Parental Scaffolding of Children's Phonological Awareness Skills

Abstract

This study examined mother—child verbal exchanges during phonological awareness (PA) tasks embedded into storybook reading sessions. The aims of the research were (a) to determine how mothers scaffolded their children's task performance, (b) to characterize the stability of maternal scaffolding over four sessions, and (c) to study the relation between maternal scaffolds and children's developing PA competencies. Five mothers and their 4-year-old children with language difficulties read a storybook four times during a 1-week period. The storybook included nine questions (e.g., What sound does bear start with?) for mothers to ask their children to help them develop PA. Coding of maternal scaffold quantity and type, as well as children's task performance, was conducted to characterize scaffolding over time and to measure children's developing PA competence. Results showed that mothers used a variety of directive and responsive scaffolds to help their children perform the PA tasks but preferred phonological cues, which provided models of phonological concepts, and praise, which provided affirmation of performance. The three children of mothers who used more scaffolds overall and who decreased their scaffolds over sessions (including directives) were able to perform independently and accurately on more PA tasks at the end of four sessions than the other two children. We hypothesize that both directive and responsive scaffolds serve complementary purposes when used by mothers to scaffold children's PA learning. Clinical implications and future research directions are discussed.