Tender Shoots: a parent book-reading and reminiscing program to enhance children’s oral narrative skills

Abstract

Tender Shoots is a randomized controlled trial (RCT) for parents aimed at improving preschool children’s oral language skills relevant for later reading. Parents of 72 preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to either a Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition, a Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition, or an Activity-Based Control (ABC) condition. RRR and SSS conditions involved dyads conversing about the same 12 books over 6 weeks, with RRR focused on the meaning of the story in relation to children’s own experiences, and SSS focused on soundplay. Children’s oral narrative skills were assessed with a story listening comprehension and retelling task before and one-year post-intervention. At the 1-year follow-up, children in RRR retold stories with greater accuracy (g = 0.61) and quality (g = 0.68) than did children in the control condition. Tender Shoots RRR is a promising tool for parents to help their children’s narrative production (retelling) skills.

Tender Shoots: A Parent‐Mediated Randomized Controlled Trial With Preschool Children Benefits Beginning Reading 1 Year Later

“…Participating parents varied in educational attainment, from those who left school after intermediate (middle) school to those with tertiary qualifications, with the modal educational achievement at the postsecondary level (polytechnic qualification: 27%; university degree, 26%; see Riordan et al, 2022). At pre‐test, groups did not differ in maternal education (Reese et al, 2022).…”

“…Weekly stamp charts listing project activities provided a record of the activities that participants endorsed engaging in each week. The total number of stamped activities was divided by the number of possible activities to yield a proportion (Reese et al, 2022; Riordan et al, 2022; Timperley et al, 2022). Average documented implementation of project activities by families in the follow‐up sample was high overall (86%), with group means of 73% (SSS), 89% (RRR), and 88% (ABC).…”

“…Despite clear between‐group differences by condition in parent–child interactions over time, child effects identified have been subtle and nuanced, consistent with other research comparing shared reading approaches that vary in extra‐textual focus (Justice et al, 2011). For instance, although children’s listening comprehension did not differ by group at post‐test (Riordan et al, 2022) or 1‐year follow‐up (Reese et al, 2022), only those children who participated in the meaning‐focused RRRcondition displayed better expressive story telling skills relative to those in the control condition at 1‐year follow‐up (Reese et al, 2022).…”

“…Riordan et al' (2022) finding that participation in SSS was specifically associated with immediate advantages for PA and alphabet knowledge is consistent with the proposition that these are “trifecta” skills—skills that are malleable and developed in the context of the intervention (see Bailey et al, 2017, 2020). Reese et al, 2022; Riordan et al, 2022) noted high implementation rates overall and no evidence that the proportion of project activities parents reported during the implementation phase moderated obtained condition effects. However, the benefits of the PA condition, SSS, were moderated by children’s age at pre‐test, such that SSS was specifically associated with concomitant benefits for older children’s PA and alphabet knowledge at immediate post‐test (Riordan et al, 2022).…”

Scholarship amid sheep: Applied cognition research in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“…Parents and teachers know that reading books with children benefits development, but they do not always know the most effective ways to share books to enhance children’s language and literacy skills. Together with one of her New Zealand colleagues, ER has developed Tender Shoots—a new way for parents and teachers to read books to 3- to 5-year-old children that advances oral language and beginning reading skills (Reese et al, 2022). Resources comprise prompts inserted into picture books, which encourage adults to stretch children’s narrative and emotion understanding skills (say, asking questions about the characters’ thoughts and emotions) and their sound awareness and decoding skills (helping children to tune in to the sounds of words).…”