Book Reading Interactions: What Parents and Children Say

Children\u27s awareness of how they learn to read or how they view literacy events contributes to the way they approach book reading (Edwards, 1962; Johns, 1972; Muskopf, 1962; Stewart, 1988). Picturebook reading and story reading are the most common forms of interaction that occur between some parents and young children. Both kinds of interaction provide a rich context for language learning and for the development of story comprehension (Harkness and Miller, 1982; Morrow, 1989; DeLoache and DeMendoza, 1987). A number of studies have documented mothers as models in children\u27s acquisition of literacy (Harkness and Miller, 1982; Morrow, 1989; Ninio and Bruner, 1978; Snow and Ninio, 1986). Interactions that occur during book reading provide a structure in which the adult elaborates, expands and relates information in books to the child\u27s personal responses