This article presents the findings of the final phase of a 5-year longitudinal study with 168 middle- and upper middle-class children in which the complex relations among early home literacy experiences, subsequent receptive language and emergent literacy skills, and reading achievement were examined. Results showed that children's exposure to books was related to the development of vocabulary and listening comprehension skills, and that these language skills were directly related to children's reading in grade 3. In contrast, parent involvement in teaching children about reading and writing words was related to the development of early literacy skills. Early literacy skills directly predicted word reading at the end of grade 1 and indirectly predicted reading in grade 3. Word reading at the end of grade 1 predicted reading comprehension in grade 3. Thus, the various pathways that lead to fluent reading have their roots in different aspects of children's early experiences.

S We examined whether storybook exposure and the amount of teaching in reading and writing skills reported by middle class parents were related to the oral‐language skills (receptive vocabulary, listening comprehension, and phoneme awareness) and the written‐language skills (concepts about book reading, alphabet knowledge, reading CVC words, and invented spelling) of children in kindergarten (n = 110) and Grade 1 (n = 47). Hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for parents' print exposure and children's age and analytic intelligence showed that storybook exposure explained statistically significant unique variance in children's oral‐language skills but not in their written‐language skills. In contrast, parent teaching explained statistically significant unique variance in children's written‐language skills but not in their oral‐language skills. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that storybook exposure may enhance children's oral‐language skills whereas additional support in the form of teaching may be necessary to enhance written‐language skills. At the end of Grade 1, children's oral and written language performance accounted for 20% of the variance in word reading, but storybook exposure and parent teaching did not account for additional statistically significant unique variance. These findings suggest that the association between early home literacy experiences and later reading skills may be mediated through children's oral‐ and written‐language skills. EXAMINAMOS SI la exposición a libros de cuentos y la cantidad de experiencias de enseñanza de habilidades de lectura y escritura, obtenidas a partir de los informes de padres de clase media, estaban relacionadas con las habilidades de lenguaje oral (vocabulario receptivo, comprensión oral y concienca fonológica) y con las habilidades de lenguaje escrito (conceptos sobre la lectura de libros, conocimiento del alfabeto, lectura de palabras CVC y escrituras inventadas). Participaron del estudio niños de preescolar (n = 110) y 1er. Grado (n = 47). Los análisis de regresión jerárquica, controlando la exposisción a la lengua escrita de los padres y, la edad de los niños y la inteligencia analítica, mostraron que la exposición a libros de cuentos explicó una proporción única estadísticamente significativa de la variancia en las habilidades de lenguaje oral pero no en las habilidades de lenguaje escrito. Por el contrario, la enseñanza de los padres explicó una proporción única estadísticamente significativa de la variancia en las habilidades de lenguaje escrito pero no en las habilidades de lenguaje oral. Estos hallazgos son consistentes con la hipótesis de que la exposición a libros de cuentos puede mejorar las habilidades de lenguaje oral de los niños, en tanto que puede ser necesario un apoyo adicional en la forma de enseñar para mejorar las habilidades de lenguaje escrito. A fines de 1er. Grado, el desempeño oral y escrito de los niños dió cuenta del 20% de la variancia en lectura de palabras, pero la exposición a libros de cuento...

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The present study was conducted to assess the effect of didactic techniques used during storybook reading on young children's acquisition of new vocabulary introduced in storybooks. Thirty children for each group of three- and four-year-old children were read one storybook individually. The study included three storybook reading conditions: single-reading, repeated-reading and questioning. In both the repeated-reading and the questioning conditions, the storybook was read three times. Children in the questioning condition were asked, during each reading of the storybook, to label target items with the novel words. Listening to multiple readings of a storybook facilitated children's acquisition of expressive and receptive vocabulary, whereas answering questions during the multiple readings was more helpful to the acquisition of expressive than receptive vocabulary. These findings suggest that, under certain conditions, didactic techniques used by adults have differential effects on preschoolers' receptive and expressive vocabulary.