Profiles of teacher & child talk during early childhood classroom shared book reading

Abstract

Although shared book reading is an extensively studied activity with young children, limited research has focused on typical, holistic patterns of teacher–child interactions during this routine classroom activity. This study sought to describe profiles of teacher talk during shared book reading in 98 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. We also considered how identified profiles predicted a subset of students’ (n = 300) end-of-year language and literacy performance. Video recordings of teacher–child interactions during reading of a narrative text were transcribed and analyzed for the timing, content, and form of utterances. Results of latent profile analysis revealed three distinct teacher profiles of talk during book reading that we termed: Moderate Comprehenders (MC, 68% of sample), Discuss & Reflect Comprehenders (DRC, 19%), and Preview & Discuss Comprehenders (PDC, 12%). These profiles differed most in the timing (e.g., before versus after reading for PDC and DRC, respectively) and content of talk (e.g., low- versus high-cognitive demand topics for MC vs. PDC/DRC). The less common DRC and PDC teacher profiles were associated with higher amounts of child talk and more elaborate child utterances within the reading session. However, no teacher profiles or features of teacher/child utterances during this one reading session predicted children's gains in language and literacy skills across the school year. Notably, the first profile in the present study differed from a past, seminal study of shared reading; however, the other two profiles were similar to earlier work on holistic styles of shared reading.