Joint reading between mothers and their head start children: Vocabulary development in two text formats

Abstract

The intent of this study was to examine the ways in which Head Start children's vocabulary was developed when they and their mothers engaged in joint reading contexts. Nineteen dyads were observed while interacting around expository texts presented in two formats: familiar (newspaper toy advertisements) and traditional (trade books). Dyads in this study were observed in their homes across four observations while reading a series of presented texts. Children's ability to identify words from the texts read was measured as was their comprehension of a standardized receptive vocabulary list. Mothers talked more than children in all contexts; furthermore, different forms of talk were observed around the different text formats. Correlational and sequential analyses indicated that children's word recall was best predicted by responsive maternal strategies, such as encouraging children to talk about the text, and children's modelling maternal strategies. Word recall and vocabulary, however, was significantly correlated with children's language generated around traditional, not familiar, format texts.