Ashley M. Pinkham’s research while affiliated with West Texas A&M University and other places

The purpose of this study was to investigate the materials supports, specifically the effects of genre (narrative and informational) and medium (print and video) on children’s developing knowledge of text. Following pretests, 127 preschoolers were randomly assigned to one of four conditions: informational text (print or screen), or narrative text (print or screen) about insects. Eye-tracking data was collected to measure children’s engagement with the text. After the viewing or reading, children were individually administered a series of comprehension tasks. Results indicated children seemed equally engaged with both genre; however, regardless of medium, children performed better on most measures when given the informational text. These results suggest that informational text in print as well as video may be an ideal source for knowledge-building in the early years.

Young children seem to pick up words quickly, almost effortlessly, through various media in the early years. Studies have shown that storybooks, TV, screen media, and ebooks can all be sources for incidental word learning without formal instruction. Yet, typically, research has investigated learning from a single medium in isolation or in comparison with another. In this article, we describe the potential for synergy—the combined use of multiple media platforms—and how the various symbol systems of these different media may support incidental word learning. We review recent eye-tracking studies that explore the formal features of a medium, its affordances and constraints, and suggest how multiple media might extend word-learning gains beyond those from a single medium alone. The article describes a theoretical mechanism to explain how these benefits might arise for word learning as well as implications for further research.

There is a virtual consensus regarding the types of language processes, interactions, and material supports that are central for young children to become proficient readers and writers (Shanahan et al., 2008). In this study, we examine these supports in both home and school contexts during children’s critical transitional kindergarten year. Participants were 70 children living in 2 different communities: neighborhoods of concentrated poverty (i.e., poverty rates over 40%) and borderline neighborhoods (i.e., poverty rates of 20–40%). From an ecological perspective, our goal was to examine the quantity and quality of knowledge-building supports in these contexts, and their relationship to children’s school readiness outcomes. Interactive parent-child tasks were designed to elicit child-directed language in the home, while naturalistic observations in the kindergarten classrooms captured teachers’ child-directed language. Children living in concentrated poverty were more likely to experience language of more limited complexity and diversity in both home and kindergarten contexts as compared to children living in borderline communities. We argue that the “double dose of disadvantage” in the language supports children receive at home and at school may affect their school readiness in significant, yet distinct, ways.

Research (Evans & Saint‐Aubin, 2005) suggests systematic patterns in how young children visually attend to storybooks. However, these studies have not addressed whether visual attention is predictive of children's storybook comprehension. In the current study, we used eye‐tracking methodology to examine two‐year‐olds' visual attention while being read an unfamiliar storybook. Immediately following reading, they completed a comprehension assessment. Children who visually attended to illustrations depicting key narrative events during the initial reading demonstrated stronger comprehension than children who focused on other areas. Importantly, visual attention to pertinent illustrations was also positively related to parental reports of vocabulary knowledge. Collectively, this supports a reciprocal model of early knowledge development: vocabulary knowledge facilitates visual attention, and visual attention to storybook illustrations facilitates subsequent learning. Highlights • The current study examines two‐year‐olds comprehension of storybooks and whether this comprehension is impacted by their visual attention to illustrations and extant vocabulary. • This study uses eye‐tracking methodology to examine the relationship between extant vocabulary, visual attention to illustration and comprehension in two‐year‐olds. • This study found that two‐year‐olds visual attention to relevant illustration is predicted by their extant vocabulary and predicts comprehension.

This study examined the efficacy of a shared bookreading approach to integrating literacy and science instruction. The purpose was to determine whether teaching science vocabulary using information text could improve low-income preschoolers’ word knowledge, conceptual development, and content knowledge in the life sciences. Teachers in 17 preschool classrooms and 268 children participated; nine classrooms were assigned to treatment, eight to control. The treatment group received a science-focused shared book-reading intervention, 4 days a week, 12-15 minutes daily for 12 weeks, while the control group continued with business as usual. Results indicated statistically and practically significant effects on children’s word, concepts, and content knowledge and knowledge of the information text genre compared to the control group. However, we recognize the potential confound of district with treatment condition as a major limitation of the study.

Although a great deal of research has focused on ontological judgments in preschoolers, very little has examined ontological judgments in older children. The present study asked 10-year-olds and adults (N = 94) to judge the reality status of known real, known imagined, and novel entities presented in simple and elaborate contexts and to explain their judgments. Although judgments were generally apt, participants were more likely to endorse imagined and novel entities when the entities were presented in elaborate contexts. When asked to explain their reasoning, participants at both ages cited firsthand experience for real entities and general knowledge for imagined entities. For novel entities, participants referred most to indirect experiences when entities were presented in simple contexts and to general knowledge when those entities were presented in elaborate contexts. These results suggest that rich contextual information continues to be an important influence on ontological judgments past the preschool years.

The purpose of this study was to support teachers' child-directed language and student outcomes by enhancing the educative features of an intervention targeted to vocabulary, conceptual development and comprehension. Using a set of design heuristics (Davis & Krajcik, 200510. Davis, E. A., & Krajcik, J. S. (2005). Designing educative curriculum materials to promote teacher learning. Educational Researcher, 34, 3–14.View all references), our goal was to support teachers’ professional development within the curriculum materials. Ten pre-K classrooms with a total of 143 children were randomly selected into treatment and control groups. Observations of teacher talk, including characteristics of lexically-rich and cognitively demanding language were conducted before and during the intervention. Measures of child outcomes, pre- and post-intervention included both standardized and curriculum-based assessments. Results indicated significant improvements in the quality of teachers’ talk in the treatment compared to the control group, and significant gains for child outcomes. These results suggest that educative curriculum may be a promising approach to facilitate both teacher and student learning.

This article make a case for the importance of background knowledge in children's comprehension. It suggests that differences in background knowledge may account for differences in understanding text for low- and middle-income children. It then describes strategies for building background knowledge in the age of common core standards.

The goal of the current study is to explore the influence of knowledge on socioeconomic discrepancies in word learning and comprehension. After establishing socioeconomic differences in background knowledge (Study 1), the authors presented children with a storybook that incorporates this knowledge (Study 2). Results indicated that middle-income children learned significantly more words and comprehended the story better than lower-income children. By contrast, Study 3 presented children with a novel category and found that children performed equally in their word learning and comprehension. This suggests that socioeconomic differences in vocabulary and comprehension skills may be partially explained by differences in extant knowledge.