AFFECTIVE DIMENSION OF MOTHER-INFANT PICTUREBOOK READING

Eighty-two mothers with their 44-63-week-old infants were videotaped i n the context of picturebook reading. The Strange Situation procedure was applied to assess infant-mother attachment security. The observati ons of mother and infant behavior support the view of early literacy s kills as the outcome of a fundamentally social process. The study show s that the infants' responses gain significance as denotative symbols through responding at books together with the mother, and eventually a s the infants' responses grow more mature, through evoking responses a nd pointing by the mother. These learning/instruction processes depend on the affective dimension of the infant-mother relationship. Attachm ent security appeared to be related to the distraction/disciplining di mension of sharing a picturebook. The discussion goes into some conseq uences of learning to read as a social process. (C) 1997 Society for t he Study of School Psychology.