Abstract
A body of research documents teacher–child reading behaviors in educational settings. Few will disagree that the potential for word and narrative comprehension increases when children’s prior knowledge is activated and when children’s focus is fully on the reading session. Despite this, little is known about the potential for establishment of joint attention and activation of prior knowledge in an early childhood education and care setting and how early childhood educators prepare young children to participate in shared book reading sessions before formal reading starts. Based on video data of teachers (N = 12) and small groups of children (N = 72) reading picture books and picture book apps in kindergarten, we sought to shed light on what behaviors occur before reading starts. The analyses were conducted in two phases. The first phase was based on 48 videotaped readings and followed a descriptive quantitative approach to investigate early childhood teachers’ time use before the reading session, with readings of both print books and picture book apps. The second phase was based on two app readings in which the pre-reading phases stood out for their long duration. A qualitative analytical approach was applied to describe the teacher–child behavior, establishment of joint attention, and activation of prior knowledge during the two specific pre-reading events. Even though the sample is small, we find clear examples of pre-reading strategies specific to app readings. In this study, we discuss teachers’ strategies to promote joint attention and activation of prior knowledge in new ways and how teachers exploit the pre-reading phase, for instance taking advantage of the books paratext, while adapting to the medium. Nevertheless, there remains a knowledge gap concerning app readings with short or no pre-reading phases.
Highlights
Shared reading with young children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings1 involves children and teachers directing their attention toward the forthcoming activity and the book to be shared
We are interested in what happens before shared reading starts, and our main research questions are as follows: How much time is spent on establishing joint attention and activating prior knowledge before shared reading of print picture books and picture book apps? How does establishing joint attention and activating prior knowledge manifest in two specific examples of app readings characterized by the longest pre-reading phase durations in the sample? Based on empirical material with videos of teachers and small groups of children reading print picture books and picture book apps in ECEC settings, we aimed to ascertain what happens prior to the start of a reading session
We will start by addressing the quantitative material in order to answer the first research question: How much time is spent on establishing joint attention and activating prior knowledge before reading print picture books and picture book apps?
Summary
Shared reading with young children in early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings involves children and teachers directing their attention toward the forthcoming activity and the book to be shared. Shared reading is in this study understood as verbal alternations between the mediator of the story and the children in order to encourage the children to participate in extended. The prereading time period offers valuable opportunities to support children’s comprehension during the shared reading sessions. The parallel processes of having to create a mental representation of information contained in the text and decoding the language units might constitute a cognitive load (Bishop, 2014). Given that activation of prior knowledge reduces some of the cognitive load on the working memory for storyline processing and even language learning, the pre-reading phase is of great significance from a language stimulation perspective
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