Mexican American Mothers of Low and Middle Socioeconomic Status: Communication Behaviors and Interactive Strategies During Shared Book Reading

Abstract

Parent literacy programs should supplement Mexican American mothers' communication behaviors and interactive reading strategies to improve effectiveness and participation.

Emergent Readers’ Social Interaction Styles and Their Comprehension Processes During Buddy Reading

“…Our findings extend this research by showing that modeling and scaffolding comprehension processes occur when children read with a collaborative interaction style. This coheres with previous research on adult-child reading styles, which found that interactive reading was effective for supporting emergent literacy development (Anderson-Yockel & Haynes, 1994;Hart & Risely, 1995;Heath, 1982;McNoughton, 1995;Reese et al, 2003;Rodriguez et al, 2009). Several aspects of collaborative and interactive reading are similar, such as affirming/agreeing and extending children's responses.…”

“…Research provides evidence that (a) adults' open ended prompts and questions were related to children's engagement with representing literal information in the text (Barachetti & Lavelli, 2010;Kang et al, 2009;Kim, Kang, & Pan, 2011) and (b) adults' questions to get children to clarify information in the story facilitate their engagement in comprehension monitoring (Gallagher, 1981;Garvey, 1977;Revelle, Wellman, & Karabenick, 1985). Third, related to the importance of modeling and scaffolding during read-alouds, research shows that an interactive style of adult-child reading, such as using questioning, affirming, and extending children's responses to text during reading, supports emergent literacy development (Anderson-Yockel & Haynes, 1994;Hart & Risely, 1995;Heath, 1982;McNoughton, 1995;Reese et al, 2003;Rodriguez et al, 2009). Downloaded by [New York University] at 12:44 24 July 2015 48 T. Christ et al A small body of research on buddy reading in early childhood suggests that same aged peers can also support one another's comprehension processes (Christ et al, 2013;Flint, 2010;Rubinstein-Avila, 2003).…”

First-time mothers' knowledge and beliefs regarding early communication development

“…Caregivers in other studies have been found to have reduced awareness of strategies promoting communication in pre-linguistic infants and were found to implement direct teaching strategies (Caspe, 2009;Hammer & Weiss, 2000;Roberts et al, 2005;Rodríguez et al, 2009;Skeat et al, 2010). Mothers in this study focused more on indirect language stimulation techniques which greatly facilitate speech and language learning (Paul, 2007) than direct teaching skills.…”

“…Stimulation strategies observed during shared book reading rarely encompassed more complex literacy strategies (e.g. elaborating on child's utterances and eliciting more information from child) and actually de-emphasised asking children questions (Caspe, 2009;Rodríguez et al, 2009). Such interactions do not facilitate or promote communication between the child and the caregiver.…”

“…Paul (2007) outlined the importance of using language facilitative techniques such as expanding on the child's utterance and asking open-ended questions to help children learn language. Numerous studies have investigated caregivers' communication stimulation practices, with teaching colours, the alphabet, numbers, body parts, shapes and sizes and shared book reading being the most common strategies reported (Caspe, 2009;Hammer & Weiss, 2000;Roberts, Jurgens, & Burchinal, 2005;Rodríguez, Hines, & Montiel, 2009). However, these strategies are used less often with children between zero and two years (Roberts et al, 2005).…”