The Use of Interaction Strategies in Mother-Child Joint Book Reading for Ages 3 to 6 in China

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use of interaction strategies used by Chinese mothers and children in the process of joint book reading and the effect of the use of interaction strategies on children’s language. Participants were drawn from 74 mother-child dyads in mainland China, and the mean ages of the children were 36, 48, 60, and 72 months. The results showed that 1) among Chinese mothers and children aged 3 to 6 years, only mothers’ MLU differed significantly among the four age groups and was highest when the children were 3 years old, significantly higher than other age groups. 2) mothers’ attract attention strategies, feedback strategies, provide information strategies, and repeat or clarify strategies differed significantly across age groups, while none of the other interaction strategy types differed significantly; There were no significant differences in children’s all interaction strategies across age groups. 3) Except for no response, all interaction strategies used by mothers were significantly and positively related to some of the children’s interaction strategies. 4) Many of the mother’s interaction strategies positively predicted the child’s corresponding interaction strategies, with mother’s feedback and propose evaluation strategies being the strongest positive predictors of the children’s provided information strategies use. The educational implications and suggestions for further research were discussed.