Dialogic Reading

1
Dialogic Reading
The Future of School Psychology Task Force on
Family-School Partnerships Kathryn Woods
2
Dialogic Reading

• Dialogic reading is an intervention to promote
  emergent literacy and literacy acquisition among
  young children
• The goal is to make children active participants
  in shared picture book reading rather than
  passive listeners to stories being read by adults
• This is primarily done by having an adult
  question the content of the picture books and
  elaborate upon the childs responses while
  reading with the child
• See DR Handout 1 for More Information

3
Dialogic Reading cont.

• Central to this procedure is a shift in roles
  when children and adults read together
• Children become the storyteller while adults
  become active listeners who ask questions, add
  information, and prompt the child to describe
  materials in picture books
• As the child becomes more skillful as a
  storyteller, the adult is encouraged to ask
  open-ended questions instead of yes/no or
  pointing questions
• Ex. What is the horse doing? or Tell me more
  about this page.
• A childs responses and active engagement are
  encouraged through praise and repetition
• More detailed responses are encouraged by
  expanding upon the childs statements and by the
  adult asking more challenging questions
• (Whitehurst, et al., 1994b)

4
Adult Questions

• For 2- and 3-year-olds, questions from adults
  focus on individual pages in a book and ask the
  child to describe objects, actions, and events on
  the page
• For example, What is this?, What color is the
  duck?, What is the duck doing?
• For 4- and 5-year-olds, questions increasingly
  focus on the narrative as a whole or on relations
  between the book and the childs life
• For example, Have you ever seen a duck
  swimming? What did it look like?
• See DR Handout 2 for More Information

5
CROWD Questions

• The acronym CROWD is used to help adults remember
  the type of question prompts they can pose to
  children while reading
• C completion (e.g., Something went bump and
  that made us ___________?)
• R recall (e.g., Can you remember some things
  that happened to Sarah when she went to school?)
• O open-ended (e.g., Tell me about this page.)
• W what, where, when, why (e.g., Whats this
  called? Where did the dog go? Why is the boy
  smiling?)
• D distancing (Did you ever play in the snow
  like Andy did? What did it feel like?)
• See DR Handout 3 for More Information

6
CROWD Question Examples

• Lets finish this page together. Over in the
  meadow, in a hole in a tree, lived a mother
  bluebird and her little birdies _____________.
• What happens after the wolf climbs onto the
  third little pigs roof?
• Tell me whats going on in this picture.
• Whats this called? When would the pig use it?
• Have you ever made a cake? Who was it for? What
  did it look like?

7
PEER Interaction Sequences

• The acronym PEER is also used help adults
  remember the interaction sequences that occur
  between adults and children while reading
• P prompt the child to respond to the book
• E evaluate the childs response
• E - expand the childs response by repeating and
  adding information to it
• R - repeat the expanded utterance

8
PEER Sequence Example

• Adult What is this?
• Child A cat.
• Adult Yes, its a big orange cat. Can you say
  that?
• Child A big orange cat.

9
Child Goals

• During dialogic reading, the adult encourages the
  child to
• Correctly label nouns
• Provide attribute and function labels
• Take turns
• Use multiword expressions
• Understand story and picture structures
• (Whitehurst et al., 1994b)

10
Research Support

• Dialogic reading has been shown to produce gains
  in childrens
• Rate of language development
• Expressive language abilities
• Vocabularies
• Identifying letters and sounds
• Establishing more emergent writing skills
• Enhanced knowledge of print concepts
• These language gains were also maintained over at
  least a 6 month time interval
• (Whitehurst et al., 1999)

11
Research Support cont.

• Effects may be obtained in small group formats
  (2-4 children) rather than simply one on one
  instruction
• Parents and teachers may easily be trained in the
  intervention, using videotapes or direct
  instruction, in a short period of time
• Children experienced greater gains when they
  practiced dialogic reading in both their home and
  school environments
• (Whitehurst et al., 1994b
• Whitehurst et al., 1999)

12
Summary

• Dialogic reading demonstrates that during the
  preschool period, children benefit from active
  responding to picture books in settings in which
  an adult gently pushes the child through
  questions, expansions, and is sensitive to the
  childs interests and abilities
• This procedure enhances language and preliteracy
  skills which help children learn to read and aid
  in other academic tasks as children begin school
• This intervention should be part of a
  multifaceted effort to improve the quality of
  early reading skills among preschool children

13
References

• Wells, G. (1985). Preschool literacy-related
  activities and success in school. In D. R.
• Olson, N. Torrance, A. Hilyard (Eds.).
  Literacy, language, and learning (pp.
• 229-255). Cambridge, England Cambridge
  University Press.
• Whitehurst, G. J., Arnold, D. S., Epstein, J. N.,
  Angell, A. L., Smith, M., Fischel, J. E.
• (1994a). A picture book reading intervention in
  day care and home for children
• from low-income families. Developmental
  Psychology, 30, 679-689.
• Whitehurst, G. J., Epstein, J. N., Angell, A. L.,
  Payne, A. C., Crone, D. A., Fischel, J.
• E. (1994b). Outcomes of an emergent literacy
  intervention in Head Start. Journal
• of Educational Psychology, 86, 542-555.
• Whitehurst, G. J. Lonigan, C. J. (1998). Child
  development and emergent literacy.
• Child Development, 69, 848-872.
• Whitehurst, G. J., Zevenbergen, A. A., Crone, D.
  A., Schultz, M. D., Velting, O. N.,
• Fischel, J. E. (1999). Outcomes of an emergent
  literacy intervention from Head
• Start through second grade. Journal of
  Educational Psychology, 91, 261-272.