The Effect of Four Different Approaches to Parent-Child Reading on Young Chinese Children’s Reading

Feng Yang

doi:10.7575/aiac.ijels.v.4n.3p.47

Abstract

Forty families with four- to five-year-old Chinese children were chosen as experiment participants and equally divided into four groups for an eight-week parent-child reading experiment in different reading modes. (1) Groups A, B, and C read one of three kinds of Chinese-English audio bilingual picture books respectively: touch reading books, electronic books, and printed books + CDs, 30 minutes per day with their parents in the approach of Early Synchronous Bilingual Reading (ESBR). After the eight-week experiment, children participants cultivated good habits of and interest in reading and their reading comprehension, retelling and expression competence were improved significantly. Performance of each group in weekly reading time and frequency, proportion of recognized Chinese and English words was A>B>C>>D and differed significantly ( p <0.01). The results show that reading bilingualism synchronously is effective and economical, and it not only enhanced children’s bilingual competence, but broadened their multicultural international horizon and developed their creative thinking and leadership. (2) Group D kept their original family reading mode and did not progress significantly in reading habits and test indicators ( p -value=0.5-1). (3) Determinants of reading effect are parents’ awareness and choice of reading material, mode, frequency and time. The experiment results suggest that parents can choose bilingual picture books, cultivate their preschool children’s reading habits, and develop their children’s bilingual reading, listening, and speaking competence through interactive parent-child reading. Keywords: Audio bilingual picture books; early parent-child reading; approach of ESBR; comparative experiment

Highlights

Childhood is critical for a child’s language development and character formation
The experiment results suggest that parents can choose bilingual picture books, cultivate their preschool children’s reading habits, and develop their children’s bilingual reading, listening, and speaking competence through interactive parent-child reading
Many parents did not realize the significance and necessity of early reading nor an effective method. Their children did not have a good reading habit or interest and did not perform well in the pronunciation of Putonghua. Their children were insufficient in the knowledge of Chinese vocabulary, were beginners to learn English, and were unsatisfactory in reading comprehension and expression competence

Summary

Introduction

Childhood is critical for a child’s language development and character formation. When children who cannot recognize words read picture books, they usually attend to pictures only and comprehend stories through guessing, but do not pay attention to words, which is “regular independent reading.” These two approaches can only achieve limited reading effects and cannot cultivate children’s interest in reading (Zhang, 2008). The study proposes an approach of Early Synchronous Bilingual Reading (ESBR), which encourages parents to choose audio picture books with bilingual recording in standard pronunciation, to read picture books with their children at least 30 minutes per day in the modes of parent-child accompanied reading, audiovisual repeat reading, and role-play reading, and to build an economical Chinese and English bilingual quasi-acquisition environment for children in China, to develop their bilingualism in early childhood and improve their bilingual competence and school readiness. The purpose of present study is to introduce the concept and approach of ESBR, show the different effects of different reading materials and approaches, and analyze the determinants of parent-child reading

Experiment participants and plan

Reading materials

Test instruments and methods

Results

Conclusion