Abstract
Previous research showed that story illustrations fail to enhance young preschoolers' memories when they accompany a pre-recorded story (e.g., Greenhoot and Semb, 2008). In this study we tested whether young children might benefit from illustrations in a more interactive story-reading context. For instance, illustrations might influence parent-child reading interactions, and thus children's story comprehension and recall. Twenty-six 3.5- to 4.5-year-olds and their primary caregivers were randomly assigned to an Illustrated or Non-Illustrated story-reading condition, and parents were instructed to “read or tell the story” as they normally would read with their child. Children recalled the story after a distracter and again after 1 week. Analyses of the story-reading interactions showed that the illustrations prompted more interactive story reading and more parent and child behaviors known to predict improved literacy outcomes. Furthermore, in the first memory interview, children in the Illustrated condition recalled more story events than those in the Non-Illustrated condition. Story reading measures predicted recall, but did not completely account for picture effects. These results suggest that illustrations enhance young preschoolers' story recall in an interactive story reading context, perhaps because the joint attention established in this context supports children's processing of the illustrations.
Highlights
A glance at the early childhood sections of any library or bookstore reveals that pictures books, or books in which pictures complement or dominate the text (Jalongo, 2004), are quite common in young children’s literature
We examined group differences in parent and child story-reading codes, to determine whether the illustrations affected the quality of parent-child storybook reading
Illustrations are commonplace in storybooks for young children, yet the scant research on their influence on children’s story retelling has suggested that young preschool children learn very little from story illustrations when they are presented in a non-interactive story-reading context (e.g., Greenhoot and Semb, 2008)
Summary
A glance at the early childhood sections of any library or bookstore reveals that pictures books, or books in which pictures complement or dominate the text (Jalongo, 2004), are quite common in young children’s literature. Pictures may capture children’s attention, research from our laboratory and others suggests that they may not enhance very young children’s comprehension and recall of the stories they accompany, at least in controlled story presentation contexts (e.g., Greenhoot and Semb, 2008). It remains to be seen, whether illustrations have different effects on children’s processing of stories when they are read in a more naturalistic and interactive story-reading context. Because our work is grounded in the literature on memory and narrative development, we focused on children’s abilities to recall the major events that took place in the story, rather than other dimensions such as vocabulary or a moral
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