Research has shown that interactive book reading in early childhood classrooms contributes to children's language development. High quality interaction during book reading has been shown to be even more beneficial for children's language development, but more research is needed on which interaction practices really work, as there is great…

In today's diverse and global world, the importance of disciplinary literacy is rapidly increasing. Thus, elementary educators must consider ways to incorporate disciplinary literacy into their instruction. Elementary educators often implement the transactional theory of reading to enhance comprehension and evoke aesthetic responses to fiction…

The development of 4- to 6-year-olds' narrative skills was investigated in relation to their receptive vocabulary, grammar, and home literacy environment. At Time One, 82 children aged 4 to 6 years completed standardised assessments of cognitive ability, vocabulary, and grammar. Narrative production and comprehension were assessed by the narration…

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…

The current study examined the development of early adolescents' social perspective taking (SPT) through collaborative small-group discussions. A total of 250 fifth-graders were assigned to three conditions, Collaborative Social Reasoning (CSR) discussions, Read-Aloud (RA) and Regular Instruction (RI). SPT was assessed before and after the…

Stories are one critical aspect of literacy across the life span. For young children, stories invite engagement in shared thinking, and social and emotional connections with others in family homes and early childhood education settings. In this article, we share key findings from two studies that illustrate ways that story interactions are…

Previous research on infant-directed speech (IDS) and its role in infants' language development has largely focused on mothers, with fathers being investigated scarcely. Here we examine the acoustics of IDS as compared to adult-directed speech (ADS) in Norwegian mothers and fathers to 8-month-old infants, and whether these relate to direct…

This article presents examples of how early childhood educators (prek-2nd grade) might use their daily read alouds as a vehicle for increasing mathematical talk and mathematical connections for their students.

Amplifying the racial, linguistic, ethnic, and broader sociocultural resources of Black, Latine, and Indigenous communities remains an urgent endeavor during these precarious times in literacy education. In the wake of continued global and U.S. racial reckoning movements and legislation that narrows early literacy curriculum to isolated skills and…

Research on parent-child shared book reading (SBR) has focused primarily on a single reading of a book and on the reading of the text itself. Yet parents often repeatedly read the same book to their child and continue to converse after the book is finished. Using Bruner's dual-landscape model as a theoretical basis, this study explored the…

Previous research highlights several benefits of shared book reading (SBR) for child development, but less studies exist about its predictors (Yarosz and Barnett, 2001). Literature on home SBR in Portugal is scarce (Araújo & Costa, 2015; Peixoto et al., 2008), and studies on its predictors in families at socioeconomic risk or Roma families in…

This study examined the within- and cross-language relationships between intrinsic language learning motivation, home literacy environment (shared book reading, parental literacy involvement, and parent perceived child literacy interest), and receptive vocabulary in 185 bilingual preschoolers and 233 primary school children in Singapore. Age…

Research Findings: In the context of parent-child book sharing, cultural influences on cognitive distancing language and associations with child executive function (EF) have been understudied. This study examined cultural group similarities/differences in parent and child book-sharing distancing language among preschool-aged dual language learners…

Back-and-forth conversations with adults are critical for developing children's language, and, therefore, an important part of the early childhood classroom learning environment; however, the specific nature of teacher feedback, one component of teacher-child conversations, on child language has not been widely studied. This article examined…

Shared book reading in which children actively participate in the reading of a text via discussion or extratextual talk has been well-established as an activity to advance children's literacy and language learning, and it is a characteristic practice of public library storytime programs. This study scrutinized the extratextual talk that occurred…