Book reading has been demonstrated to promote vocabulary. The current study was conducted to examine the added value of an interactive shared book reading format that emphasizes active as opposed to noninteractive participation by the child. Studies that included a dialogic reading intervention group and a reading-as-usual control group, and that reported vocabulary as an outcome measure were located. After extracting relevant data from 16 eligible studies, a meta-analysis was conducted to attain an overall mean effect size reflecting the success of dialogic reading in increasing children's vocabulary compared to typical shared reading. When focusing on measures of expressive vocabulary in particular (k = 9, n = 322), Cohen's d was .59 (SE = .08; 95% CI = 0.44, 0.75; p < .001), which is a moderate effect size. However, the effect size reduced substantially when children were older (4 to 5 years old) or when they were at risk for language and literacy impairments. Dialogic reading can change the home liter...

Added Value of Dialogic Parent–Child Book Readings: A Meta-Analysis

Quality of Language and Literacy Instruction in Preschool Classrooms Serving At-Risk Pupils.

This meta-analysis examines the effects of vocabulary interventions on pre-K and kindergarten children’s oral language development The authors quantitatively reviewed 67 studies and 216 effect sizes to better understand the impact of training on word learning Results indicated an overall effect size of 88, demonstrating, on average, a gain of nearly one standard deviation on vocabulary measures Moderator analyses reported greater effects for trained adults in providing the treatment, combined pedagogical strategies that included explicit and implicit instruction, and author-created measures compared to standardized measures Middle- and upper-income at-risk children were significantly more likely to benefit from vocabulary intervention than those students also at risk and poor These results indicate that although they might improve oral language skills, vocabulary interventions are not sufficiently powerful to close the gap—even in the preschool and kindergarten years

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The Effects of Vocabulary Intervention on Young Children’s Word Learning A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis examines to what extent interactive storybook reading stimulates two pillars of learning to read: vocabulary and print knowledge. The authors quantitatively reviewed 31 (quasi) experiments (n = 2,049 children) in which educators were trained to encourage children to be actively involved before, during, and after joint book reading. A moderate effect size was found for oral language skills, implying that both quality of book reading in classrooms and frequency are important. Although teaching print-related skills is not part of interactive reading programs, 7% of the variance in kindergarten children’s alphabetic knowledge could be attributed to the intervention. The study also shows that findings with experimenters were simply not replicable in a natural classroom setting. Further research is needed to disentangle the processes that explain the effects of interactive reading on children’s print knowledge and the strategies that may help transfer intervention effects from researchers to ...

Interactive Book Reading in Early Education: A Tool to Stimulate Print Knowledge as Well as Oral Language

Preschoolers’ (N 156) classroom language and literacy experiences, defined across multiple dimensions, and their vocabulary and emergent literacy development were investigated. Videotaped classroom observations revealed substantial variability in amount and types of language and emergent literacy activities, across classrooms and for individual children within classrooms. Generally, more time in emergent code-focused activities was associated with preschoolers’ alphabet and letter–word recognition growth, whereas more time in meaning-focused activities (e.g., book reading) was related to vocabulary growth. Only teacher- and teacher– child-managed activities were associated with alphabet and letter– word growth, whereas child-managed experiences, including play, were also associated with vocabulary growth. Overall, the effect size for student-level, code-focused instruction (small group) was about 10 times greater than was its classroom-level (whole-class) counterpart. There were Child Instruction interactions, with the impact of different activities varying with preschoolers’ incoming vocabulary and emergent literacy.

Preschool instruction and children's emergent literacy growth

The effects of 2 preschool-based shared-reading interventions were evaluated with 95 children, ages 2- to 5-years, from low-income families. Language skills of the children were below age-level as ...

Effects of Two Shared-Reading Interventions on Emergent Literacy Skills of At-Risk Preschoolers:

Research has indicated a substantial overlap between reading disability (RD) and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, few studies concerning this overlap have been conducted wi...

Brenlee G. Bloomfield

Papers

Effects of Two Shared-Reading Interventions on Emergent Literacy Skills of At-Risk Preschoolers:

Relations Among Emergent Literacy Skills, Behavior Problems, and Social Competence in Preschool Children From Low- and Middle-Income Backgrounds: