Measuring the Effect That the Partners’ Dialogic Reading Program Has on Preschool Children’s Expressive Language

doi:10.4236/ce.2013.49B004

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Creative Education

2013. Vol.4, No.9, 14-17

Published Online September 2013 in SciRes (http://www.scirp.org/journal/ce) http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2013.49B004

Measuring the Effect That the Partners’ Dialogic Reading

Program Has on Preschool Children’s Expressive Language

Diana Bra nnon1,2, Li nda Dauks as1,2, Nancy Coleman1,2,

Laura Israelson1,2, Tionia Williams1,2

1Elmhurst College, Elmhurst, USA

2Valley View Early Childhood Center District 365U, Romeoville, USA

Email: [email protected]

Received June 2013

The effect the Parents as Reading Partners Nightly Encouraging Reading Success (PARTNERS) Dialogic

Reading Program had on preschool children’s expressive language was studied. Researchers found that

the videotaped training and materials were successful at increasing the expressive language skills of pre-

school children classified as “at risk”. Other program benefits such as increased time spent on reading and

talking between parents and their children were also found.

Keywords: Dialogic Reading; Parent Involvement; Preschool Expressive Language

Introduction

Reading aloud to children provides many benefits. Research

has shown that reading to young children increases their future

litera cy achievement (Moore & Wade, 2003), increases vocabu-

lary , knowledge of print (Reese & Cox, 1999), language acqui-

sition, early reading performance, and school success (Snow,

Burns, & Griffin, 1998). Although the benefits of reading aloud

are extensive, reading aloud often limits a child’s involvement

in the reading process to more of a passive role.

Dialogic reading, a form of shared reading, is an interactive

process in which parents or caregivers and their children share

about a book they are reading or looking at together. Dialogic

reading has been found to have similar benefits to reading aloud,

positively impacting many aspects of children’s literacy devel-

opment (Philips, Hayde n, & Norris, 2006; Shapiro, Anderson,

& Anderson, 2002). However, because the focus of dialogic

reading is verbal interactions between caregivers and their chil-

dren, it also can be used to increase young children’s expressive

language and spoken vocabulary.

Dialogic reading utilizes open-ended questions to expand on

children’s comments and ideas. The program is based on en-

couraging children’s participation, providing feedback, and ad-

justing verbal interactions based on children’s ability (White-

hurst, Arnold, Epstein, Angell, Smith, & Fischel, 1994). Child-

ren’s language usage is positively impacted by parents expand-

ing on their conversations, redirecting the conversation to en-

courage the use particular types of language (e.g. descriptive

words), and encouraging increasingly complex word choices a s

children’s language develops (Snow, 1983). Dialogic reading

has been shown to increase young children’s vocabulary (Har-

grave & Sénéchal, 2000; Whitehurst, Falco, Lonigan, Fischel,

Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, & Epstein, 1994) and expressive

language (Hargrave & Sénéchal, 2000).

Current Study

There are very limited materials available to help preschool

teachers teach dialogic reading strategies to the families that

they serve. The PARTNERS (Parents as Reading Teachers

Nightly Encouraging Reading Success) Program was designed

by one of the authors to provide dialogic training materials for

families regardless of their literacy levels, langua ge proficiency,

or children’s expressive language skills. The program focuses

on parents’ and c aregivers’ verbal interactions with their child-

ren instead of the adult’s reading skills.

The current study is designed to measure the PARTNERS

Program’s effectiveness at increasing the expressive language

skills of young children classified as “at risk”. Children and

families in this study attend a public early childhood center in a

suburb of Chicago. The program offers early childhood educa-

tion for preschool age students (3 and 4 year olds). All of the

children attending the school have some type of delay, special

need, or qualify through the Preschool for All program funded

through the State of Illinois to serve preschool children identi-

fied as “at risk”.

Parti ci pa nt s

Thirteen families participated in the twelve-week PARTNE RS

dialogic reading intervention. An additional thirteen families

served as the control group, receiving no training in dialogic

reading. Both parents and extended family caregivers were in-

volved in the program.

The children and families in the control group were selected

based on age and qualifying factors in order to make the two

groups comparable (Table 1). The average age of children in

both the PARTNERS training and control group was 4 years, 8

months. A majority of the children in both groups spoke a lan-

guage other than English at home in addition to English.

Method

Students’ expressive language was measured using the pic-

ture-naming portion of the Individual Growth Developmental

Indicators (IGDI) test developed at the University of Minnesota.

D. BRANNON ET AL.

Table 1.

Children’s preschool qualifying factors.

PARTNERS Traini n g

(n = 13) Contr ol Group

(n = 13)

Developmental Delay 8 8

Speech Language 1 2

Preschool for All 4 3

Students taking the picture-naming test were presented with

pictures on individual cards. They were asked to name the ob-

jects on as many of the cards as they could in one minute. The

number of words correctly identified was recorded by the test

administrator. Students’ picture naming ability was assessed

prior to the start of the study and twelve weeks later, a t the end

of the study.

PARNTERS Training

All of the families receiving the PARTNERS intervention

were invited to a brief thirty-minute introduction to the

PARTNERS Program. The introduction was designed to pro-

vide participants an initial opportunity to watch the 12-minute

PARTNERS video training together and receive materials. Of

the thirteen families, only four were able to attend. Therefore,

most of the program participants did not receive any in person

information about the program. The video, the first children’s

book, and the corresponding Parent Notes were sent home to

families who did not attend the training the first week of the

study. No additional dialogic reading training was given to the

people who were able to attend the introductory meeting. So,

the training for both groups of families was the same. All fami-

lies involved in the training were given the PARTNERS train-

ing video to keep regardless of whether they viewed the train-

ing at school or not.

Video training was provided because it is an easy and eco-

nomical way to provide traini ng to families. Arnold, e t al. (1994)

found that using a videotape to teach the dialogic reading me-

thod worked effectively to increase parents’ use of dialogic

reading skills. However, the generalizability of this finding is

greatly limited because all of the children in the study had av-

erage or above average expressive and receptive language skills

and came from middle or upper Socio-Economic Status (SES)

families. Research by both Briesch, Chafouleas, Lebel, & Blom-

Hoffman (2008) and Blom-Hoffman, O’Neil-Pirozzi, & Cutting

(2006) found that videotaped instruction was effective for par-

ent instruction in dialogic reading. Both study samples were

more diverse than the previous study regarding SES; however,

all of the participants’ primary language in both studies was

English. Therefore, there is still a need for research on the ef-

fectiveness of using videotaped dialogic reading instruction

with low-income families, families whose primary language is

not English, and with children classified as “at-risk”.

The dialogic reading training provided on the video training

used the acronym DARE to help parents learn the dialogic

reading strategy. The DARE strategy, developed by the author,

asks caregivers to:

Discuss the book with their child and ask their child to talk

about what he sees. After their child answers, they should ex-

pand upon their child’s response adding more detail, and then

ask their child to repeat the extended response.

Ask their child questions about the pictures and teach new

vocabulary related to the illustrations.

Read the story to their child.

Encourage thei r child to connect the story to his life.

Participants were asked to read with their child for 10 - 15

minutes a day. However, all of the steps in the DARE strategy

did not need to be implemented each day. Parents were instruc-

ted to decide how they would use the DARE time. For example,

they could spend two or three days discussing what their child

sees before moving on to asking questions or reading to their

child.

Preschool children brought home a book from the

PARTNERS Program in their backpack each Monday. Training

materials called Parent Notes were also included. The Parent

Notes remind caregivers of the DARE strategy, provide sample

questions to ask children about the book, and offer suggestions

for vocabulary words related to the story that can be introduced.

Materials

The books in the PARTNERS Program provided detailed

and varied illustrations including culturally relevant items chil-

dren are familiar with that could be used for discussion and re-

telling. All books selected included a simple story line that was

interesting and culturally relevant to the children in the program.

The books selected also supported preschool skills needed ac-

cording to The Creative Curriculum Developmental Continuum

for Ages 3-5. Therefore, they were chosen because of their ap-

propriateness to address cognitive development, logical think-

ing, language development, emergent literacy, and social/emo-

tional development. The books focused on fiction, folk tales,

fairy tales, nursery rhymes, and informational text. Although

the program is offered in both English and Spanish, only Eng-

lish materials were used for this study.

Results

At the end of the twelve week PARTNERS program, child-

ren in both groups were again administered the picture-naming

portion of the Individual Growth Developmental Indicators

(IGDI) test. Table 2 shows that although there was no signifi-

cant difference in the number of words children were able to

name at the pr e-test, children whose families participated in the

PARTNERS Program acquired significantly more words (p

< .01) from pre-test to post-test than children in the traditional

preschool program.

Families in the PARTNERS program were also provided

with a feedback sheet each week with the book that they were

reading. They were asked “What effect has participating in the

PARTNERS Program had on your reading time?” (Table 3).

In addition to collecting feedback through the form sent

home, six parents also volunteered to provide feedback by

Table 2.

Children’s picture naming results.

PARTNERS Video

Training (N = 13)

No Training

(N = 13)

Pre-Test Pos t-Tes t Pre-T est Pos t-T est

M M M M

Number Correct 18.00 22.38* 17.00 19.69

*p < .01.

D. BRANNON ET AL.

Table 3.

Feedback regarding the program.

Number of Families

(n = 13) Percentage of

Families

Increased conversation 9 69

Encouraged questioning 7 54

Increased time reading 5 42

Increased child’s interest 3 23

Provided ne w ideas 2 15

Made reading more fun 2 15

Increased language 2 15

Provided new books 1 8

participating in a group interview. Participants were asked to

share: “How has this program affected the time you spend with

your child reading?” and “How does your child respond to your

time reading together?” Parents shared that the PARTNERS

program was effective in helping them spend time each day

with their child reading. One parent shared, “It makes me take

that time for him. He wants to read more. This has made it

more fun. He asks questions.” A similar comment was made by

another parent, “Before the program I would just read. I think

sometimes I was rushing. Now we spend the time. I’m reading

more with them and they’re getting into it.”

The program was also effective at increasing interactions

between parents and their children. One parent explained the

program’s effect on her child’s language by stating, “It’s in-

creased the amount of time we spend together. It’s helped his

English a lot. I’m surprised how much time he wants to spend

talking about the book.” Another shared her doubts, “I was

skeptical that asking questions would do anything. But, it rea lly

has. It’s opened him up to other things.”

Many of the parents explained that the PARTNERS Program

increased their child’s interest in and excitement for reading.

“He looks forward to reading now. He wants us to put my

daughter to bed early so we can read.” “Before I was reading

and thinking like, ‘Why am I reading? You’re not even listen-

ing? ’ But, now he is.” This positive impact also extended be-

yond the child in the program as one parent told, “My younger

child is more into reading now. He wants to be read to three

times a day even though he is not in the program.”

Discussion

The current study was designed to measure the effectiveness

of the PARTNERS Dialogic Reading Program in increasing

preschool children’s expressive language. A significant in-

crease in expressive vocabulary was exhibited by the children

in the PARTNERS group through their increased accuracy

identifying words at the end of program using the Individual

Growth Developmental Indicators (IGDI) picture naming as-

sessment. Students from families who received dialogic reading

training had significantly better accuracy, correctly naming

61% more words attempted than children of families who were

in the traditional preschool group. Increases in expressive vo-

cabulary development in young children are very important

because research on language development in young children

has consistently shown the importance expressive and receptive

vocabulary play in young children’s ability to learn to rea d and

succeed in school (Wasik, 2010).

Participants also responded positively to the program. A ma-

jority of the parents and caregivers surveyed said that the pro-

gram was successful at increasing conversation between them

and their children and that the program encouraged questioning

during conversation. Other benefits discussed include increas-

ing time spent together, increasing children’s interest in reading,

providing ideas, making reading fun, and increasing language.

Parents in the group interview were able to provide more de-

tailed responses explaining that the program encouraged them

to spend more quality time sharing a book with their child,

increased their child’s vocabulary, and interest in reading.

Limitations

The relatively small number of participants involved in this

study is a limitation. Also, data regarding if or how often par-

ticipants viewed the training video was not collected. Because

the Parent Notes were included with each book, the program

may have been able to be successfully implemented wit h child-

ren without watching the video. In the future, a larger study

including information regarding participants’ use of the training

video would help strengthen the claim that the video was in-

tegral to the program’s success.

Conclusion

The PARTNERS Dialogic Reading Program provides young

children with opportunities to share the reading experience with

their parent or caregiver. This form of active engagement is

important because it increases children’s vocabulary develop-

ment (Bloom, 2002) and provides children with exposure to

new words in meaningful ways in their environment (Hart &

Risley, 1995). When young children participate in activities

such as dialogic reading they are provided with many benefits

including increased opportunities for joint attention, modeling

of new vocabulary, increased questioning, and feedback (De-

Baryshe, 1995).

Huebner and Payne (2010) found that dialogic reading train-

ing can have long-lasting effects. In their study, they found that

two years after receiving brief dialogic reading training, parents

used 90% more dialogic reading behaviors than parents who

had not received training. This leads to the conclusion that ca-

regivers’ literacy interactions with children can be positively in-

fluenced with limite d traini ng.

The PARTNERS Program increased the expressive language

skills of young children classified as “at risk”. It also proved to

be an effective program at encouraging family involvement and

education. Because the PARTNERS Program focuses on fami-

lies talking about books with their children instead of just read-

ing aloud, the PARTNERS Program provides materials that can

be used with families regardless of literacy level, home lan-

guage, or children’s expressive language.

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