Aiding Parents in Their Efforts to Enact Powerful Reading Experiences at Home

Research (e.g., Robertson and Reese, 2017) suggests that children’s language and literacy skills are enhanced when parents employ higher-level book reading strategies during at-home reading time. Robertson and Reese (2007) categorized predicting and making inferences as higher-level strategies, while description was considered a lower-level strategy. These researchers found that children, ages three to five, performed better on various standardized literacy and language measures (e.g., DIBELS subtests and the Test of Early Language Development) when their parents incorporated making predictions and inferring into shared at-home reading experiences.

The researchers also found that most parents relied primarily on narrative texts when reading with their children. Although narrative texts offer plentiful opportunities to make predictions and inferences, exposure to multiple genres is also important, as each text type is thought to “bring somewhat different benefits for children’s language and literacy development” (Robertson and Reese, 2017, p.18).  For example, alphabet books help reinforce the alphabetic principal while enhancing overall phonological awareness. Furthermore, parents reported overall that their children were often most interested in expository texts. Cultivating children’s interest in reading is especially important during these early years.

So, what can we do to help parents ensure their children experience a wide variety of highly motivating texts from which rich conversations organically emerge?

• Encourage parents and children to co-construct a list of exciting topics that they can then take to the local library or bookstore.
• Provide parents with age-appropriate book lists separated by genre from which they can choose titles to seek out and share.
• Provide parents with a list of prompts for at-home reading time that encourage higher-level strategies (e.g., “Predict what will happen to the main character on the next page” or “What do the character’s belongings and/or clothing tell us about him/her?")

Do you have any other ideas for encouraging adaptive at-home reading experiences? Share them with us!

Robertson, S & Reese, E. (2017). The very hungry caterpillar turned into a butterfly: Children’s and parents’ enjoyment of different book genres. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 17(1), 3-25.