Purpose: Children learning to read in English must learn to read words with varying degrees of grapheme-phoneme correspondence regularity, but there is very little research comparing methods of instruction for words with less predictable or irregular spellings. Therefore, we compared three methods of instruction for beginning readers. Method:…

This study examined verbal and non-verbal features of mother-infant shared book reading in Australia during the first year of life and explored the relationship between these features and infant cognition. Mother-infant dyads were observed in this cross-sectional study reading an unfamiliar book in a laboratory setting when infants were aged 6…

Reading aloud to children is considered one of the most highly effective strategies for fostering a range of literacy skills, both at home and within contemporary classrooms. However, little is known about teachers' attitudes toward reading aloud, their self-reported frequency of engagement in the practice and what may pose as contemporary…

Children's language experiences in the first two years of life are inextricably connected with their current and future language and literacy development. Research has shown that mother-child shared reading of picture books is a practice that can promote this development. Little is known, however, about the shared reading experiences of infants…

Women who attain more education tend to have children with more educational opportunities, a transmission of educational advantages across generations that is embedded in the larger structures of families' societies. Investigating such country-level variation with a life-course model, this study estimated associations of mothers' educational…

This paper investigates mothers' views regarding the purpose of shared reading with their two-year-old children, confidence in using printed and electronic texts, and self-reported practice, framed around a focus on mothers' motivation to engage in shared reading with their children. Research into adult-child shared reading experiences has…

This case study investigates two Chinese children's shared reading experiences in both home and preschool contexts. The parents and the educators were interviewed about their general attitudes and practices relating to shared reading for promoting the Chinese children's bilingual development. Detailed observations were undertaken to record the…

Although unevenly distributed, many Australian classrooms are increasingly diverse and include young people from a wide variety of cultural and linguistic backgrounds, young people who speak many different languages and dialects of English. These diverse classrooms offer rich and exciting teaching and learning opportunities and require innovative…

While the benefits of interactive reading opportunities, such as reading aloud and being read to, are well established, little is known about children's attitudes toward, and perceptions of these practices beyond the early years. Research in this area can inform literacy instruction aimed at encouraging enjoyment and continuance of this practice.…

Whilst there exists a plethora of research about the benefits of reading aloud on children's literacy development and a range of government reports highlighting the positive investment return on early intervention strategies such as reading aloud, most literature is presented from an adult perspective. Limited research exists on children's…

This study examined the socio-demographic factors associated with trajectories of parental involvement in shared book reading and other home activities for children aged 2-6 years. The study uses data from 3836 families participating in "Growing up in Australia: The Longitudinal Study of Australian Children." Latent growth curve models…

The Australian Curriculum positions literacy as a general capability to be taught across all subject areas. While schools may design agreements and policies to formalise the position of literacy as a whole-school priority, there is relatively limited research guiding the structure and content of these planning documents. We contend that reading…

Children's attitudes towards, and frequency of recreational reading influence their reading skill level. The aim of this study was to determine the relative influence of research-supported intrinsic and extrinsic variables that can shape this attitude and practice, and to investigate the use of artificial neural network as an adjunct approach in…

While librarians in schools often face significant budgetary cuts, they can play an important role in supporting learning in literacy and literature. However, little is known about the practices that they may employ to this end. Of particular interest is the role of librarians in schools in supporting struggling readers, as these students may be…

Dual-route theories of reading posit that a sublexical reading mechanism that operates serially and from left to right is involved in the orthography-to-phonology computation. These theories attribute the masked onset priming effect (MOPE) and the phonological Stroop effect (PSE) to the serial left-to-right operation of this mechanism. However,…