Study: How You Read With Toddlers & Preschoolers Spells Their Success
From the archive. This post was first published on the original Green Eggs and Moms blog and is kept here as it was.
A recent study has found that how you read with your preschooler can impact their comprehension and language skills.
Are you a big reading advocate? If so, you probably spend a few minutes every day reading to your non-reader or teaching your beginner-reader how to…well, uhh…read.
But how do you read to them? If you simply utter the words without pointing much, you might want to reconsider making use of your pointer. And yes, this is one of the few times when finger-pointing is acceptable.
What good news does this study bring?
Whether it’s pointing out the difference between big letters and baby letters, or mechanically moving your fingers from left to right as you read along, pointing benefits your young one.
It’ so good that for the kids part of the study group, the positive effect of pointing out or referencing was evident even after 2 years.
So, how’d they come up with the findings?
300 preschoolers and their teachers were asked to participate in a reading program called STAR or Sit Together and Read. It went on for 30 weeks (2.5 years) and the kiddos were segregated into 3 groups:
- High-dose STAR - 4 reading lessons weekly
- Low-dose STAR - 2 reading lessons weekly
- Comparison - 4 readings lessons weekly
For the first 2 groups, teachers were instructed to point out during reading lessons. As for the comparison group? Teachers were asked to read normally without making references.
All students used the same books.
What’s the background of the students?
They came from low-income homes, but, what’s more interesting is that they all had below-average language skills and were at risk for having reading difficulties later in life.
Now for the other results
- Kids from the high-dose group were better at spelling, reading and comprehension skills compared to those from the comparison group
- There was nothing noteworthy for the low-dose group though they fared better than the comparison group
And so it seems that something as simple as pointing out during reading helps the young ones later in life. Pretty neat, huh?
How do YOU read with your toddlers and preschoolers?
Photo:Creative Commons from deflam