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Chapter 10. Enriching parent-child discourse during book sharing

The impact on children’s story comprehension and narrative skills
  • Yaara Fine , Dorit Aram and Margalit Ziv
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Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills
This chapter is in the book Narrative, Literacy and Other Skills

Abstract

The chapter describes a study that assessed the efficacy of an intervention designed to enrich the discourse between parents and preschool children during shared reading, and thereby enhance children’s story comprehension and narrative skills. Participants were Parent-child dyads from low socio-economic backgrounds. During the study, parents in both the intervention and the control groups were given one new book weekly for six weeks, and were instructed to read each book four times per week to their children. Parents in the intervention group were instructed to read the books interactively according to a structured model, which was based on Bruner’s (1986) “dual landscape” model. The first “landscape” is the action level, which refers to the plot and focuses on characters’ behaviors. The second “landscape” is the consciousness level, which refers to the mental states that underlie characters’ behaviors. Results show that children in the intervention group referred more often to both levels compared to children in the control group. When retelling the story, they referred to characters’ mental states significantly more than their counterparts did, and were better able to answer open-ended questions regarding the plot and the vocabulary used. They also showed a better understanding of the characters’ emotions and thoughts, as well as the reasons that led to those mental states. The chapter emphasizes the importance of the direct guidance of parents in effective shared bookreading.

Abstract

The chapter describes a study that assessed the efficacy of an intervention designed to enrich the discourse between parents and preschool children during shared reading, and thereby enhance children’s story comprehension and narrative skills. Participants were Parent-child dyads from low socio-economic backgrounds. During the study, parents in both the intervention and the control groups were given one new book weekly for six weeks, and were instructed to read each book four times per week to their children. Parents in the intervention group were instructed to read the books interactively according to a structured model, which was based on Bruner’s (1986) “dual landscape” model. The first “landscape” is the action level, which refers to the plot and focuses on characters’ behaviors. The second “landscape” is the consciousness level, which refers to the mental states that underlie characters’ behaviors. Results show that children in the intervention group referred more often to both levels compared to children in the control group. When retelling the story, they referred to characters’ mental states significantly more than their counterparts did, and were better able to answer open-ended questions regarding the plot and the vocabulary used. They also showed a better understanding of the characters’ emotions and thoughts, as well as the reasons that led to those mental states. The chapter emphasizes the importance of the direct guidance of parents in effective shared bookreading.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. List of contributors xi
  5. About the authors xv
  6. Introduction to narrative, literacy and other skills 1
  7. Part I. The importance of oral narratives for literacy, language and socio-cognitive skills
  8. Chapter 1. The developing language foundation for reading comprehension 21
  9. Chapter 2. Storybooks to promote emergent literacy in kindergarten classrooms 43
  10. Chapter 3. Do children’s oral retellings of narrative and informational texts predict scores on a standardized reading comprehension test? 69
  11. Chapter 4. Does emotional narrative context influence retention of newly learned words? 91
  12. Chapter 5. Enhancing mental state language and emotion understanding of toddlers’ social cognition 109
  13. Chapter 6. The effects of bookreading with and without mental state themes on preschoolers’ theory of mind 129
  14. Chapter 7. Using narrative thinking in argumentative writing 151
  15. Part II. Promoting narrative skills
  16. Chapter 8. New frontiers in facilitating narrative skills in children and adolescents 173
  17. Chapter 9. Precursors of narrative abilities 201
  18. Chapter 10. Enriching parent-child discourse during book sharing 223
  19. Chapter 11. Investigating the effectiveness of the Our Story App to increase children’s narrative skills 245
  20. Chapter 12. Using a storytelling/story-acting practice to promote narrative and other decontextualized language skills in disadvantaged children 263
  21. Chapter 13. Promoting narratives through a short conversational intervention in typically-developing and high-functioning children with ASD 285
  22. Subject index 313
https://doi.org/10.1075/sin.25.11fin

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements ix
  4. List of contributors xi
  5. About the authors xv
  6. Introduction to narrative, literacy and other skills 1
  7. Part I. The importance of oral narratives for literacy, language and socio-cognitive skills
  8. Chapter 1. The developing language foundation for reading comprehension 21
  9. Chapter 2. Storybooks to promote emergent literacy in kindergarten classrooms 43
  10. Chapter 3. Do children’s oral retellings of narrative and informational texts predict scores on a standardized reading comprehension test? 69
  11. Chapter 4. Does emotional narrative context influence retention of newly learned words? 91
  12. Chapter 5. Enhancing mental state language and emotion understanding of toddlers’ social cognition 109
  13. Chapter 6. The effects of bookreading with and without mental state themes on preschoolers’ theory of mind 129
  14. Chapter 7. Using narrative thinking in argumentative writing 151
  15. Part II. Promoting narrative skills
  16. Chapter 8. New frontiers in facilitating narrative skills in children and adolescents 173
  17. Chapter 9. Precursors of narrative abilities 201
  18. Chapter 10. Enriching parent-child discourse during book sharing 223
  19. Chapter 11. Investigating the effectiveness of the Our Story App to increase children’s narrative skills 245
  20. Chapter 12. Using a storytelling/story-acting practice to promote narrative and other decontextualized language skills in disadvantaged children 263
  21. Chapter 13. Promoting narratives through a short conversational intervention in typically-developing and high-functioning children with ASD 285
  22. Subject index 313
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