Mothers' extratextual comments during storybook reading: Stylistic differences over time and across texts

Abstract

This study examines longitudinally how mothers structure shared book reading interactions with their children across the preschool period, focusing on possible individual stylistic differences in White, middle‐class mothers' extratextual comments. Analyses addressed consistency of individual maternal styles over time and comparability of storybook reading styles across familiar and unfamiliar stories. At each of two time points, when the children were 40 and 58 months old, mothers read an unfamiliar and a familiar storybook with their children. For readings of each book type, three distinct maternal stylistic groups were found: Describers, Comprehenders, and Collaborators. Most importantly, maternal storybook reading styles are reasonably consistent over the 18‐month time course of study, but are considerably less consistent across types of books. Further, results suggest that these storybook reading styles related differentially to children's print and story skills assessed at 70 months of age. Implications of these individual differences among mothers for emergent literacy are discussed.