Mother-Child Interactions, Attachment, and Emergent Literacy: A Cross-Sectional Study

Bus, ADRIANA G., and VAN IJZENDOORN, MARINUs H. Mother-Child Interactions, Attachment, and Emergent Literacy: A Cross-sectional Study. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1988, 59, 1262-1272. The purpose of this study was to describe the relations among mother-child interactions as they relate to written language, attachment security, and the child's performance on a number of emergentliteracy measures. 16 11/2-year-olds, 15 3/2-year-olds, and 14 51/2-year-olds participated in the study. Each mother-child dyad read through 2 books (Dribble and Letterbook) and watched Sesame Street fragments about letters and words. The Strange Situation procedure was used to observe attachment security with the youngest group. In the older groups, the children were left on their own by the mother for about 1 hour, during which they were tested and it was observed how the children reacted upon the return of the mother. In addition, each 3/2and 51/2-year-old completed 5 emergent-literacy tests. The results suggest that mothers of small children give reading instruction. Furthermore, it is shown that in securely attached dyads, there is less need to discipline; the children are less distracted than in anxiously attached dyads. In addition, securely attached dyads tend to pay more attention to reading instruction and to engage in more proto-reading. Last, children who get more reading instruction and less narration score higher on emergent-literacy measures.