CHILDREN ENGAGING IN STORYBOOK READING - THE INFLUENCE OF ACCESS TO PRINT RESOURCES, OPPORTUNITY, AND PARENTAL INTERACTION

Economic and social class differences in literacy-specific experiences and access to print resources have been widely documented. This study examined an intervention strategy designed to provide access to liter acy materials and opportunities for parent-child storybook reading in three Head Start Centers. There were three specific objectives: (1) to examine the influence of text type (highly predictable, episodic pred ictable, and narrative) on patterns of interaction between parents and children; (2) to examine whether there were differences in these patt erns of interaction between low proficiency and proficient parent read ers; and (3) to examine gains in receptive language and concepts of pr int scores for children of low proficiency and proficient parent reade rs. Forty-one parents and their children participated in the study; 18 low proficiency parent readers and 23 proficient parent readers were involved in a 12-week book club. Results indicated that text type affe cted patterns of interaction and that parents' reading proficiency inf luenced conversational interactions, with different text types serving as a scaffold for parent-child interaction. Regardless of parental re ading proficiency, however, children's receptive language and concepts of print improved significantly, providing further evidence for the i mportance of parental storybook reading on children's emerging literac y.