The Benefits Of Joint Book Reading

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The study, “Joint Storybook Reading and Joint Writing Interventions Among Low SES Preschoolers: Differential Contributions to Early Literacy” (2004), was conducted to measure and compare the efficacy of a joint book reading program with the efficacy of a joint writing program in children from low SES backgrounds. The two programs were implemented to target the skills of storybook reading and orthographic skills, respectively. In the article, the benefits of storybook reading are described as encouraging the child to obtain general knowledge from reading, develop the ability to generalize his or her findings from reading, and to learn the art and proper habits of writing. Results indicated that children in both programs performed significantly better on orthographic skills compared to the control group; however, children in the joint writing program performed significantly better than children in the joint reading program on the measures of letter awareness, orthographic and letter knowledge, word writing, and phonological awareness. The authors indicate that a joint writing program, according to its benefits in children from low SES backgrounds, should be implemented in addition to a joint reading program to promote literacy in children. Since this study utilized well-designed, randomized control trials, it contains Level II evidence.
In a study conducted by Hargrave and Senechal (2000), the outcomes of storybook reading on the acquisition of vocabulary for 36 preschoolers between the ages of 3 and 5 years who had poor expressive vocabulary skills and were approximately 13 months behind their chronological age were examined. The researchers sought to determine whether the benefits of storybook reading would be greater when childr...

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...ty. Parents may also observe the differences in the child’s behavior during play compared to storybook reading to determine strategies that are beneficial for the child. This study also suggests that parents should target skills for the child in contexts other that the reading setting, such as in play or while doing everyday activities. Finally, the authors of this study explain that SLP’s should observe parents’ interactions with their children to identify strategies used in parent-child interactions, in order to implement those same strategies in the clinical setting. In conclusion, authors of this study explain that story book reading, when conducted properly, is an effective intervention approach for children learning language. This study has Level V evidence because it provides evidence from a systematic analysis of several descriptive and qualitative studies.

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