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Effects of the Dialogic and Traditional Reading Techniques on Children's Language Development

July 2015
Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197:754-758

DOI:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.172

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CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Authors:

Zeynep Ceren Şimşek

Pamukkale University

Nesrin Işıkoğlu

Pamukkale University

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention on the receptive and expressive language skills of 4-5 year old children from low-income families. Control group with pretest – posttest model in experimental design was used. Forty-six children attending a public kindergarten in Denizli were randomly placed in an experiment and a control group. Data were collected through “TEDİL-3” and “Personal Information Form.” In the experimental group, 8 picture books were read by the researcher two times a week for four weeks through dialogic reading techniques. In the control group, the same 8 picture books were read by the classroom teacher through traditional reading. The results showed advances in children's language development in favor of the experimental group. Suggestions related to literature were discussed.

shows the means, standard deviations, t statistics and significant levels for the control and experiment groups.

…

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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 ( 2015 ) 754 – 758

Available online at www.sciencedirect.com

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.

doi: 10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.172

ScienceDirect

7th World Conference on Educational Sciences, (WCES-2015), 05-07 February 2015, Novotel

Athens Convention Center, Athens, Greece

Effects of the Dialogic and Traditional Reading Techniques on

Children’s Language Development

Zeynep Ceren Simsek

, Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan

Pamukkale University, Faculty of Education, Denizli,20200, Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention on the receptive and expressive

language skills of 4-5 year old children from low-income families. Control group with pretest – posttest model in experimental

esign was used. Forty-six children attending a public kindergarten in Denizli were randomly placed in an experiment and a

ntrol group. Data were collected through “TEDİL-3” and “Personal Information Form.” In the experimental group, 8 picture

book

s were read by the researcher two times a week for four weeks through dialogic reading techniques. In the control group,

the same 8 picture books were read by the classroom teacher through traditional reading. The results showed advances in

children’s language development in favor of the experimental group. Suggestions related to literature were discussed.

Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.

Keywords:Dialogic reading; traditional reading, language development

1. Introduction

Language as a vital part of children’s development provides opportunities for learning, for communicating and

ilding relationships with others as well as for enabling children to make sense of the world around them (Brock &

Rankin, 2008). It is well recognized that interaction with more skilled speakers, provide literacy rich home and

school environment and engage in interactive book reading are important activities to support preschool age

children’s language development (Berk, 2013). Mainly, studies show that parent- child reading is related to outcome

easures such as language growth, emergent literacy, and reading achievement (Bus, IJzendoorn &Pellegrini, 1995).

* Zeynep Ceren Simsek. Tel.+4-345-543-345.

E-mail address: cyesilyurt@pau.edu.tr

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).

Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.

755

Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 ( 2015 ) 754 – 758

Reading books to children at early age has been found very useful for gaining vocabulary, communication and

memory skills. (Powell, Diamond, Burchinal & Koehler, 2010; Sim & Berthelsen, 2014).

Research studies indicate that there is

a relationship exists between the regularity of children’s book reading

experiences and their receptive vocabulary and early literacy skills. (Sutton, Sofka, Bojczyk, and Curenton, 2007). A

lon

g with regularity of book reading, a child’s interaction level also linked to his or her learning. Researchers find

that dialogical reading that requires higher level of children’s interaction has a positive impact on the language skills

of children from low-income families (Zevenbergen, Whitehurst & Zevenbergen, 2003).

Both at home and in school, shared book reading involves a

n adult reading aloud to a child or group of children

(Hindman, Skibbe, & Foster, 2014; Gormley & Ruhl, 2005). Two main types of shared book reading “monologic

(trad

itional)” and “dialogic” are evident in the literature. Gormley & Ruhl (2005) defined monologic reading as; “a

rbatim reading of the text with no pausing for questions or verbal interaction between adult and child.” On the

contrary, dialogic reading involves shifting roles of adult and children while reading.

The concept of dialogic reading has emerged from the work

s of Whitehurst and his colleagues (Whitehurst et al.,

1988). The main principle of dialogic reading is to teach children beco

me a storyteller instead of passively listening

to the story. In the process of dialogic reading the adult assumes the role of an active listener, asking questions,

adding information, and prompting the child to increase the sophistication of her or his descriptions of the material in

the picture book (Lonigan, & Whitehurst, 1998). To ensure interaction the PEER and CROWD sequences are used

in dialogic reading (Whitehurst et al.,1994). PEER refers to the following: (a) Prompt the child to talk about the

book, (b) Evaluate the child’s responses, (c) Expand the child's response by rephrasing and adding information to it

and (d) Repeat the prompt to make sure the child has learned from the expansion. CROWD refers to the five types of

prom

pts (a) Completion prompts: fill-in-the blank questions, (b) Recall prompts: qu

estions that require the child to

remember aspects of the book, (c) Open-ended prompts: statements that encourage the child to respond to the book

n his or her own words, (d) Wh-prompts: what, where, and why questions, and (e) Distancing prompts : questions

at require the child to relate the content of the book to aspects of life outside the book (Zevenbergen et al., 2003).

The effects of dialogic reading have compared by

several experimental studies. Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, &

Epstein, (1994) implemented a one month, home-based dialogic reading intervention

. The results indicated larger

effects on the language skills of children than a similar amount of typical picture book reading. Similarly, dialogic

reading intervention both at home and school have produced positive gains for children from low income families

(Whitehurst et al., 1994). In a recent study, Lonigan, Purpura, Wilson, Walker and Clancy-Menchetti (2013) have

ound that children who received the small group dialogic reading, phonological awareness, or letter knowledge

interventions experienced more growth than the children who received only their classroom curriculum. The effects

of dialogic reading intervention on other cultures and languages were also examined. Opel, Ameer and Aboud

(200

9) conducted a 4-week dialogic reading intervention with rural Ban

gladeshi preschoolers and found that dialogic

program increased from 26% to 54% children’s expressive v

ocabulary. In another dialogic reading intervention

conducted in Egypt resulted in a higher level of phonological awareness (Elmonayer, 2013). In Turkey, Akoglu,

Ergul & Duman (2013) conducted an experimental study with nine children living in an orphanage. After the four

eek dialogic reading intervention, they found that children’s both receptive and expressive language skills were

improved.

The present study attempted to contribute to this line of

work on reading and language development by examining

the benefits of dialogic reading in a Turkish preschool program. The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy

of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention on the recep

tive and expressive language skills of 4-5 year old children

from low-income families. For this purpose this st

udy also aimed to understand the following questions:

1) Is there a difference between the pre and posttest express

ive and receptive language scores in the experiment

group?

2) Is there a difference between the pre and posttest express

ive and receptive language scores in the control

group?

3) Is there a difference between the experiment and con

trol groups’ expressive and receptive language scores?

756 Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 ( 2015 ) 754 – 758

2. Method

2.1. Design and procedure

An experimental study was designed to examine the ef

fects of dialogic reading on children’s language

development. The design was a pre–post assessment of an experiment and con

trol group. This design was intended

to examine and to compare reading techniques on children’s language development. For this purpose the present

study included two groups. One is experimental group in which the dialogic reading (DR) was implemented and

second is the control group in whish dialogic traditional reading was implemented (TR).

The pre-tests were administered before implementing DR and T

R activities. All the children in the two groups

were tested individually and the assessment was administered in a quiet room at the school. Eight picture story books

ere selected for the reading activities and the same books were read both in the experiment and the control group.

Books were 11–14 pages in length and had a quarter page of text w

ith full page illustrations in the background.

For the experimental group, the dialogic reading activit

ies were developed using PEER and CROWD techniques

and the researcher visited to the classroom two times a week and implemented DR activities. DR activities lasted

approximately 20 minutes and conducted in a small group of 7-9 children. For the control group, the classroom

teach

er received and used the same 8 books over the 4-week period during the regular language activities. The

classroo

m teacher was asked to conduct her regular language activities with the children. After the 4 weeks of

implementation, the post-tests were administered in both groups.

2.2. Participants

Children recruited for this study were from low-income families and attended a public kindergarten in central

Denizli. T

he consent was obtained from MEB officials and the parents to assess children’s language development

and demographic information. The participants were 46 five-year-olds, enrolled in two diff

erent classrooms.

Participant classrooms were randomly placed in the experiment and control group. The control group of this study

cluded 23 children (% 44 female and %56 male). On average, the children were 65.69 months of age (SD= 3.03),

ith an age range from 60.00 to 71.00 months. The experimental group of this study included 22 children (%

41F

emale and &59 male). On average, the children were 66.75 months o

f age (SD = 3.29), with an age range from

60.00 to 73.00 months.

2.3. Measures

In order to determine the language development levels of

the children “Test of Early Language Development-

Third Edition” (TELD-3), developed by Hresko, Reid ve Hammill (1999) has been used. This test is a normative,

alid and credible measure tool, developed in the United States of America in order to measure the receptive and

expressive oral language skills of the children whose ages ranging from 2 years 0 month and 7 years 11 months. It is

commonly used with the aim of diagnosing children who have language disorders in the early ages, showing weak

and strong sides of their language developments, giving information about development process and researching.

TELD-3, has been identified as Test of Early Language Development-Third Edition: TurkishVersion (TELD-3:T) in

e international literature with the contributions of PRO-ED publishing (Topbas, 2010). TELD has been used twice

as p

re-tests and post tests.

2.4. Results

The aim of this study was to identify the effect of dialog

ic reading upon the receptive and expressive language

developments of the preschool children in a group of 4-5 years. The results of pre-test and posttest about their

recep

tive language were shown in the Table 1.

757

Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 ( 2015 ) 754 – 758

Table1. Comparisons of pre and posttest of children’s receptive language scores

Group

Control (TR)

Pretest

102,26

15,09

-1,10

,282

Posttest

105,04

13,24

Experiment (DR)

Pretest

98,77

14,82

-5,15

,000

Posttest

111,40

9,60

Table 1 showed that there was no significant difference between the pre-test and the post test receptive

lan

guage scores on children’s in the control group (t

= .02, p<0.05). This meant that there were no significant

change children’s language scores in traditional reading group. On the other hand; there was a significant difference

between the pre-test and the posttest receptive scores of the children i

n the experiment group. (t

= .000, p<0.05).

This result showed that the children’s receptive language sores were significantly increased on the posttest. In order

to compare pre and posttest expressive language scores of children, independent samples t-tests were performed.

ble 2 shows the means, standard deviation

s, t statistics and significant levels for the control and experiment

groups.

Table2. Comparisons of pre and post test of children’s expressive language scores

Group

Control (TR)

Pretest

107,73

14,07

,018

,985

Posttest

107,67

8,08

Experiment

(DR)

Pretest

106,04

10,41

-5,75

,000

Posttest

116,31

7.31

Table 2 indicated that, the expressive language scores of c

hildren in the control group did not reflect a statistically

significant differences between the pre-test and the post test scores (t

= .098; p<0.05). In other words, the receptive

language scores of the children did not change in the traditional reading group. On the contrary, the expressive

language scores of children in the experiment group reflected a statistically significant increase in the posttest (t

.000; p<0.05). This result indicated that children in the dialogical reading group increased their expressive language

scores after 4 week intervention. The comparisons of the pre and posttest of children’s total language scores are

presented in the Table 3.

Table3. Comparisons of the pre and post test of children’s total language scores

Group

Control (TR)

Pretest

106,43

15,67

,654

,520

Posttest

108,04

11,01

Experiment (DR)

Pretest

103,59

13,56

5,65

,000

Posttest

117,13

8,13

The traditional reading group’s total language scores indicated that the means of pre- and posttest scores were

nonsignificant (t

= .520, p<0.05). On the other hand, the dialogical reading group’s total language scores indicated

that pre- and posttest scores produces a statistical

ly significant difference (t

= .000, p<0.05). This result showed that

total language scores of children increased after four week dialogic reading intervention.

3. Results and Implications

This study has reported the results of a four week readin

g intervention on children’s language development. The

quantitative analyses indicated that participation in the dialogic reading intervention had significantly changed

children’s’ receptive, expressive and total language scores. First, the findings suggested that the dialogic reading

facilitated a change in participant children’ both expressive and receptive language. This result was supported by

several researches. According to these researches, dialogic reading intervention had positive contributions to

children’s vocabulary and early literacy skills (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst, et al. 1988). Dialogic

reading supports all fields of language development as well as developing especially the expressive language

development in comparison to traditional reading. This may be due to the interactive nature of the dialogic reading.

In the traditional reading, a child just listens to the story and has limited opportunity to express himself/herself. On

758 Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 ( 2015 ) 754 – 758

the other hand, dialogic reading gives many opportunities to the child to make much more sentences than the adult

reading the book, to involve in and to freely express his/her opinions. Such interactions may result in improvements

in expressive and receptive language development. In a similar experimental research, the effects of traditional

reading and interactive reading have been compared and concluded that children in the interactive reading groups

have more language and early literacy skills (Hargrave & Senechal, 2000). Similar studies have found that

teractive reading interventions both at home (LeRoux, 2013) and in schools (Lever & Senechal, 2011) contributed

to the narrative and expressive language skills of the 4-5 year old children.

Mainly, this study suggests that the dialogical reading is an

important factor in supporting language development

of children. The dialogic reading is a highly effective reading technique in order to enhance the language

development of preschool age children. Therefore, both parents and early childhood teachers are urgently needed to

inform about the dialogic reading techniques. These techniques could be disseminated through the interactive

seminars or the Internet for both parents and teachers.

Even though this research pointed out many important findin

gs and implications, it has some limitations. Our

study had a limited number of participants that did not allow us to generalize across all children at various ages.

Future research needs to be conducted with a bigger sample from various age groups and should attempt to replicate

the findings of this study in other samples to guarantee the generalisability of the findings.

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Araştırmada, etkileşimli kitap okuma (EKO) sürecinin çocuk evleri sitesindeki çocukların erken okuryazarlık becerilerine ve bakım personellerinin çocuk edebiyatına yönelik tutumlarına olan etkisinin incelenmesi amaçlanmıştır. Araştırmada, deneysel desenlerden kontrol grupsuz ön test-son test yarı deneysel desen kullanılmıştır. Çalışma grubunu, Sivas Çocuk Evleri Sitesindeki 4-6 yaşları arasında 11 çocuk ve 13 bakım personeli oluşturmuştur. Veri toplama araçlarını “Çocuk Genel Bilgi Formu”, “Bakım Personeli Genel Bilgi Formu”, “Erken Okuryazarlık Becerilerini Değerlendirme Aracı” ve “Çocuk Edebiyatına Yönelik Tutum Ölçeği” oluşturmuştur. EKO etkinlikleri, sekiz hafta boyunca haftada üç gün araştırmacılar tarafından bakım personellerinin katılımlarıyla çocuklara uygulanmıştır. Grupların ön test-son test ve kalıcılık testi karşılaştırmalarında Friedman Testi, test sonucunda anlamlı farklılıklar oluşturan grupların saptanmasında Wilcoxon İşaretli Sıralar Testi kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın sonucunda, EKO etkinliklerinin çocukların ses bilgisel farkındalık becerilerinde, yazı farkındalıklarında, öyküyü anlama becerilerinde, görselleri eşleştirme becerilerinde, yazı yazma öncesi becerilerinde ve erken okuryazarlık becerilerinin toplamında anlamlı farklılıklara yol açtığı görülmüştür. EKO etkinliklerinin, çocukların bu becerilerini geliştirdiği saptanmıştır. Ayrıca EKO etkinliklerinin, bakım personellerinin çocuk edebiyatına yönelik tutumlarını olumlu yönde etkilediği görülmüştür. Bu noktada bakım personellerine EKO yaklaşımıyla ilgili eğitimlerin verilmesi, EKO’yla ilgili programların yaygınlaştırılması ve benzer çalışmaların farklı özelliklerdeki çocuklarla yürütülmesi önerilmiştir.

OKUL ÖNCESİ SINIFLARINDA HİKÂYE OKUMA ÜZERİNE NİTEL BİR ARAŞTIRMA

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Jun 2024

Serap Efe Kendüzler

Bu çalışma okul öncesi öğretmenlerninin hikâye okuma etkinliklerini nasıl gerçekleştirdiklerini, kendi uyguladıkları dil etkinliklerini nasıl değerlendirdiklerini ve bu etkinliklere katılan çocukların görüşlerini almak amacıyla gerçekleştirilmiştir. Çalışmada nitel araştırma yöntemlerinden durum çalışması yaklaşımı kullanılmıştır. Araştırmanın çalışma grubunu 5 okul öncesi öğretmeni ve 60-72 aylık 15 okul öncesi dönem çocuğu oluşturmaktadır. Katılımcılar belirlenirken amaçlı kolay ulaşılabilir örneklemesi kullanılmıştır. Örneklemin tamamının aynı sosyo ekonomik düzeyden gelen aileler olamasına özen gösterilmiştir. Araştırmanın verilerinin toplanmasında görüşme ve gözlem teknikleri kullanılmıştır. İlk olarak okul öncesi öğretmenlerinin hikâye okuma etkinliklerini nasıl gerçekleştirdiğini belirlemek amacıyla bir hikâye etkinliğinde gözlem yapılmış, ardından öğretmenler ve çocuklarla görüşmeler yapılmıştır. Veriler gözlem formu ve yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu (öğretmen) ve yarı yapılandırılmış görüşme formu (çocuk) ile toplanmıştır. Gözlem ve görüşmeler kayıt altına alınmıştır. Öğretemen ve çocuklardan elde edilen veriler ayrı ayrı analiz edilip kodlanmış ve temalar oluşturulmuştur. Gözlem sonuçlarına göre öğretmenlerin hikâye öncesi, hikâye okuma ve hikâye sonrası etkinliklere yer verdikleri görülmüştür. Öğretmenlerden elde edilen görüşmeler neticesinde hazırlık, uygulama ve değerlendirme temaları oluşturulmuştur. Çocuklardan elde edilen görüşmeler sonucunda ise çocukların hikâye hakkındaki duyguları, en sevdiği kitap türleri, okuma sıklığı gibi temalar oluşturulmuş, verilen cevaplar bu temalar altında analiz edilmiş ve yorumlanmıştır.

Akoğlu,G., Ergül,C., Duman, Y. (2014). Etkileşimli kitap okuma: Korunmaya muhtaç çocukların alıcı ve ifade edici dil becerilerine etkileri., İlköğretim Online, 13(2), 622-639.

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Apr 2014

Gozde Akoglu

Dialogic Reading: Its Effectiveness on Receptive and Expressive Language of Children in Need of Protectio

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Jan 2014

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of the "Dialogic Book Reading Program (DBRP)" on the receptive and expressive language skills of 4-5- year-old children who were in need of protection. The study included nine children (4 girls and 5 boys) living in an orphanage and who were identified as developmentally delayed based on the results of Denver Developmental Screening Test II. Children's language skills were pre- and post tested. Results showed that DBRP was effective to improve expressive language skills (number of different words) of participating children. Findings were discussed based on the results of previous research.

Shared Book Reading by Parents with Young Children: Evidence-Based Practice

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Full-text available

Mar 2014
Aust J Early Child

There is considerable recognition that shared book reading helps develop young children’s early reading and literacy skills. Home is an important context in which children first start to develop their early literacy skills. This paper reviews Australian and international literature of shared book-reading intervention pertaining to the effects of two different strategies (dialogic reading and print referencing) on young children’s early literacy skills. Further, a brief summary of findings of a recent Australian study are presented that showed some significant effects of shared reading on children’s early literacy skills. This research used a pragmatic RCT (randomised controlled trial) to investigate a combination of these two forms of shared bookreading home intervention with parents and their children enrolled in the Prep year of school in Queensland. The paper concludes with a discussion of the significance of the findings and implications for parents and teachers to use an evidence-based approach to help children develop early literacy skills.

Exploring the variety of parental talk during shared book reading and its contributions to preschool language and literacy: evidence from the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study-Birth Cohort

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Feb 2014

Although many studies have explored shared book reading between preschoolers and their families, very few have examined this practice within a large, nationally representative sample. Using the ECLS-B dataset, this study investigated shared reading among nearly 700 families of diverse ethnic, linguistic, and socioeconomic backgrounds. Coding of families’ book-related discussion focused on the variety of types of talk that parents used during reading. Results showed that parents focused primarily on the meaning of the story, with little attention to the code of the text. The range of talk techniques that parents used was largely independent of background factors such as child gender, ethnicity, or age, as well as family home language. A wider variety of meaning-related remarks by parents was linked to more advanced language skills among preschoolers. Findings provide a portrait of the nature of shared book reading discussion among American families, a profile of the background factors that are linked to this talk, and a precise account of the unique contributions of this talk to key emergent language and literacy competencies.

Accelerating Language Development Through Picture Book Reading

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Full-text available

Jul 1988

We experimentally assessed a 1-month, home-based intervention, designed to optimize parental reading of picture books to young children. Parents in the experimental group received instructions to increase their rates of open-ended questions, function/attribute questions, and expansions; to respond appropriately to children's attempts to answer these questions; and to decrease their frequency of straight reading and questions that could be answered by pointing. Control-group parents were instructed to read in their customary fashion. All families audiotaped their reading sessions at home. Analysis of these tapes demonstrated that the experimental group scored significantly higher than children in the control group on standardized posttests of expressive language ability. On the basis of analysis of audiotapes, children in the experimental group also had a higher mean length of utterance (MLU), a higher frequency of phrases, and a lower frequency of single words. Follow-up 9 months after the completion of treatment disclosed continued, although statistically diminished, differences between the two groups. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

Maternal reading and teaching patterns: Associations with school readiness in low-income African-American families

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Jan 1995
READ RES QUART

The current review is a quantitative meta-analysis of the available empirical evidence related to parent-preschooler reading and several outcome measures. In selecting the studies to be included in this meta-analysis, we focused on studies examining the frequency of book reading to preschoolers. The results support the hypothesis that parent-preschooler reading is related to outcome measures such as language growth, emergent literacy, and reading achievement. The overall effect size of d = .59 indicates that book reading explains about 8% of the variance in the outcome measures. The results support the hypothesis that book reading, in particular, affects acquisition of the written language register. The effect of parent-preschooler reading is not dependent on the socioeconomic status of the families or on several methodological differences between the studies. However, the effect seems to become smaller as soon as children become conventional readers and are able to read on their own.

Outcomes of an Emergent Literacy Intervention in Head Start

Article

Dec 1994

Classrooms of 4-year-olds attending Head Start were randomly assigned to an intervention condition, involving an add-on emergent literacy curriculum, or a control condition, involving the regular Head Start curriculum. Children in the intervention condition experienced interactive book reading at home and in the classroom as well as a classroom-based sound and letter awareness program. Children were pretested and posttested on standardized tests of language, writing, linguistic awareness, and print concepts. Effects of the intervention were significant across all children in the domains of writing and print concepts. Effects on language were large but only for those children whose primary caregivers had been actively involved in the at-home component of the program. One linguistic awareness subtest, involving the ability to identify the first letter and first sound of words, showed significant effects.

Examination of the Relative Efficacy of Parent and Teacher Involvement in a Shared-Reading Intervention for Preschool Children from Low-Income Backgrounds

Article

Dec 1998
EARLY CHILD RES Q

The effects of an interactive shared-reading intervention were evaluated with 3-to 4-year-old children from low-income families who attended subsidized child care. The children entered the program with oral language skills that were significantly below age-level as measured by standardized tests. Children were pretested and randomly assigned to 1 of 4 conditions: (a) no treatment control, (b) a school condition in which children were read to by their teachers in small groups, (c) a home condition in which children were read to by their parents, and (d) a combined school plus home condition. Parents and teachers were trained in a specific form of interactive reading via an instructional videotape. The intervention was conducted for 6 weeks, after which children were posttested on standardized measures of oral language, and language samples were obtained during a shared-reading assessment. Significant effects of the reading intervention were obtained at posttest and were largest for children in conditions involving home reading.

Promoting phonological awareness skills of Egyptian kindergarteners through dialogic reading

Article

Sep 2013
Early Child Dev Care

Randa Elmonayer

The present study examines the effect of dialogic reading (DR) on the promotion of Arabic phonological awareness skills (including syllable awareness, rhyme awareness, and phoneme awareness) of Egyptian kindergarteners. The participants were 67 children enrolled in the second level of kindergarten (ages 5–6), assigned to an experimental group (n = 35) or a control group (n = 32). Kindergarten Inventory of Phonological Awareness was developed by the author in the light of relevant previous studies. Pre-tests and post-tests were administered to the participants in the two groups. In between the two tests, the experimental group engaged in DR activities designed to improve their phonological awareness skills, using an alphabet storybook, designed and developed by the author, presented to the whole class via PowerPoint, while the control group participated in regular classroom activities. The findings suggest that children in the experimental group had higher phonological awareness levels in the post-tests than those in the control group. The specific design of the DR activities may be responsible for these changes.

Dialogic Shared Storybook Reading: An Instructional Technique for Use with Young Students in Inclusive Settings

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