Area of Investigation

This study examined the effects of the Learning Language and Loving It™ Program on educators’ use of the following strategies during interactive book reading:

• utterances that enhance story comprehension and abstract thinking
• utterances that highlight components of narrative structure such as the setting, problem/response, action/attempt etc.; and
• print and letter-sound references

The study also examined the children’s resulting verbal engagement with their educators.

Participants

• Experimental group

  8 educators were randomly assigned by the child care centre to the experimental group. They attended the 14 week Learning Language and Loving ItProgram (8 group training sessions, 6 individual video feedback sessions). One 2.5-hour group session and video feedback session were devoted to interactive book reading, in which educators learned to:
  • promote the use of abstract, decontextualized language;
  • expose the children to more complex stories and highlight key components of narrative structure; and
  • introduce print concepts such as “illustrator” and “title” and promote print awareness while reading the story

• Control group

  8 educators were randomly assigned to the control group by child care centre, and received no training during the experimental phase. They received in-service training after the posttest.

Results & Key Findings

At posttest, educators in the experimental group significantly increased their use of:

• abstract utterances that utilized children’s “world” knowledge and experiences, which constituted Level 3 on a continuum of abstraction from Level 1 (picture description) to Level 4 (utterances that promote analysis and evaluation of story events); and
• utterances that highlighted the “action” components of narrative structure – i.e., related to an attempt by the main character to resolve the problem

At posttest, children in the experimental group provided twice as many responses as the control group to the educators’ abstract utterances. In addition, the responses of the children in the experimental group “included content that was at a higher level of abstraction (i.e., they took the character’s perspective, made judgments, related personal experiences connected to the story...)” (Flowers, Girolametto, Weitzman & Greenberg, 2007, p. 14).

At follow-up, some of the educators did not maintain their posttest changes, which suggests the need for more intensive training and support in order for educators to integrate literacy-promoting skills into their interactive repertoires.

Implications

The positive impact of the educators’ increased use of abstract utterances on the children’s interaction and abstract language use during book reading confirms the importance of exposing children to more complex language in the context of conversational interaction. In addition to creating more opportunities for children to practice language forms and receive feedback on their messages, the use of abstract language has been associated with better decontextualized language skills and story comprehension abilities in the school years (Cabell & Zucker, 2023; Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Hadley et al., 2020; van Kleeck, Gillam, Hamilton & McGrath, 1997; van Kleeck, Vander Woude & Hammett, 2006).