Young Children's Responses to One-to-One Story Readings in School Settings

CASE STUDY and correlational research has indicated that frequent exposure to story readings has positive effects on some aspects of early literacy. Much of the work on storybook readings has focused upon the interactive behavior between parent and child during one-to-one readings in middle-class homes. This study was designed to investigate whether frequent one-toone readings in a school setting would increase the number and complexity of comments and questions from children of low socioeconomic status (SES). The 79 subjects, who were lowSES four-year-olds in three urban day-care centers, were assigned to two experimental groups and one control group. Students in the first experimental group were read a different book each week for 10 weeks. Those in the second experimental group heard repeated readings of three different books. In both groups, interactive behavior between adult and child was encouraged during story readings. The control group was guided through traditional reading readiness activities. The author found that one-to-one story readings did increase the number and complexity of questions and comments made by children in both experimental groups. Repeated readings were found to result in more interpretive responses and more responses focusing on print and story structure, and were most effective with children of low ability.