Parent-Child Shared Book Reading and Children’s Language, Literacy, and Empathy Development1

Abstract

Parent-child shared reading interactions are part of the socio-cultural
context of children’s development (Pellegrini & Galda, 2003). Despite
the fact that this activity has earned extensive scholarly research, there
are still many open-ended questions regarding shared book reading and
its myriad relationships to children’s development. To date, much of the
research has focused on the impact of book reading on children’s language
and emergent literacy skills (e.g. Bus, 2002). However, book reading
also holds the potential to advance other aspects of development
that have yet to be examined; for example, children’s social-emotional
adjustment.
Children’s books often present social and emotional experiences
(Zeece, 2004), and reading these books to children invites conversation
about the emotions, motivations, and behaviors of the story’s protagonists.
Discussions between parents and their children that encourage the
children to define emotions, to consider the motivations for characters’
behaviors and their implications, and to understand the array of relationships
of the characters and their surroundings, can help the children to
express, understand, and regulate their own emotions (Colwell, 2001).
The current study was conceptualized on the basis of these assumptions
and in light of the small number of studies that have examined the significance
of the nature of parental shared book reading on the child’s development.
This study explored the relationship between the frequency
and the nature of shared book reading and children’s language, literacy,
and empathy skills.

Full text

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Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare, n. 2 - 2012, pp. 55-65
Parent-Child Shared Book Reading and
Children’s Language, Literacy, and Empathy
Development1
Dorit Aram and Rotem Shapira
Parent-child shared reading interactions are part of the socio-cultural
context of children’s development (Pellegrini & Galda, 2003). Despite
the fact that this activity has earned extensive scholarly research, there
are still many open-ended questions regarding shared book reading and
its myriad relationships to children’s development. To date, much of the
research has focused on the impact of book reading on children’s lan-
guage and emergent literacy skills (e.g. Bus, 2002). However, book read-
ing also holds the potential to advance other aspects of development
that have yet to be examined; for example, children’s social-emotional
adjustment.
Children’s books often present social and emotional experiences
(Zeece, 2004), and reading these books to children invites conversation
about the emotions, motivations, and behaviors of the story’s protago-
nists. Discussions between parents and their children that encourage the
children to dene emotions, to consider the motivations for characters’
behaviors and their implications, and to understand the array of relation-
ships of the characters and their surroundings, can help the children to
express, understand, and regulate their own emotions (Colwell, 2001).
The current study was conceptualized on the basis of these assumptions
and in light of the small number of studies that have examined the sig-
nicance of the nature of parental shared book reading on the child’s de-
velopment. This study explored the relationship between the frequency
and the nature of shared book reading and children’s language, literacy,
and empathy skills.
1
This study was funded by the “Israel Association for Research and Education Fun-
ds” Grant Association in 2006.

56 Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare, n. 2 - 2012
Book reading and children’s language and literacy
There is clear evidence supporting the relationship between frequen-
cy of book reading to children’s language development (van Kleeck &
Stahl, 2003). Nonetheless, there is less agreement between researchers
on the relationship between frequency of book reading and the devel-
opment of literacy skills (Sénéchal, LeFevre, 2002). Studies that have
focused on the nature of shared reading interactions found that it is re-
lated to both the child’s language and literacy level. For example, Lese-
man and de Jong (1998) found that the richness of conversation between
parents and their 4-year-old children while reading (asking open ques-
tions and encouraging their participation in the conversation) predicted
the children’s vocabulary as well as their decoding ability at age seven.
Studies have traditionally explored the impact of the frequency and the
nature of shared reading on children’s language and literacy. To date,
however, there are no studies that have evaluated the connection be-
tween these aspects of book reading and children’s empathy. The cur-
rent study focused on this subject.
Book reading and children’s empathy
Empathy is the ability to experience the feelings of another and to
respond with an emotional response that is more appropriate to the state
of the other than to the state of the individual (Hoffman, 2000). Empa-
thy and emotional understanding result from the interaction between
emotional skills (e.g., expressing emotions, identifying emotions) and
cognitive skills (e.g., taking on a task, understanding the feelings and
thoughts of another) (Strayer, 1989). The development of empathy is an
important ingredient in one’s social-emotional development. Emotional
knowledge provides children with information on situations with their
peers and behavioral norms in social situations (Denham et al., 2003).
Empathy develops during interactions in early childhood, where
the mood of the caretaker is transferred to the child by touch, tone of
voice, and facial expressions. This early version of sharing and awareness
between adult and child creates a world of openness, empathic under-
standing, and connection between the child’s emotions and the emotions
of others (Kohn, 2000; Zahn-Waxler et al., 1992). Beyond the emotional
connection between adult and child, parent-child dialogue helps chil-
dren understand emotional perspectives such as emotions, intentions,

Dorit Aram, Rotem Shapira/Parent-Child Shared Book Reading… 57
reasons, and motives (Thompson, Laible, Ontai, 2003). These types of
conversations may take place in various day-to-day contexts, including
playtime, discussing memories, and of course, during book reading. In
this context, Denham and Auerbach (1995) examined conversations on
emotions between 47 three-and 4-year olds and their mothers who were
sharing a picture book where the characters express various emotions.
The authors found a relationship between the nature of the mother’s
input (asking questions, providing explanations and instructions) and
the richness of their children’s language during the conversation. In ad-
dition, the children’s emotional abilities were predicted by the way in
which the mothers related to emotions during the picture book reading.
The purpose of the current study is to examine the nature of the rela-
tionship between the frequency and the nature of joint book reading and
children’s language, literacy, and empathy skills.
Method
Participants
Participants were 78 children (31 boys, 47 girls) and their mothers.
The children’s ages ranged from 41 to 65 months (M=54.72, SD=5.70).
All the children had at least one brother or sister (M=2.25, SD=0.73).
Most of the mothers were married (91%) and their education included
at least one academic degree (62.8%).
Procedure
Joint book reading took place in the child’s home. At the outset of the
meeting, mothers were asked to independently read a previously unseen
book without being recorded. Thereafter, the mothers were asked to
read the book to their child in their usual manner of reading, and the
process was video recorded. Mothers were then asked to ll out a ques-
tionnaire that evaluated their frequency of literacy activities and book
reading at home. In addition to the meeting in the home, researchers
evaluated children’s language, literacy, and empathy, in individual meet-
ings at the preschool.

58 Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare, n. 2 - 2012
Measures
1. Home literacy activities – The mother was asked to rate 15 questions
on a 7-points scale relating to the frequency of home-based literacy
activities with the child in a variety of areas: looking at newspapers,
letter games, writing activities, etc.
2. Frequency of book reading – The mother was asked how many times
per week she reads books to her child.
3. Nature of book reading – Mothers were videotaped while reading
the book “Frog on a Very Special Day” (Velthuijs, 2000) to their
child. The story describes a situation of “deception.” Frog, the sto-
ry’s protagonist, forgot that he has a birthday. His friends, however,
haven’t forgotten and are preparing a surprise party. Frog is frustra-
ted because he thinks his friends are distancing themselves from him.
Toward the end of the story, Frog’s friends surprise him with the
birthday party and the excited Frog is happy and enjoys himself. The
mother-child interactions were transcribed, analyzed and coded. In
the analysis, we related to all mother-child talk beyond the actual text
of the story, including gestures and behaviors. Observational analysis
reected the following measures:
• Mental-emotional discourse – This measure includes open/closed
questions, as well as expansions that related to the mental realm
(e.g., “Frog doesn’t know why today is a special day and he wants
to know”; “What did the rabbit mean?”); to the emotional realm
(e.g.,“Frog is very sad;” “Oh no, poor Frog;” “What does Frog
feel?”); and, to the social and moral realm (e.g., “His friends pre-
pared a party for him;” “What good friends;” “Is it nice to behave
like that?”). In addition, this measure included all mental terms
that the mother used during the interaction (e.g., think, forget,
surprise), and all emotional terms (e.g., sad, happy, joyful). The
percentage of mothers’ mental-emotional discourse was calcula-
ted from their entire discourse.
• Link to child’s life – This measure includes expansions by the mo-
ther that connect the story’s plot to the child’s life (“You also have
a birthday soon;” “You also have good friends like Frog does”).
The percentage of expansions dealing with the child’s life was cal-
culated out of the mothers’ total discourse.
• Child’s mental terms – This measure includes all mental terms ut-
tered by the child during the interaction (“Frog is really surprised
now”).

Dorit Aram, Rotem Shapira/Parent-Child Shared Book Reading… 59
• Attention incidents – This measure refers to incidents of loss of
attention by the child during the book reading. The percentage
of these incidents was calculated in relation to the 22-page book.
4. Vocabulary – Children’s receptive vocabulary was evaluated using the
PPVT (Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test) (Dunn, Dunn, 1981). For
each of 40 items, the children were shown 4 pictures and were asked
to indicate the drawing that matches the word said by the researcher.
5. Phonological awareness – Children listened to 30 spoken words with
a CVC structure (e.g., gar). They were asked to provide the initial
phoneme of the rst 15 words and the last phoneme of the last 15
words.
6. Letter knowledge -- Children were presented with the 22 letters of
the Hebrew alphabet and were asked to name them.
7. Empathy -- Children’s understanding of emotional situations was as-
sessed using an empathy assessment tool (Strayer, Roberts, 2004). For
each of ve emotions: sadness, happiness, disgust, fear, and anger,
the child was presented with two situations, via a story that depicted
that emotion. For example: “Donna invited her friends to play with
her; they agreed and came to play with her.” Or “Dan and his bro-
ther have a hamster that they love. The hamster is sick and about to
die.” After hearing the story, the child was asked to respond to th-
ree questions: (1) How does the character feel? The child was asked
to identify the appropriate emotion to the character from amongst
four possible pictures of emotions. (2) How does the child feel af-
ter hearing the story? The child was asked to select the emotion to
which he/she relates from amongst four random pictures showing
emotions. (3) Why does the child feel this way? The child was asked
to verbally explain why he/she picked that particular emotion. The
child’s weighted answer produced a “score” summarizing their level
of empathy. This score reects the child’s ability to identify another’s
emotions in various life situations, to match his emotions to that of
another and to explain why he feels a similar emotion to the other.
Results
We examined the relationship between the frequency of literacy ac-
tivities in the home along with the frequency and nature of book reading
to the children’s level of vocabulary, phonological awareness, letter nam-
ing and empathy.

60 Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare, n. 2 - 2012
Table 1. Correlations between the frequency and the nature of literacy activities
and shared book reading and children’s language, literacy and empathy (N=78)
Vocabulary Letter
Naming
Phonological
Awareness
Empathy
Frequency Home literacy
activities
0.19^ 0.42** 0.21* 0.04
Book reading 0.18^ 0.01 0.07 0.23*
Nature
of shared
reading
Mental-
emotional
discourse
0.21* 0.12 0.00 0.22*
Link to child’s
life
0.09 0.15 0.00 0.29**
Child’s use of
mental terms
0.20* 0.04 0.01 0.27**
Attention
incidents (%)
0.42** 0.21 0.05 0.06
^p<0.06, *p<0.05, **p<0.01
As evident in Table 1, we found that the variety of home literacy activi-
ties is related to the child’s language and literacy levels, but not to their
level of empathy. It was interesting to have revealed that reading books
to children is related to the development of the child’s empathy. Mothers,
who read more to their children, related more to emotions and social situ-
ations while reading, and drew more connections between the story to
the child’s life, had children who demonstrated a higher level of empathy.
Due to the wide variance among the children on the empathy meas-
ure (ranging from 0 to 14), we divided the participants into three groups
based on their developmental level of empathy as follows: The rst
group included 25% of the children who were established to be at the
highest developmental level of empathy (19 children); the second group
included children who were in the middle range (50% of the children,
40 children); and the third group included 25% of children who were
found to be at the lowest developmental level of empathy (19 children).
We focused on the rst and third groups, those at either ends of the
spectrum, to determine if there are differences between them in terms
of the frequency of book reading and the nature of maternal discourse

Dorit Aram, Rotem Shapira/Parent-Child Shared Book Reading… 61
during shared reading. A comparison between the groups revealed that
mothers who report reading books more frequently with their children
had children with higher levels of developmental empathy compared to
those children whose mothers report a lower frequency of book reading
(t=2.31, p<0.05). Similar results were found regarding the nature of the
discourse: Mental-emotional discourse (t=2.01, p<0.05), link to child’s
life (t=2.03, p<0.05), and child’s use of mental terms (t=2.05, p<0.05).
Differences were found between the groups supporting the assumption
that mothers’ reference to mental and emotional contexts while reading
books is positively related to their child’s level of empathy.
Discussion
Literacy activities and children’s language and literacy development
The current study found that the frequency of literacy activities at
home (e.g., writing notes, looking at newspapers, and letter games) is
correlated with both the child’s language skills as well as literacy skills
and that shared book reading (frequency and nature) is related to chil-
dren’s language skills. We assume that parents’ construction of a rela-
tively rich literacy environment reveals their conception of experiences
and activities that are likely to promote children’s development. It also
testies to their perception of themselves as responsible for providing a
development-supportive environment. It is reasonable to assume that in
a family with abundant literacy activities, the child earns encouragement
in everything relating to spoken or written language. The current study
strengthens previous studies (Bennet, Weigel, Martin, 2002) that dem-
onstrate connections between the extent of literacy activities in the home
and the level of language and literacy skills of the child.
Regarding the relationship between shared book reading and chil-
dren’s language and literacy, our results are in line with existing litera-
ture, which presents consistent evidence of the connection between
book reading and language development (e.g., van Kleeck, Stahl, 2003)
and less consistent evidence of the connection between book reading
and early literacy skills (e.g., Sénéchal, LeFevre, 2002). The relation-
ship between frequency of book reading and language can be explained
by the books’ rich vocabulary and the fact that repeated exposure to a
wealth of vocabulary when reading books enriches the child vocabulary
(DeTemple, 2001). There is evidence that mothers who include their

62 Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare, n. 2 - 2012
children in conversations and talk with them with rich vocabulary that
includes words that are relatively rare in everyday language contribute to
their children’s language development (Weizman, Snow, 2001). Shared
book reading encourages such conversations. However, it seems that
book reading is less related to children’s early literacy skills. The results
of the current study are in line with previous studies that showed that
mere exposure to books and looking at letters do not advance children’s
alphabetic skills (Aram, Levin, 2002). It may be that in order to promote
children’s alphabetic skills, activities that are more directly related to let-
ters, phonological awareness and writing need to be used.
In the current study, we also found a relationship between the moth-
ers’ mental-emotional discourse during book reading and children’s vo-
cabulary. That is, children whose mothers related more to emotional,
mental, and social aspects of the books’ characters, showed larger vocab-
ularies. We believe that mental-emotional dialogues that develop ideas,
provide explanations for occurrences, and utilize emotion and mental
terms, serve to challenge the children linguistically, and can thereby con-
tribute to their language development. Similarly, we found that children
who used more mental terms during the shared book reading had higher
vocabulary levels. This nding is supported by a study by Peskin and
Askington (2004), who found that greater exposure to meta-cognitive
terms (e.g., knew, guess) during a conversation led to greater usage of
those terms by the children.
Our evaluation of the shared book reading interaction also exam-
ined attention incidents during reading. We found a negative correlation
between attention incidents during the interaction and children’s lan-
guage and literacy levels. That is, children who showed more attention
disruptions while reading had lower vocabulary and literacy skill levels.
Various explanations are possible for these negative correlations. The
rst posits that attention incidents are evidence of lower involvement
and listening, and these distract from the ow of the learning (Sene-
chal, Monker, 1995; Wasik, Bond, 2001). A different explanation relates
to the connection between the nature of mother’s conversation and the
child’s involvement, and maintains that rich conversation is less charac-
terized by interruptions (e.g., Hargrave, Sénéchal, 2000). In the current
study we found that mothers who didn’t deepen or expand their con-
versation during book reading had children who were less involved and
attentive. It may be that children whose mothers are less involved in the
book reading and who have fewer expansions tend to be less interested
and more distractible. At the same time, it is possible that mothers of

Dorit Aram, Rotem Shapira/Parent-Child Shared Book Reading… 63
children with attention difculties tend to rush through a book reading
and relate less to emotional and mental aspects, and consequently, their
children learn less from the experience of joint book reading. Future
research can lend more insight to this phenomenon.
Book reading and children’s empathy development
To the best of our knowledge, the study presented here is a pioneer-
ing study dealing with the connection between book reading and the
development of empathy. Results from the study showed positive corre-
lations between the frequency and the nature of joint book reading and
children’s empathy. To our mind, the reasons for this result are related to
the both the content of the books as well as to the nature of the interac-
tion between the mother and her child. Upright (2002) suggested that
empathy is a learned ability, and therefore proposed promoting it in ele-
mentary school children using discussions of moral dilemmas where the
teacher guides and directs the students to understand the other. Against
this background, we assume that increasing activities with books that
deal with social situations will allow children to adopt another’s point
of view without the emotional involvement necessitated in real life situa-
tions. Additionally, the positive interaction between parent and child that
is promoted during book reading allows for the fostering of the child’s
emotional understanding. An enjoyable routine of joint book reading
can generate more positive feelings of both mother and child (Bus & van
IJzendoorn, 1997; Bus, van IJzendoorn, Pellegrini, 1995). Positive feel-
ings and experiences allow children to learn about the world, to regulate
their emotions, and to understand them better (Denham et al., 2003).
The present study’s results add to previous evidence of a connection
between the mother’s behavior and emotional language during joint ac-
tivities and the child’s behavior and emotional language. Thus, for exam-
ple, Denham and Auerbach (1995) found that mothers’ questions about
emotional situations predicted their children’s help and concern towards
another. Similarly, the mother’s relationship to emotions and thoughts of
the other were found to correlate with the child’s ability to understand
mental situations (Ratner, Olver, 1998). The current study’s ndings fur-
ther demonstrate the connection between parental discourse that deals
with emotions while confronting mental and social situations of book’s
characters and in the child’s life, to the child’s empathic ability. The more
that mothers converse about emotions and mental situations during joint

64 Rivista Italiana di Educazione Familiare, n. 2 - 2012
reading, the more they will be able to add to their child’s knowledge
about emotional experiences, and to cultivate the child’s emotional un-
derstanding and ability to express emotions. We think that parents have
it in their power to contribute to their child’s development of empathic
skills using a day-to-day interactive context – shared book reading – and
they should be encouraged to do so in a rich comprehensive way.
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