Let the child take the lead: Intervention for enriching parent-child interactions during shared book reading

Abstract

Shared book reading (SBR) emphasizes dialogue interaction between parents and children during book sharing, as engaging children in conversations during SBR can facilitate language skill development. This time-series study investigated the effect of SBR intervention on the interactional behaviors of parents and children (N = 210 dyads) and children’s expressive language skill development. The parents in the experimental group received a five-week SBR online training. Parents in both the treatment and control groups audio-recorded reading storybooks with their children at baseline (pre-test), post-intervention (post-test 1), and follow-up stages (post-test 2). Response length, number of conversation turns, and children’s expressive language ability were measured. Subsequently, the performance of the experimental and control groups was compared. The findings showed that parents in the experimental group were more responsive, offering significantly longer responses and more conversational turns than the control group. Additionally, children in the experimental group exhibited significantly greater expressive language skills. These findings suggest that the intervention can enhance parents’ ability to facilitate conversations during SBR and improve children’s expressive language skills.