Shared book reading as a potential intervention for increasing lexical diversity in young children's learning environments¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 6 claims (6 for) · 5 studies (4 quant-synthesis, 1 associational), q2–q3 · 3 of 5 report an effect size · 4 claims rest on one study

Description¶

The article recommends caregiver shared book reading as a practical route to enriching the lexical diversity of young children's input. It states that parent speech generated in the context of shared book reading "may be a key factor of observed individual differences in language ability among young children and also a potential intervention for increasing lexical diversity in the learning environments of children." Because reading frequency varies systematically with socio-economic status, the strategy targets caregivers who read less often.

Design Implications¶

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Caregivers must actually read picture books to children; the article notes book reading is common but by no means universal and varies with socio-economic status.

Constraints¶

• The article estimates text contributes only about 3% of a typical child's yearly input at one book a day and about 6% at two books a day, though a larger share of child-directed speech for low-SES children.

Target Learners¶

• infants and young children read to by caregivers

Target Learning Goals¶

• vocabulary growth through increased lexical diversity of input

Affordances¶

• Lexical Diversity Input Drives Learnability

Claims¶

• At matched token sizes, samples of picture-book text almost never contain fewer unique word types than samples of child-directed speech [+W]
• The greater diversity of book input arises mainly because different books sample the language more broadly than different conversations do [+W]
• Individual picture books typically contain more unique words at a given sample size than individual conversations [+W]
• The text of children's picture books contains more unique word types than a length-matched sample of child-directed speech [+W]
• Dialogic Reading Improves Language Outcomes [+M]
• Joint Book Reading Predicts Literacy Success [+M]

Related Strategies¶

• Family Literacy Programs
• Family Literacy Engagement
• Take Home Book Bags
• Interventions aimed at increasing parents' verbal engagement with their infants to strengthen processing skills and vocabulary growth

Examples¶

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Key Sources¶

• Montag Jessica L., Jones Michael N., Smith Linda B. (2015). The words children hear: Picture books and the statistics for language learning. Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/0956797615594361