Purpose
Children develop a range of early literacy skills prior to formal schooling. Shared book reading at home by parents can support the development of these skills. A pragmatic Randomised Controlled Trial (RCT) research design was used to investigate the influence of two forms of a shared reading intervention: dialogic reading and dialogic with the addition of print referencing on children's language and literacy skills. Dialogic reading is a validated reading intervention that has been shown to improve children's oral language skills in terms of expressive and receptive vocabulary (Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). Print referencing is another reading intervention shown to have potential effects on children's print knowledge (Justice & Ezell, 2002).
Method
Eighty parents of preparatory students from three low income Catholic schools participated in an eight-week home intervention, reading a different storybook each week for at least three times in each week. The children in the sample included 42 boys and 38 girls with ages ranging from 4.92 years to 6.25 years (M=5.53, SD=0.33). The families were randomly assigned to three groups: dialogic reading; dialogic reading with addition of print referencing; and control group which focused on learning number skills. Children's literacy skills were assessed at pre and post, and follow-up (three months after the intervention). Six measures of literacy skills were assessed: expressive and receptive language, phonological awareness (rhyme and word completion), alphabet knowledge, and concepts about print.
Results
Results of the intervention showed that there were significant differences between the two intervention groups and the control on three measures of literacy skills: rhyme, expressive vocabulary, and concepts about print. The current study demonstrated promising results in developing children's rhyme and expressive vocabulary as well as concepts about print. More importantly, the intervention helped maintain children's concepts about print at follow-up.
Conclusion
Findings of the current study have demonstrated that it is important to equip parents with effective strategies to use when reading to their children that could help to develop their children's literacy skills before formal schooling. The significance of the current study is that its fills a gap in knowledge on the value of dialogic reading with the addition of print referencing and the effects on children's oral language skills and print awareness skills. This supports the suggestion by the National Reading Panel (2008) in the United States that pointed to the need for investigating how combinations of reading strategies help children's early language and literacy skills.