Purpose: This study examined whether theme-related play increased subsequent engagement in storybook reading in preschool children with typical hearing and with hearing loss. Method: This study employed a counterbalanced experimental design. In all sessions, participants engaged in free play first and then were read a storybook. In the…

This paper examines the ways in which Mattel's "Barbie Girls" and "Xtractaurs," online sites aimed at girls and boys of six years of age and up, respectively, offer markedly distinct literate and semiotic resources for their young users. Analysis focuses on the multimodal layers of meaning and the mediating tools,…

The purpose of this study was to investigate whether professional development enhanced educators' use of conversational strategies during shared book reading with small groups of preschoolers. Twenty preschool educators and small groups of children from each of their classrooms were randomly assigned to the experimental or control group. The…

This article reports on an ethnographic study involving the literacy practices of two multilingual Chinese children from two similar yet different cultural and linguistic contexts: Montreal and Singapore. Using syncretism as a theoretical tool, this inquiry examines how family environment and support facilitate children's process of becoming…

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of personalized books on parents' and children's engagement during shared book reading. Seven native English parents and their children aged between 12 and 33 months were observed at home when sharing a book made specifically for the child (i.e. a personalized book), a comparable book…

This paper reports research that investigated parental support for children's reading of English in an inner-city school in the developing country context of an Indian city, Ahmedabad. Children had oral proficiency in the regional language but were beginning to acquire conventional forms of literacy in English. Sociocultural mediation theory…

Dialogic Reading (DR) is a form of interactive shared book reading which promotes children's active participation in reading. Previous studies have demonstrated that DR positively affects young children's literacy development. This small-scale study extends existing DR research to all-male dyads to examine whether DR has a greater impact…

Social capital--the social relations between people--is an important component of the family environment and is crucial for the creation of human capital for the next generation. Drawing on James S. Coleman's theory of family capital, this study focuses on parents' utilization of social capital to support children's literacy acquisition in four…

Drawing from critical sociocultural perspectives that view play, literacy, and gender as social practices, boys' Disney Princess play is examined as a site of identity construction and contestation situated within overlapping communities of femininity and masculinity practice where children learn expected practices for "doing gender". The article…

The main purpose of this study was to examine the classroom, teacher and student factors distinguishing grade three classes performing at higher levels than expected, in relation to socioeconomic status (SES) and language factors, from classes performing below their potential with regard to the same factors. Data from a standardized reading…

This study examined first-grade students' journal writing to determine how placing live zoo animals in classrooms for science education links to students' emergent and early writing. Students were asked to write journal entries during the daily language arts period. Although no direct instruction in informational text writing was offered, teachers…

This study examined the effects of Interactive Writing, a dynamic approach to writing instruction designed specifically for young children, on the independent writing of first graders enrolled in urban schools in a large metropolitan area. Children in the Interactive Writing condition (N = 49) showed greater growth on measures of independent…

The current study compares the effects of two shared storybook reading (SSR) interventions on language and emergent literacy skills of low-income preschoolers. The control intervention targeted language and print awareness, skills for which there is strong evidence of the effect of SSR. The experimental intervention added a focus on phonological…

In this article, I explore the role of semiotic import (Van Leeuwen, 2005) in the composing processes of three bilingual students (six to seven years old) emerging as writers of English. Using social semiotic (Van Leeuwen, 2005) and design (New London Group, 2000) frameworks, I trace a qualitative "micro-history" of how the students imported…

The study purpose was to describe parent-child engagement and parental guidance of children's participation in literacy-related activities at home. Of the 37 families who participated in a home-based multimethod assessment of storybook reading and play activities, 13 were considered low income. The children's mean age was 60 months. Parents read…