Tender Shoots: Effects of a Preschool Shared Book Reading Preventive Intervention on Parent–Child Reading and Parents’ Involvement in the First Year of School

Abstract

Parent–child interactive shared reading can benefit young children’s language and emergent literacy skills; however, studies of programs to enhance shared reading often do not evaluate lasting effects after the transition to primary school. In this randomized control study, 69 parents of 3.5–4.5-year-old children participated in one of three conditions for an evaluation of the 6-week Tender Shoots program: Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR), Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS), or Activity-Based Control (ABC). Parents in both Tender Shoots conditions, SSS and RRR, were taught to read interactively with their children and were provided with books to support implementation. RRR targeted meaning-related talk likely to enhance vocabulary and comprehension, whereas SSS targeted sound-related talk to enhance phonological awareness. Children in ABC were provided with resources and materials for developmentally appropriate activities. Fifty-three dyads (77%) were followed after children started primary school and formal literacy instruction. Comparisons of shared reading interactions at follow-up indicated that parents and children in the RRR and SSS groups still used more condition-specific targeted talk than those in other groups. Most parents in shared reading groups reported that they continued to use project activities after children had started school, although parents in RRR reported more frequent use of program activities than the active control, ABC. Moreover, parents in RRR sometimes reported higher levels of some broad involvement dimensions. These findings suggest that shared reading programs as delivered here can have long-lasting effects on extratextual talk during shared reading and may enhance aspects of parents’ involvement with children’s education.

Tender Shoots: a parent book-reading and reminiscing program to enhance children’s oral narrative skills

“…Moreover, the program appeared to be feasible for parents, who documented engaging in nearly all of the assigned activities. Although our implementation measure was limited to a parent report of dosage frequency, this high level of reported implementation is bolstered by our findings that parents continued to use the new techniques in their observed shared book-reading and reminiscing at the 1-year follow-up (Clifford et al, 2022b;Timperley et al, 2022). A meta-analysis of parent-led book-reading interventions that found a moderator effect of dosage for children's language skills noted a much greater range in dose, from a mere 5 min at a well-child visit to 18 sessions in the children's home (Dowdall et al, 2020).…”

“…Families in the ABC condition received new materials each week for 6 weeks of structured play activities focusing on art, movement, healthy choices, self-care, music, and science themes. Previous findings from Tender Shoots at immediate post-test show that parents and children who participated in RRR displayed higher levels of meaning-focused talk during book-reading and reminiscing, and those in SSS more sound-focused talk during book-reading (Riordan et al, 2021) and that these changes endured at the one-year follow-up (Clifford et al, 2022a(Clifford et al, , 2022bTimperley et al, 2022). Moreover, condition-related interaction variables were linked to children's outcomes at the immediate post-test.…”

Scholarship amid sheep: Applied cognition research in Aotearoa New Zealand.

“…Indeed, on familiar routes, drivers appear to develop a form of "driving without awareness" in which they show inattentional blindness for when signs change (Charlton & Starkey, 2013). Findings such as these suggest a better approach would be to design roads that automatically shape drivers' visual perception and elicit appropriate speeds, a concept known as "self-explaining roads" (Theeuwes & Godthelp, 1995).…”

“…Together, these two components comprehensively target the skills that lead to literacy. The use of Tender Shoots successfully increased children’s oral language and early literacy skills up to 1 year later (Riordan et al, 2022; Timperley et al, 2022). The team is currently working with a New Zealand-based publisher to print “prompted” versions of their books, creating a package of these value-added books for infants, toddlers, and preschoolers.…”

Parental Involvement and Reading Performance of Pupils

“…When parents read aloud to their children, they are preparing them for success in reading and literacy in the classroom. Maintaining these important high-quality reading interactions with parents may be beneficial for the parent-child relationship (Canfeld et al, 2020) as well as children's engagement with reading more broadly (Reese, et al 2022).…”