In a study involving pre-K through first grade classrooms in 12 elementary schools, children in the read-aloud group learned significantly more words and science concepts than those in the control groups, with growth for English language learners (ELL) exceeding that of native speakers, according to an article in The 74.
Closing the literacy gap has long been a passion for Dr. Susan B. Neuman, professor of childhood and early literacy at New York University.
As children begin to grow their vocabulary and gain conceptually rich knowledge, they’re then able to learn at a faster rate. The focus on teaching fundamentals and phonics is important, but Neuman and her team who conducted the study were concerned by the little interest in vocabulary-building and ensuring that children develop the background knowledge central for comprehension.
“Our study focused on science for a number of reasons,” Neuman says. “Children are fascinated with their world. They’re interested in their environment; they’re fascinated with such common things as the weather. Worms are interesting. Animals are interesting. Everything is new.
“Math is important, but to a young child, it isn’t as intriguing as science. Science is very structured as a domain, so you can use it to develop concepts. When you develop concepts, you begin to cluster ideas together and children begin to make inferences,” Neuman explains.
The researchers set up the study as a read-aloud program because studies have shown that this important for developing rich vocabularies and content knowledge. Before the children can read on their own, a teacher or parent reading to them introduces the idea that squiggles on the page are words, images are connected to the squiggles, and they can learn to read those squiggles, too.
“Nothing else is quite as powerful as the read-aloud experience,” Neuman says. “What we know is that very often when parents read to a child, they’re not just reading the book, they’re talking about things related to the book — how they’re living, what they’ve done.
“And when a child is looking at a book and asking questions, the parent responds, and the questions keep coming. So, parents need to be responsive to children’s queries.”
It’s also important, Neuman says, to stop when the book isn’t working for the child. Nobody wants bedtime book-reading when there is no interest.
The researchers used specific criteria to select books for the program, Neuman says.
- The books had simple text, with beautiful, simple pictures that represented the diversity of the children they were working with.
- The books were “predictable,” meaning they had repeated lines that would encourage the children to chime in and would encourage the reader to solicit the child’s response, “What do you see?”
- The illustrations were clear. Neuman says even many pre-K books that may have only a few main words often have confusing illustrations. Clear illustrations with bold colors are best because children love bold colors and will pay attention to them.
- Keep it simple and short. “If there’s too much detail or too many words, maybe pass on that one. I’d rather read, repeat and read the story again than have a too-complicated book that loses the child’s interest.”
Neuman says the research shows that children are equally interested in informational, nonfiction or narrative nonfiction texts.
“It’s very clear from our study that they like informational text just as much as storybooks and their attention was high with both genres. Yet, they remembered more, and the learning was stronger from the informational text. So, I encourage parents and teachers to think about that.”
Children need both word and world (content knowledge) to learn to read and understand complex texts in later grades, says Neuman. Starting early is crucial, and children learn to understand words when they hear them frequently over time and in multiple domains.
The 74
