Reading storytellings in the classroom to improve the language of children with low socioeconomic background

Context. There are huge disparities between children for the acquisition of written language’s basic skills, with important consequences in terms of literacy development :in 2015, only 25% of students in the 4th primary had good reading skills in French-speaking Belgium (FW-B portal). Several risk factors can explain those reading difficulties :a language delay (Catts, Fey, Tomblin, & Zhang, 2002), a low socioeconomic background, and/or the school’s language as a second language for the child (Baye, 2010). Oral language and pre-literacy skills predict abilities in written language and can be stimulated thanks to storytelling and dialogic reading’s techniques (Justice, 2007). Language’s targets (such as vocabulary, understanding of the story, phonological awareness and print knowledge), are presented in an explicit way during dialogic reading sessions and can improve the first acquisitions in written language (Justice and Kaderavek, 2004). Our study aims at examining whether dialogic reading sessions can improve language and pre-literacy skills of children with low economic background.Method. We recruited 8 schools from Brussels’city center, these schools benefited from “positive discrimination”. Children were randomly assigned to the control group (N=84 from 9 classes of kindergarten), and experimental group (N=177 from 10 classes of kindergarten). The teachers of the experimental group carried on 30 sessions of dialogic reading during a period of 3 months for their preschoolers (3 sessions a week). Those sessions were aiming at stimulation of vocabulary, story understanding, phonological awareness and print references (as specifics languages targets). The control group benefited from no specific intervention. All children were individually evaluated through pre- and post-intervention by standardized language tests. Results. Children from the experimental group showed significant differences in post-intervention for vocabulary, morphosyntax, phonological awareness and print knowledge. The improvement of vocabulary was particularly and significantly beneficial for children who present a language delay. We observe the same tendency for morphosyntax.Conclusion. We experimented a new way of using dialogic reading techniques in the classrooms with “positive discrimination” from Brussels’city center. We demonstrated that this new intervention can positively enhance language development, including for children presenting a language delay. Dialogic reading allow them to improve their language skills and to « catch up » with their peers who do not present the same language delay. In this way, we can hope a better literacy development for these children.