ERIC Number: EJ1007875
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013
Pages: 10
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0885-2006
EISSN: N/A
Mothers' Mental-State Discourse with Preschoolers during Storybook Reading and Wordless Storybook Telling
Ziv, Margalit; Smadja, Marie-Lyne; Aram, Dorit
Early Childhood Research Quarterly, v28 n1 p177-186 2013
Recent research has shown that parents, through conversations during shared book reading, play a pivotal role in promoting children's social cognition, particularly their theory of mind (ToM). This study compared mothers' mental-state discourse during two kinds of interactions with their children--storybook reading and wordless storybook telling. In both contexts, mothers were familiar with the books' texts but relied to a different extent on the texts during the mother-child interactions. Participants were 72 Israeli mothers and their 4- to 6-year-old children, from an upper-middle socioeconomic level. Mothers were instructed to read or tell two stories as they normally would. Two books were used, similar in several major characteristics--author, illustrator, characters, story length, and false belief as a central theme. Main findings revealed that mothers referred to mental states in both situations, but during storytelling, mothers elaborated more, referring to characters' cognitive states and false beliefs, than during storybook reading. Findings suggest that storytelling encourages rich discussions on important sociocognitive elements. Educators and parents should be aware of the contribution of storybook reading and storybook telling to mental-state talk and of the unique potential of storybook telling to encourage conversation on ToM-related topics. (Contains 1 figure and 4 tables.)
Descriptors: Foreign Countries, Social Cognition, Theory of Mind, Preschool Children, Mothers, Story Telling
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Preschool Education
Audience: Parents; Practitioners
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Israel
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A