The purpose of this investigation was to explore how teachers' knowledge of read alouds might be shaped by opportunities to explore the crafting of picturebooks and the nature of collaborative meaning-making. Participants were enrolled in a graduate children's literature course across one academic semester. Data included pre and post interviews as…

The benefits afforded to young children through shared reading are well-documented, but few studies have focused on what contributes to enjoyment of shared reading, especially as it pertains to caregivers' enjoyment. This study explored child and caregiver enjoyment of shared reading through an online survey. Caregivers named books their 0- to…

This study was conducted in a preschool in Hatay, Turkey. The effect of the shared-reading method on the early literacy skills of preschool children is examined. Four preschool classes (two experiments and two control) participated in the research. Tools included the intervention program, intervention checklists, interviews, and early literacy…

Background: Few studies have examined associations of public library use and shared book reading to kindergarten children's academic skills. Methods: The study sample consisted of 13,385 kindergarten students enrolled in the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Class of 2010-2011 (ECLS-K: 2011). Parents reported on public library use…

We explored whether knowledge building through read alouds of a conceptually coherent (CC) set of texts might support children's incidental acquisition of vocabulary in these texts and listening comprehension of related texts. Eleven classrooms of first (n = 83) and second grade students (n = 112) were randomly assigned to read alouds of either a…

Although research provides ample evidence of teaching methods that facilitate students' learning of specific word meanings, the potential of instruction to impact students' general vocabulary knowledge has remained an unanswered question. This article reports on a three-year formative experiment that developed, implemented, and tested a long-term,…

In the present study, the relation between children's emotion knowledge and preschool teachers' book reading behaviors during shared book reading in the classroom was examined. A new coding system, the Book Readings for an Affective Classroom Education (BRACE), was developed to capture teachers' macro-level book reading behaviors (i.e., dialogic…

Theory of Mind (ToM) is a skill of social cognition recently of interest to literacy researchers. This article presents initial findings from a pilot study investigating the use of ToM to teach theme identification and theme statement formation to beginning readers who are less-skilled in comprehension. The authors designed a brief, 1:1 listening…

This article explores how a second-grade teacher's strategic talk moves supported her multilingual students, many of whom were designated as English Learners (ELs), to engage with complex content using purposeful, authentic communication during a 14-week read-aloud unit focused on historical changemakers. Collaborative coding of whole-class and…

Two experiments assessed how reading aloud versus reading silently would benefit recognition and recall performance of content-specific vocabulary (i.e., the production effect). Participants studied 30 terms from an American history curriculum by reading half of the vocabulary aloud, while the remaining words were read silently. After a brief…

The effectiveness of a literacy intervention program based on a joint interactive reading of informational science texts in increasing children's science vocabulary, language and literacy skills, delivered by the kindergarten teacher, was examined in 34 Hebrew-speaking kindergarten children exhibiting different levels of emergent literacy skills.…

Teachers can use expository texts to teach academic vocabulary, content knowledge, text structure, and text features. National associations' recommended book lists are often used to identify books for classrooms. Previously we identified expository texts on these lists from 2001-2002 and 2011-2012. The current study explored instructional…

This study explores how child and text clues were related to 31 kindergarteners' word-meaning derivation outcomes for 372 words presented in books read aloud to children. Data were analyzed using a multilevel, cross-classification, ordered logit model. Children showed no word-meaning derivation 40% of the time, indicating a need for instruction.…

This study describes book reading practices occurring in early childhood special education (ECSE) classrooms in comparison to early childhood education (ECE) classrooms. Reading logs submitted by 19 ECSE teachers and 13 ECE teachers over one academic year included all books read in whole class settings; these logs were analyzed to assess the…

Research has established a connection between print exposure and reading skills. The authors examined the impact of book access on print exposure via a monthly book distribution program. At 10 months of implementation, 170 families enrolled in the Imagination Library Program in Syracuse, New York responded to a survey. Results indicated that…