when interpreting these findings given that in
some respects, the boundaries between what is a personalised book and what is a favourite
book is somewhat blurred. The frequent exposure to favourite books implies that at some
point, children’s favourite books become personally meaningful to them in terms of an
internalised memory for the characters, context and story line. It is possible that the child’s
interest in the content of a book is the reason for it becoming a favourite one as the book
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becomes ‘personally relevant’ to the child; although of course a favourite book is highly
unlikely to contain specific reference to the child.
Although it has been previously acknowledged that books with personalised features
have the potential to enhance children’s active and meaningful engagement in shared book
reading (Allen et al., 2002; reference withheld), to date it is not clear whether this potential is
realised through the books’ personal relevance for children or through other factors. In the
current study, the personalised and non-personalised books had similar content which only
differed according to its personal relevance to each child. Consequently, a factor that
contributes to the difference in the children’s engagement with the two books is the personal
nature of the book content and/or an indirect result of parents being more involved in the book
creation process (for personalised books, the story and pictures had been supplied by parents).
Children smiled and laughed more with the personalised than with the non-
personalised books. Such a finding is in line with previous work which emphasises the
importance of following children’s interest to promote their enjoyment and engagement in
reading (Fink, 2008) and offers evidence for the association between personalised aspects of
books and young children’s increased positive book engagement (cf Kaderavek and Pakulski,
2007). Our analyses of the source of children’s smiles indicated that there was a significantly
higher proportion of smiles and laughs following a look at the book with non-personalised and
favourite books. This adds weight to the suggestion that it was the content of the book that
led to the higher frequency of positive affect observed in children.
In their study of social interactions with infants and mothers, Hornik and Gunnar
(1988) defined infants’ looks which were accompanied by smiles or positive affect as
‘sharing looks’ and as the infants’ attempt to include their mothers in their experience. It may
be that seeing pictures of their own face, toys and other personally meaningful objects
depicted in the personalised books brought about more smiles in children because of their
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intention to communicate their interest in the book. Jones et al. (1991) provide evidence that
infants as young as 10 months use smiles as communicative rather than emotional signs. The
youngest child in our study was older than 10months, but all study participants were at the
first stages of their language acquisition. Their smiles could be therefore interpreted as an
attempt to involve mothers in their positive experience and to draw their attention to the
personalised book, for which there were overall more signs of children’s interest than for the
non-personalised books.
Parents’ engagement with personalised books
Parents produced significantly more smiles or laughs and vocal activity with the personalised
than the non-personalised and child’s favourite book. These effects might be due to
‘ownership’ as the personalised books were the only ones to have their content determined by
the parents. However, in the case of smiles or laughs this does not seem to be the whole story
as the personalised books had the highest proportion of smiles or laughs which followed a
look at the child rather than a look at the book. Consequently, it seems more likely that
parents’ smiles or laughs were a response to the children’s positive engagement rather their
own enjoyment generated by the content of the book. Previous research by Janes and
Kermani (2001) has found that immigrant parents from Mexico and Central America
perceived reading pre-selected commercially produced books as ‘castigo’ (punishment). It
was only when parents were encouraged to create their own books for their children that they
became positively motivated and engaged in shared book reading. Our findings agree with
those of Janes and Kermani, in that books created by parents generated the highest levels of
positive affect and talk around the story. Our results also suggest that these effects are not just
due to parental ownership and involvement, but also could be attributable to the children’s
enjoyment of the books.
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Whatever the reason for parents’ higher frequencies of vocal activity and smiles or
laughs, these are important findings as previous research has shown that the use of parents’
talk around the book is linked to children’s later literacy skills (DeTemple & Snow, 2003;
Reese, 1995) and high level of parental enjoyment of reading (evidenced by smiling and
laughing) is associated with children’s learning outcomes (Cline, 2010). As such, our
findings should encourage application of this technique with more diverse samples where the
parents’ engagement in shared book reading is generally low and therefore these effects might
be even more beneficial. Moreover, if parents' instrumental involvement in book creation
leads them to use more vocal communication, then it is desirable to support such engagement
through a variety of means, including, for example, digital technology (see the Our Story
application, available at http://creet.open.ac.uk/projects/our-story/).
Parent-child mutual positive engagement with personalised books
It was expected that personalised books might result in more equal contributions from child
and parent to the interaction in terms of smiling and laughing. However, analyses did not
support this expectation. The analyses of the sequences of events during social interaction
indicated that with the personalised books, the mechanisms which underlie parents’ and
children’s positive engagement were different; children’s smiles were preceded by their looks
at the book whereas parents’ smiles with the personalised books were mostly triggered by the
children’s reaction. It is difficult to say whether this finding could be considered as a form of
mutual synchrony between parent and child, as previous research is not conclusive about the
importance of individuals reacting to a book and/or mutual sensitivity to each other. Ortiz and
colleagues (2001) found no significant association between observed parent variables (for
instance enthusiasm, number of questions asked per minute, positive feedback) and child’s
interest in reading. Riedl Cross et al. (2011), on the other hand, found that parents whose
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children scored high on a standardised language measure were more in tune with their
children’s needs and abilities during book reading. Conversely, parents of children with more
limited language were mostly unaware of their children’s abilities during book reading, such
as for example ability to respond to questions. It is therefore interesting to note that when
reading personalised books, parents were responding to their children’s non-verbal clues, and
children, on the other hand, were more focused on the personalised character of their books
rather than on their parents reading with them.
Thus, when considering mutual book engagement between parents and children, it is
important to realise that children may be leading some aspects of the observed interaction
depending on how personally meaningful a book is. In this respect, the study highlights the
variety of self-regulated and self-based context of parents’ and children’s interest in books and
the importance for acknowledging the idiosyncratic nature of mutual parent-child shared book
reading engagement (cf Fletcher and Reese, 2005). The latter is an important concept in
research concerned with socio-culturally sensitive book reading interventions (see Ada, 1988;
Campoy et al., 2006) and makes our study directly relevant to the many research and policy
attempts which seek to maximise the learning benefits of shared book reading by making it an
enjoyable and entertaining event for both parents and their children (see Gadsden, 1996;
Cairney, 1997; Dunst et al., 2006; Moll and Cammarota, 2010).
.
Study limitations
Before generalising our findings to larger cohorts, further confirmation of our results is
needed given the current small sample size and homogeneity of the sample. Furthermore,
when identifying what constitutes effective, mutual and equitable interaction, it is worth
considering whether analyses based on frequency of behaviours can be enhanced by
observations which capture other subtle qualitative aspects of social interaction, such as for
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example self-other agreement or anticipation. With this caveat in mind, it would appear that a
specific feature of books, namely their personal significance to the parent and child,
influences parent-child engagement in the session. The study focus on personalisation, rather
than a specific book type or book genre, means that the findings add to the growing research
evidence regarding the importance of certain book features rather than book types (Anderson
et al., 2009, April). Furthermore, by finding a difference in relation to different book features
and for different aspects of parents’ and children‘s engagement, the study contributes to
discussion of the interrelated influences in parent-child engagement in shared book reading
(cf. Reese and Cox, 2005). We therefore believe that personalised books are an area worthy of
future research, especially because they can be used with a wide variety of socioeconomic and
cultural groups, and it would be interesting to examine the variations inthe books and their
effects on children and parents from various families and with different experiences.
Conclusion
Our focus on self-made personalised books was influenced by the growing interest in the
relationships between specific book features and parent-child positive engagement in shared
book reading. Personalised books (i.e. self-made books created specifically for the child) are
by definition culturally-sensitive and family-oriented resources, adjustable to parents’ and
children’s interests and needs. Interestingly, despite relatively wide-spread occurrence of
personalised books in homes and children’s pre-schools, very few studies have looked at how
both parents and children respond to books which are personally meaningful to them.
Parents’ and children’s higher engagement levels with personalised books highlight some key
characteristics of these books and the importance of: (i) the content of children’s books being
based on what children enjoy and have previously been exposed to, (ii) the book’s personal
relevance to both parent and child during shared book reading and, (iii) parents’ sense of
ownership in a book-reading intervention. Given the importance of enjoyment, and verbal
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participation in parent-child shared book reading, future research is warranted on personalised
books and the specific response they facilitate in parents and children.
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Tables and Figures
Table 1: parents’ and children’s behaviours: coding framework
Variable Specification Details and examples Scoring
1, Pointing
Child
Parent
-the number of times the
infant points or touches a
picture or a line of text or
the whole page (cf.
Murphy, 1978)
Accidental touching or
playing, chewing
and‚ eating‘ was not
counted as pointing. Also,
turning pages, simply
holding the book and
interacting with flaps of
flip-flap books was not
considered as pointing
- frequency count obtained
for each participant in
each book session
-the number of times the
parent points or touches a
picture or a line of text or
a letter or the whole text
(cf. Whitehurst et al. 1988)
2, Vocal activity
Child:
Parent:
- total number of
vocalisations (see Crowe
et al. 2004)
For younger babies, vocal
activity include nonverbal
sounds and slurred or
simplified versions of
ordinary words. Imitating
animal sounds in response
to questions like ‘which
animal is this?’ were also
included.
For older toddlers, all of the
above plus simple words
were included.
-frequency count for each
participant in each book
session
For parents, all verbal
utterances were included,
including imitating animal’s
sounds and providing
backchannel responses (e.g.
‘yeah, uh-huh’). A
complete utterance was
treated as one vocal act
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2
3, Smiles and
laughs
Child and Parent
-total number of smiles
and laughter (see Hynd,
2006)
Any smile or laughter
observed during each
reading session counted
towards the indicator
-frequency count for each
participant in each book
session
4, Less engaged
behaviours
Child
Parent:
-total number of yawns,
restless movements, looks
away from the book and
furtive departures
Any sign of lack of interest
in the book or discomfort
with the reading session
counted as ‘one’ behaviour
for each child per session
-frequency count for each
participant in each book
session
-total number of yawns,
restless or harsh
movements, looks away
from the book and furtive
exits
Any sign of lack of interest
in the book or discomfort
with the reading session
counted as ‘one’ behaviour
for each parent per session
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1
2
Figure 1 The mean frequency of the children’s behaviours with each of the types of books (FB
= favourite book; PB = personalised book, NB = non-personalised book)
5.00
12.60
10.00
26.10
13.70
1.40
3.90
1.30
2.30
1.30
1.90
7.60
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
FB PB NB FB PB NB FB PB NB FB PB NB
Pointing
Vocal activity
Smiles & laughs
Negative eng.
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1
1
2
3
4
2
Figure 2 The mean frequency of the parents’ behaviours with each of the types of books (FB
= favourite book; PB = personalised book, NB = non-personalised book)
5.85
6.85
2.43
58.71
44.00
0.86
4.00
1.57
0.00
0.00
0.00
21.14
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
50
55
60
65
FB PB NB FB PB NB FB PB NB FB PB NB
Pointing
Vocal activity
Smiles & laughs
Negative eng.
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1
2
3
4
5
2
Figure 3: Parent-child correspondence for smiles and laughs: proportion of behaviours
displayed for parent and child (FB = favourite book; PB = personalised book, NP = non-
personalised book)
POSITIVE ENGAGEMENT
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
Personalised book
Favourite book
Non-personalised book
Child
Child
Child
Parent
Parent
Parent
37
1
1
2
3
4
5
6
2
38
1
1
2
3
4
5
2
