Dorit AramTel Aviv University

Lecture at Department of Curriculum, Instruction & Teacher Education

MSU 2014

How do Parents Select Books to Read to their Children?

The Merits of Shared Book Reading

Shared book reading is considered a natural parent-child activity

There is evidence supporting the relationship between frequency of book reading and children’s: • Language development (Cunningham, 2010; van Kleeck & Stahl, 2003)

• Early literacy skills (Korat, Klein, & Segal-Drori, 2007; Sénéchal & Lefevre, 2002)

• Reading acquisition (Baker, Mackler, Sonnenschein & Serpell, 2001; Mol, Bus, De Jong & Smeets, 2008)

• Social-emotional adjustment (Aram, Fine, & Ziv, 2012; Reese, Cox, Hart, & McAnally, 2003)

Shared Book Reading: The Three Factors

Reading a book to a child involves three factors:• The parent• The child• The book

Research has explored the first two factors and the interactions between them

What about the book?

The Book

Many children’s books are published yearly around the world. • In 2013, 5000 books were published in the United

States (Cooperative Children's Book Center, 2014) • In 2013, 879 were pubished in Israel (The National

Library of Israel, 2014) Being able to select good books becomes more

meaningful The study examined how parents select books to

read to their preschool children

Determining Quality Children’s Literature

Children’s literature should be evaluated like any other type of literature (Bloem & Padak, 1996).

Quality children’s literature • provides enjoyment • familiarizes children with people and places• provides opportunities to examine and reflect

upon ideals and values

Difficulties in Establishing Criteria

Establishing criteria for quality children’s literature can be considered from varying viewpoints (Darr, 2002; Shavit, 1996):

• Educators may look for books that expose the child to rich vocabulary and expanded knowledge

• Psychologists may appreciate books that present socio-emotional processes

• Literary experts may focus on literary aspects of the book such as character development

We chose to refer to the book’s language, socio-emotional aspects, and structure

Language Complexity

Books’ language is a central asset of a children's book• Rhythm and language flow• Metaphors and analogies • Word play• Grammatical elements (e.g. homonyms and

homophones)• New vocabulary

Socio-Emotional Complexity

Children’s literature exposes children to social situations: • Discusses interpersonal relationships • Refers to the motives underlying characters’

behaviors• Refers to the characters’ emotions, thoughts,

intentions, beliefs, and desires

Complexity of Structure and Content

Original plotAuthentic charactersBelievable conversationOpen endingRealistic – not too educational or sweet

Research Questions

Quantitative• To what extent do parents support the language,

socio-emotional, and structure complexity of books?• Do parents who favor complexity in one area also

favor complexity in other areas? • How does parents’ support for greater complexity in

books relate to frequency of shared book reading?

• What do parents consider high and low quality children’s literature?

Participants

104 parents (80.8% mothers) of young children (49% boys) Children’s age 44-82 months (M=61.26, SD=9.52) Mothers’ age 25-46 years (M=36.57, SD=4.13) Fathers’ age 33-49 years (M=36.67, SD=3.78) The majority of the parents (81.77%) held at least a B.A. About half of the parents (43.3%) worked in the education

or caring professions (i.e. preschool teachers, school teachers, social workers, psychologists, educational counselors, speech therapists, occupational therapists)

What Is a Good Children’s Book?

Quantitative evaluation:Questionnaire• 30-item questionnaire on a 5-point scale: I totally do

not agree at all (1) to I totally agree (5)• The statements relate to books’ complexity in three

areas: Language (e.g. vocabulary, use of synonyms) Socio-emotional content (e.g. varied mental-states) Structure (e.g. open-ended story)

What Is a Good Children’s Book?Which Book Do You Prefer ?

Where the Wild Things Are (Sendak, M., 1991) Where’s My Mom (Donaldson, J., 2008)

What Is a Good Children’s Book?

Qualitative evaluation:A semi-structured interview• Explain why they selected the

particular book • Answer the following questions: 1. Why do you think this is a good

book? What characterizes a quality children’s book?

2. Discuss a low-quality children’s book. Why isn’t it good?

Frequency of Book Reading

Direct question: How frequently do you read to your child? • (1) approximately once every two weeks to (5)

dailyTitle Recognition Test (TRT): (Stanovich & West, 1989)

• 60 children’s book titles• 40 legitimate titles of books • 20 foil titles

Results: Book Preference

Book preference0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

8072

28

Where’s My Mom Where the Wild Things Are

Results: Books’ Complexity

Level of complexity3

3.13.23.33.43.53.63.73.83.9

4

3.7

3.9

3.3

Language Socio-emotionalStructure

Socio-emotional complexity > both Language and StructureLanguage complexity > Complexity of structure and content

Results

The higher a parent’s score in one of the areas, the higher their scores in all the areas: r = .36 (p

< .01) to r = .39 (p < .01)

Logistic regression: The stronger a parent’s support for books’ complexity, the lower the chance of selecting Where’s My Mom (B= -2.40, p < .001)

Frequency of Shared Reading and Support for Books’ Complexity

Parents who demonstrated greater overall support for books’ complexity. . . Stated that they read more often to their

children (r =.23, p < .01)Were more familiar with children’s books

(TRT) (r =.18 p <.01)

Parents’ Profession

Where the Wild Things Are 0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45Education/helping fields Other professions

X2 = 7.82, p<0.01 Parents in education/

helping professions were more likely to pick the book selected by experts

Qualitative Results: A Thematic Analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006)

Purpose of the book readinga) Morals/Messages (101/104)• “It’s important to me that the book should have a moral, that he should

take things from the book to himself, that he should understand.” b) Socio-emotional support (36/104) • “How he deals with the fear . . . I bought it when my child was starting

to be afraid and there is an important message here and it helped him. It helped him cope with fear.”

c) Enriching knowledge (35/104) • “In Where’s My Mom you learn about animals, what they look like, and

varying adjectives like tall, short, striped.”d) Reading for pleasure (6/104) • I’m happy if there is a moral, but not every book has to have one. It can

also just be for pleasure.”

Thematic Analysis (cont.) Centrality of the text Language level (50/104) • “Developing their vocabulary – opposites, synonyms. I like when

there are higher level vocabulary words in a book.” • “It’s simple language and easy to read it, you don’t have to

change anything . . . I prefer simple.” Rhythm, rhyme, and flow (34/104) • “The rhyme, when I read it, it should be melodious, the way it’s

written should be intuitive.” Text length (26/104) • “It needs to be short. I prefer more books, but they need to be

short” • “I liked that there were some pages without text. It leaves more

room to talk about certain topics more freely.”

Thematic Analysis (cont.)

Importance of the book’s appearance Aesthetics of the illustrations (54/104)

• “The book is very colorful, alive . . . the second book is much more grey. I like books like encyclopedias, we buy books like that; they should be colorful.”

• “The illustrations are very unique, they engage the curiosity, and stimulate the imagination. In Where’s My Mom, the illustrations are nice and colorful and children are curious, but they are flat.”

Emotions raised by illustrations (36/104) • “The colors and illustrations make me less want to read it. It’s nicer

to see animals smiling, laughing, more of an optimistic world.”

Thematic Analysis (cont.)

Importance of the book’s structure Explicit /Implicit Message (39/104)

• “The story shouldn’t be too banal, it should leave room for the child’s imagination, that the child can finish the story.”

• “I didn’t connect to Where the Wild Things Are. I don’t understand the concept of this book, it’s less clear to me.”

Content – Reality vs. Imaginary (25/104) • “Where the Wild Things Are occurs in the imaginary world,

it happens more in the head . . . I like books that take place in the imagination.”

• I don’t like imaginary books, then I can’t explain it to her, she has a hard enough time with reality.”

Discussion

Parental Expertise in Selecting Children’s Books: Parents who selected Where the Wild Thing Are tended to

support greater language, socio-emotional, and structural complexity in books – i.e., greater expertise in book selection.

Parents demonstrated significantly greater support for socio-emotional complexity: Based on the interviews, parents see books as a tool to work on socio-emotional issues with their child.

Parents demonstrated significantly lower levels of support for the structural complexity of a book: In the interviews they said that they are afraid that their child won’t understand the story when a book is complicated.

Parents may also prefer books that are simpler in structure and content as they often read in the evening hours.

In sum…

This study’s results highlight the importance of guiding parents in expert-like book selection.

We can provide the tools for parents to enable them to select quality children’s books and maximize the potential gains from joint book reading in terms of both cognitive and socio-emotional aspects.

Improved book selection can create a more meaningful reading experience and in turn, can encourage both parent and child to increase the frequency of book reading in the house.

Thank You!

Aram, D., Adar, G., & Bergman Deitcher, D. (2014). How do parents select books to read to their preschool children?