Wordless picture books boost preschoolers’ language production during shared reading

Early Childhood Research Quarterly 40 (2017) 52–62

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Early Childhood Research Quarterly

Wordless picture books boost preschoolers’ language production during shared reading ˜ Leydi Johana Chaparro-Moreno ∗ , Florencia Reali, Carolina Maldonado-Carreno Department of Psychology, Universidad de los Andes, Cra 1 N◦ 18A-12, 111711 Bogotá, Colombia

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history: Received 11 February 2016 Received in revised form 30 January 2017 Accepted 4 March 2017 Keywords: Language development Instructional support Shared book reading Wordless picture books

a b s t r a c t Prior research shows that shared book reading promotes preschoolers’ language and literacy skills. However, little is known about the potential role of books’ features – in particular, the role of using wordless picture books compared with books with text – in children’s spontaneous language production and teachers’ instructional support. In this study, we transcribed verbal interactions of thirteen Colombian teachers reading to groups of children (aged 43–55 months) during reading sessions in Spanish using a wordless picture book (condition 1) and a prototypical storybook with text (condition 2). Books were matched for page length, type and theme. Using Computerized Language Analysis (CLAN), we found that in the wordless-picture-book condition children produced significantly more word tokens, word types and utterances, and teachers showed higher levels of instructional support. Regression analyses revealed a significant association between children’s language production and teachers’ quality of feedback during literacy instruction, suggesting that wordless picture books may boost children’s language by enhancing instructional support. © 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction The development of language skills is shaped by the particularities of social interactions between children and their caregivers (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006; Goldberg, 2003; Hirsh-Pasek & Golinkoff, 2012; Hoff, 2008; Hoff & Naigles, 2002; Vygotsky, 1996). For example, variations in the language environment that children are exposed to at home can explain certain differences in the rate and course of the acquisition of this domain. In addition to the input children receive at home, they are exposed to language and instruction from caregivers at care centers from a very early age. In fact, the hours of care that children under the age of five receive outside their homes is on the rise (Girolametto, Weitzman, & Greenberg, 2003; Magee Koski, 2013). Here, we explore teacher-child interactions during shared book reading in a sample of Colombian children.

∗ Corresponding author at: Department of Psychology, Universidad de los Andes, Cra 1 N◦ 18A-12, 111711 Bogotá, Colombia. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L.J. Chaparro-Moreno), [email protected] (F. Reali), [email protected] ˜ (C. Maldonado-Carreno). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2017.03.001 0885-2006/© 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1.1. Caregiver-child interactions influence children’s language development There is widespread recognition that conversational interactions promote language development (Hoff, 2003; Hoff & Naigles, 2002; Milburn, Girolametto, Weitzman, & Greenberg, 2014). Children are exposed to linguistic input, produce their own language forms, and adults respond and provide feedback to children’s productions. There is a vast literature that shows that parents’ amount of child-directed speech, the complexity of their syntax and their lexical diversity significantly predict children’s vocabulary comprehension and production (e.g., Hoff & Naigles, 2002; Rowe, 2008). Studies in school settings have shown that the influence of teachers’ input on children’s language mirrors what has been found with parents (see Mueller & Hoff, 2008 for a review). Teachers’ syntax elaboration predicts the complexity of children’s linguistic productions (Justice, McGinty, Zucker, Cabell, & Piasta, 2013) and comprehension (Huttenlocher, Vasilyeva, Cymerman, & Levine, 2002). Also, it has been found that teachers’ lexical diversity and vocabulary predict children’s emergent literacy, word recognition abilities, receptive vocabulary and emergent writing abilities (e.g., ˜ Varela, Romo, & Núnez, ˜ Dickinson & Porche, 2011; Trevino, 2015). In addition to teachers’ language, the quality of teacher-child interactions in classrooms plays a pivotal role in language development (Cameron-Ponitz & Rimm-Kaufman, 2011; Girolametto

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et al., 2003; Justice, Mashburn, Hamre, & Pianta, 2008). The nature of these interactions includes the ways in which teachers provide instructional support. The following three dimensions of instructional support were analyzed in the present study: teachers’ practices to facilitate and encourage students’ language (Language Modeling dimension); teachers’ practices to provide feedback to promote learning (Quality of Feedback dimension); and teachers’ use of instructional discussion and activities to foster students’ higher-order thinking skills (Concept Development dimension) (see La Paro, Pianta, & Stuhlman, 2004 for a discussion on teacherchildren interaction quality). In high-quality interactions, adults provide systematic and functional instructions to children to explicitly teach them linguistic abilities (Justice et al., 2008). For example, Dickinson and Porche (2011) found that preschool teachers’ use of analytic talk about books – such as discussing the meaning of words or the reasons for characters’ actions or events in the story – predicts children’s scores in receptive vocabulary. In addition, they found that teachers’ corrections of the accuracy of what children said predict children’s scores in narrative production, emergent literacy and receptive vocabulary. On a different study, Girolametto et al. (2003) showed that, in addition to language input, teachers’ language facilitation strategies such as waiting for children to initiate interactions, maintaining extended conversations by encouraging all of them to talk, and promoting face-to-face interactions, were associated with children’s increased production of multiword combinations and peer-directed utterances. In alignment with these studies, Zucker, Cabell, Justice, Pentimonti, and Kaderavek (2013) showed that the properties of teachers’ extra-textual talk during shared reading have a positive long-term association with children’s reading comprehension and receptive vocabulary. Importantly, existing differences in teachers’ formal training are associated with variability in the properties of their language production and with the quality of literacy instruction they provide (e.g., Rice, 2003).

1.2. Learning from shared book reading One of the classroom activities that foster teacher-student interactions is shared book reading – a method based on reading aloud while engaging children in conversation (Milburn et al., 2014). Prior research shows that this activity promotes preschoolers’ language and literacy skills, including vocabulary, oral narrative skills and comprehension (Dickinson, Griffith, Michnick, & Hirsh-Pasek, 2012; Zucker et al., 2013. See Milburn et al., 2014; for a review). It has been shown that caregivers provide an enriched linguistic input during book-reading compared to other activities because language in texts is more complex and diverse than parents’ spontaneous utterances (Cameron-Faulkner & Noble, 2013; Montag, Jones, & Smith, 2015). There is substantial variability in teachers’ ability to engage children in conversation during shared book reading (Girolametto, Weitzman, & Greenberg, 2006; Massey, 2004; Zucker, Justice, Piasta, & Kaderavek, 2010). The kinds of reading strategies and interventions used by teachers have been a subject of considerable research (e.g., Dickinson et al., 2012; Girolametto et al., 2003, 2006; Milburn et al., 2014; Wasik, Bond, & Hindman, 2006). There are, nevertheless, a few studies – mostly using data from Western high-income countries (Mason, Peterman, & Kerr, 1988) – that have explored how certain features of books, such as type and genre, influence the nature of shared book reading in the classroom. For example, Mason et al. (1988) described the reading style of teachers while they read either a storybook with text, an informational or a

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picture-phrase book1 to kindergarten children. Teachers’ demands and frequency of questions varied depending on the book genre. Moschovaki, Meadows, and Pellegrini (2007) also found differences in interaction patterns across different genres of books when teachers read information and fiction books to preschoolers. Specifically, they found that fiction books elicit more affect (e.g., more dramatization and personal engagement) than information ones. Studies with parents also have shown that book genre influences language productions during shared book reading. For example, Hammett-Price, van Kleeck, and Huberty (2009) found that parents produced a greater number of extra-textual utterances and more cognitive-demanding feedback when reading an expositive text to preschoolers compared to a narrative one. On a different study, Nyhout and O’Neill (2013) showed that mothers produced more and longer sentences, greater variability of verbal tenses, and a greater number of references to mental states while reading narrative texts to toddlers when compared to expository texts. In addition to its genre, books’ pictorial, textual and stylistic properties influence child-teacher interactions and language production. For example, the benefits of using picturebooks in the teaching environment have been extensively studied in the literature (see Kümmerling-Meibauer, Meibauer, Nachtigäller, & Rohlfing, 2015). Book textual properties and stylistic aspects also influence reading strategies. For example, Dynia, Justice, Pentimonti, Piasta, and Kaderavek (2013) studied the relationship between educators’ productions and certain features of text language (number of words and mean utterance length), font characteristics (shape, size and color), and the presence of labels and letters in illustrations. They found that the length of sentences influenced the reading style adopted by the teachers. Specifically, short sentences together with salient font and label features produced a greater number of references to printed aspects of the book. 1.3. Benefits of wordless picture books The literature shows that the book genre and the textual properties influence the kind of reading strategies adopted by the reader. But what if the book does not have any text? Wordless picture books are those in which words are almost absent and the visual image carries the weight of the meaning and the function of the narrative (Nières-Chevrel, 2010). Unlike the case of books with words, when reading wordless picture books, the reader has to make meaning from the images (see Arizpe, 2013, for a complete review on meaning-making from wordless picture books). Most studies agree that wordless picture books increase the active participation of the reader (Beckett, 2012; Bosch, 2010; Bosch & Duran, 2009; Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001; Ramos & Ramos, 2012), partly because readers are expected to engage more actively to co-construct meaning (Arizpe, 2013). In educational settings, wordless picture books have been used to aid children in the process of developing pre-reading skills, such as sequential thinking, visual discrimination and inferential thinking (Knudsen-Lindauer, 1988). These books have been used with pedagogical goals, including promoting emergent literacy, second language learning, creative writing and reading comprehension (Chen & Pan, 2009; Gorman, Fiestas, Pena, & Clark, 2011; Henry, 2003; Jalongo, Dragich, Conrad, & Zhang, 2002). Some of these studies suggest that wordless picture books encourage not only the reader but also the child in active engagement, promoting higher levels of story verbalization (Graham, 1998; Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001; Nodelman, 1988). For instance, Caspe (2009) found that wordless picture books enhanced preschoolers’ print-related

1 Picture-phrased books are thematically structured books that contain readymade or simple phrases accompanied by pictures.

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literacy skills when Latino mothers use storytelling or abridgedstorytelling style. Using wordless picture books fosters the use of didactic construction styles in which teachers elicit most of the narrative information from children. Schick (2014) found that reading this type of book using a didactic constructor style, predicts preschoolers’ learning of letter identification and concepts about print, and fosters receptive language skills. Another study by Lysaker and Miller (2012) suggests that wordless picture books foster children’s social imagination, which plays an important role in reading comprehension. Interestingly, a recent study has shown that parents of children with ADHD benefit from wordless picture books by offering their children scaffolding techniques, and effectively engaging with children in joint activity (Leonard, Lorch, Milich, & Hagans, 2009).

(Goldenberg, Gallimore, & Reese, 2005). Other studies have shown that low-income Latino mothers living in the US engage in culturally unique ways, but that their preferred book sharing style differs from the one used by their white middle-class counterparts in that they create more distance between the child and the narrator (Boyce et al., 2004; Caspe, 2009; Hammer, Nimmo, Cohen, Draheim, & Johnson, 2005). The studies above suggest that research oriented towards increasing the effectiveness and frequency of reading practices in the Colombian (and Latin American) context is needed. As a step in that direction, the current study aims to identify the role of wordless picture books and books with text in eliciting supportive conversations during reading activities in preschool classrooms in Bogotá.

1.4. The present study

2. Method

Despite the increasing research on the benefits of wordless picture books, several questions remain unexplored. The goal of the current study is to explore shared book reading interactions using a sample of Colombian preschoolers and teachers. More specifically, we measure children’s language production and teachers’ instructional support when two different types of books are used during shared reading. This study addresses the following questions: What are the patterns of teachers’ and children’s linguistic productions during shared book reading in a pre-school setting in Colombia? Does the nature of children’s and teachers’ spontaneous language productions vary depending on type of book (a prototypical storybook with text and a wordless picture book)? How does teachers’ instructional support during shared reading of wordless picture books compare to instructional support during reading of storybooks with text? We address these questions in a preschool setting in the city of Bogotá. Studying reading practices in Colombia is important. In this country, a significant portion of children under 5 years of age attends child care centers at least 40 h a week (Ministerio de Educación Nacional-MEN, 2010). Existing evidence from an observational study conducted in over 61 preschool classrooms in Bogotá suggests that the levels of instructional support are ˜ & Guerrero, 2015; Maldonado-Carreno, ˜ low (Maldonado-Carreno Guerrero, Votruba-Drzal, & Betancur, 2015), suggesting that teachers seldom promote stimulating learning environments and show low engagement in language development strategies. Despite the importance of shared book reading as a tool for literacy instruction, little is known about reading practices in Colombia and other Latin American countries. Recent studies have shown that caregivers in Chile (Susperreguy & Mendive, 2007) and Mexico (Reese, 2002) are less likely to read books to children shortly after birth and during toddler age, compared to what has been reported in the United States. These differences could be explained by cultural preconceptions regarding literacy development. Stud˜ & Castro, 2012) and Mexico ies conducted in Colombia (Castano (Reese, 2002) indicate that book reading to children is typically considered a school-related activity, useful for knowledge acquisition and work-related problem solving, instead of as a leisure or pleasurable activity. Moreover, in the context of Colombia, Arias (2012) has reported that storytelling is the most frequent style among caregivers, although there is a fair amount of variation. However, most evidence about cultural-related reading styles among Latino families comes from studies of immigrants living in the US. For example, it has been shown that Latino parents usually follow a “bottom-up” cultural schema of literacy development – children learn to read by building letter-sound correspondences and rules for letter combinations. This schema results in more attention to letter-sound mapping compared to meaning construction during early reading

Shared book reading sessions were recorded and analyzed using a sample of thirteen teachers paired with groups of four children. The effect of reading a wordless picture book compared to a prototypical storybook with text was assessed. A within-subject experiment design was used: groups of teacher and children read both books in different sessions and the order of sessions was counterbalanced across groups. Children were drawn from each classroom and engaged in book reading sessions with their teachers as part of a separate activity from class. Teachers received instructions to read two books selected by the experimenter on two different sessions. Specifically, they were asked to read the books from cover to cover using the reading approach they normally use. 2.1. Participants 2.1.1. Teachers Thirteen preschool teachers from ten private preschool institutions in Bogotá, Colombia, served as participants in this study (12 female). Their teaching experience ranged from 1 to 24 years (M = 6.25, SD = 6.66). The teachers’ educational level varied. One of them was enrolled in graduate school, six of them had obtained a bachelor’s degree, two of them were college students, and four of them had obtained a technical degree. None of them had received formal training in shared book reading before the study. Their average age was 31 years old. Teachers reported reading books aloud to children one to two times a week (6), three to six times a week (1) and everyday (6). All preschools were located in medium SES neighborhoods of Bogotá. 2.1.2. Children A total of 52 children participated in the study (22 female and 30 male). Children’s ages ranged from 43 to 55 months (M = 50, SD = 3.51). All children spoke Spanish at home and their development was typical. In each classroom, four children were randomly selected to participate from a list of eligible children. Children were eligible provided they had not been diagnosed with any learning or cognitive disability or disorder, if they had between 36 and 60 months at the moment of the study, and if their parents had agreed to participate by signing a consent form. Groups of four children per classroom were arbitrarily selected because it has been shown that participants’ language and interactions can be adversely affected by larger group sizes (Girolametto & Weitzman, 2002). Therefore, this does not represent the prototypical interaction. 2.2. Materials and measurements 2.2.1. Books Two books were used: a wordless picture book, La Revancha del Gallo (tr. The Rooster’s Revenge – condition 1) by Beatriz Rodríguez

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(2011), and a storybook with text, Elmer en Zancos (condition 2), a translation to Spanish of the book Elmer on Stilts by David McKee (2002). Both teachers and students reported being unfamiliar with them. It was ensured that unfamiliar books were selected because verbal interactions have been shown to be different when familiar books are used (Goodsitt, Raitan, & Perlmutter, 1988). Both were narrative books in which the experiences of main characters are organized through different scenes and the problems they face were presented together with goal-based actions oriented to solve these problems. Narrative books were selected because this genre is the most frequently read in preschool classrooms (Pentimonti, Zucker, & Justice, 2011). The storybook with text was selected to have prototypical properties. To ensure that the book was as prototypical as possible, we analyzed the textual properties of 30 narrative books used in preschooler institutions in Bogotá (Colombia), including number of pages, number of words, mean length of utterance (MLU), number or utterances, number of simple sentences, number of complex sentences and number of questions. Table 1 shows the mean values and the standard deviations for each of these measures. The book selected (Elmer en Zancos) was between +1 and −1 standard deviation from the group mean in each characteristic (N = 30). Second, we selected the wordless picture book (La Revancha del Gallo) so that it matched the storybook with text in all possible features, including page length, theme, size and illustration style. In addition, it was selected to match the content and characters in the story as much as possible. Both books tell stories about animals (a rooster in the case of wordless picture book and an elephant in the case of the storybook with text) and both present a storyline in which the main character faces a problem and solves it in the company of its friends. In the storybook with text, the main character (an elephant named Elmer) elaborates a plan with his friends to trick and escape from hunters. Their plan involves using stilts to run faster. In the wordless picture book, the main character is a rooster that, together with some friends, engages in an adventure when coming back home from an island. The number of characters in both stories is comparable. In the case of the wordless book, the rooster’s friends include a fox, a rabbit, a bear, a baby dragon, a chicken and a baby chicken. In the case of the storybook with text the main character is an elephant and its friends are a number of other elephants, a giraffe, various different birds, and in addition to animal friends, there are human hunters. 2.2.2. Language measures All linguistic interactions were videotaped and transcribed using the CHAT transcriptions system (MacWhinney, 2000). Both textual and extra-textual teachers’ utterances were analyzed during the reading of storybook with text to avoid underestimation of the input produced by teachers. Utterances were segmented in C-Units. A segment was considered a C-unit if it satisfied two out of three of the following criteria: (a) There is a silence/speech pause equal or longer than 2 s before it, (b) it presented terminal intonation contour, and (c) it presented syntax that makes a complete sentence (Bernstein & Brundage, 2013). The segmentation was manually conducted by the first author of this paper according to the criteria outlined above. Those cases that presented ambiguities were annotated and carefully discussed with the second author until a consensus was reached. After segmentation, the following measures were calculated for children and teachers: (a) total number of words (word tokens), (b) lexical diversity (total of words types), (c) total number of utterances (C-units), and (d) mean length of utterance (MLU) calculated as words per C-unit. Lexical diversity has been typically used as a measure of richness of vocabulary (e.g., Daller, Van Hout, & TreffersDaller, 2003; Johansson, 2008) while MLU is typically used as a proxy of grammatical complexity (Hunt, 1970; Parker & Brorson,

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2005). These measures were automatically estimated by the CLAN system (MacWhinney, 2000). Since the length of sessions (in minutes) varied, we normalized the number of utterances and words by dividing raw numbers by the total number of minutes of the session. Individual child measures were averaged across the four children of each teacher’s group. 2.2.3. Teacher-child interaction measures The quality of teacher-child interaction was assessed using the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS Pre-K) (Pianta, La Paro, & Hamre, 2008). CLASS Pre-K is most typically used to measure quality of teacher-child interactions during daily classroom activities in cycles of a given length. As a standard tool to evaluate classroom interactions in general, it can be applied to a variety of interaction settings, including shared-book reading. Specifically the three dimensions of the Instructional Support domain were used in this study. Concept Development assesses teacher’s strategies to foster children’s higher-order thinking and cognition (e.g., make open-ended questions to provide opportunities for children to generate their own ideas and relate concepts to previous experiences). Quality of Feedback, assesses teacher’s feedback to promote understanding and continued participation (e.g., use of frequent feedback loops, ask students to explain their thinking, and provide additional information to expand students’ understanding). Language Modeling, assesses the quality of teacher’s techniques to stimulate and facilitate language (e.g., use of frequent conversations and advance language) (Pianta et al., 2008). Each dimension was rated on a 7-point scale ranging from low to high quality, and the domain score was calculated by averaging the three dimensions. As an illustration, the Appendix A shows excerpts of teacher-child interactions during shared reading as well as example analyses of instructional support. The first author of this work rated the CLASS using videos from the reading sessions. She was formally trained in Pre-K CLASS and met the reliability standard (PWO ≥ 0.80% of reliability) to receive the certification as observer. In order to further guarantee reliability, 50% of the sessions’ videos were additionally assessed by two Pre-K CLASS-trained graduate students. Interrater reliability was computed between a master code (the first author) and newly trained users (Sandilo & di Perna, 2011) using percent-within-one (PWO) analysis. Pairwise reliability scores (67% and 100%) were within acceptable ranges according to Sandilos and DiPerna (2011) (see also Salvia & Ysseldyke, 2007). The first author and the graduate students rated the CLASS soon after their training, and the scores of the former were used for analysis. 2.3. Procedure A within-subjects research design was used in which the reading session of each teacher and four children was videotaped sharing two types of books: a wordless picture book (condition 1) and a storybook with text (condition 2). The order of conditions was counterbalanced across groups. The day prior to the first book reading session, the experimenter stayed in the classroom at least 20 min in order to familiarize the children and the teacher with her presence and the video camera. On this preliminary visit, the experimenter gave one of the books to the teacher and instructed her to prepare for the book reading session on the next day. Teachers were randomly assigned to one of the two possible book assignment orders. On the first book reading session, teachers were instructed to go through the book cover to cover while using the reading style they normally do. Teacher-child interactions were videotaped for later analysis. The reading session took place in the classroom or in a reading room, and only participants under study were present and videotaped; the remaining students played in another room or participated in outdoor play. At the end of the first session, the

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Table 1 Text properties averaged across 30 storybooks with text used in preschooler institutions in Bogotá (Colombia) compared to text properties of the target book. Average values taken from a sample of books (N = 30)

No. of pages No. of words Mean Length of Utterance (MLU) No. of utterances No. of simple sentences No. of complex sentences No. of questions

Mean

SD

28.5 622.3 10.865 51.7 19.166 32.5 3.2

6.71 296.40 3.11 26.58 14.36 17.85 3.38

Elmer en Zancos (storybook with text)

La Revancha del Gallo (Wordless picture book)

24 519 9.105 57 25 32 1

24 NA NA NA NA NA NA

Note: SD = Standard deviation.

experimenter gave the teacher the second book and instructed her to prepare for the second session on the next day. On the following day, the experimenter repeated the procedure exactly as in the first reading session. 3. Results Descriptive statistics of teachers’ and children’s language as well as instructional support measures are presented in Table 2. A series of Student t-tests for paired samples were conducted to examine the differences between linguistic productions in children and teachers as well as teachers’ quality of instruction across the two conditions. Children’s data represents the averaged values per group (N = 4). We first present the result of teachers’ language and instructional support measures and then we describe and interpret children’s linguistic productions across conditions. 3.1. Teachers’ outcomes Teachers’ language production measures presented individual variability. The most productive teacher produced four times as many words per session as the least productive one. On average, teachers spent significantly longer time reading the wordless picture book (M = 17.5 min, SD = 6.21 min) than the storybook with text (M = 13.3 min, SD = 6.5 min), t(12) = −3.83, p = 0.002. Linguistic measures were normalized by time units (minutes). As summarized in Table 2, paired t-test revealed that they used significantly more diverse vocabulary (more word types) in the wordless-picturebook condition (p < 0.001) (after Bonferroni correction; ␣ = 0.012, number of comparison of related variables = 4). However, there was no difference in the number of tokens (p > 0.1) and utterances (p > 0.1) produced by teachers across conditions. Teachers’ MLU was significantly higher when reading the storybook with text (after Bonferroni correction; ␣ = 0.012; p < 0.001). However, this is not particularly surprising because in the book-with-text condition teachers were reading directly from the text. Larger values of teachers’ MLU are expected in this condition since it has been recently found that utterances in books are longer and more complex compared to spontaneous child-directed speech (Cameron-Faulkner & Nobel, 2013). Measures of instructional support ranged from low to moderate levels in all three dimensions assessed, according to the CLASS criteria – that is, for all dimensions, low levels correspond to 1 and 2 (over 7), moderate levels correspond to 3–5, and high levels correspond to 6 and 7 ratings (Pianta et al., 2008). Relatively low values of instructional support indicate that teachers rarely encouraged discussions and activities to foster higher-order thinking skills and understanding. Also, they rarely provided feedback, promoted children’s participation, and used other techniques to stimulate and facilitate children’s language. These relatively low values are consistent with previous work showing similar patterns

˜ et al., of classroom behavior in Latin America (Maldonado-Carreno ˜ Toledo, & Gempp, 2013). 2015; Trevino, t-test comparisons revealed that instructional support was significantly higher in the wordless-picture-book condition (p < 0.001). When the three dimensions were compared separately, we found that during wordless picture book reading teachers used more strategies to foster children’s higher-order thinking and cognition (Concept Development dimension) (p = 0.013), used more techniques to stimulate and facilitate language (Language Modeling dimension) (p < 0.001), and provided more feedback to promote understanding and continued participation (Quality of Feedback dimension), although this difference did not quite reach significance (p = 0.053). 3.2. Children’s outcomes Descriptive statistics of children’s language indicated that there was variability in their spontaneous language production (see Table 2). The number of words and sentences produced per child per session ranged from 0 (in one case only) to 481 words and 170 utterances. Paired t-tests (after Bonferroni correction; ␣ = 0.012) revealed that in the wordless-picture-book condition children produced more tokens per minute (p = 0.001), word type per minute (lexical diversity) (p = 0.003), and utterances per minute (p< 0.001) than in the storybook-with-text condition. However, children’s MLU did not differ across conditions (p > 0.1). Overall, the results showed that children’s language productions are richer during wordless picture book reading. Teachers’ outcomes, including instructional support, showed the same trend suggesting that instructional practices may be related to variation in children’s production. However, some aspects of these practices could be playing more of a significant role than others. One possibility is that teachers’ instructional support, which was higher in the wordless-picture-book condition, is driving the effect in children’s production. It could also be that teachers’ language is affecting children’s language, or that other (not explored) features of the book are affecting children’s spontaneous interventions. Notice, however, that these three interpretations are not mutually exclusive: many factors could be boosting children’s productions simultaneously. To shed some light on this issue, we conducted multiple regression analyses. 3.3. Multiple regression analyses Multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore the independent contribution of teachers’ instructional support, language production and book type on children’s language productions. The explained variables were those children’s language measures that differed significantly across conditions (number of word tokens, lexical diversity and number of utterances). Predictor variables were book type, teachers’ language measures that differed

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Table 2 Descriptive Statistics of Children’s and Teachers’ Language Properties and Instructional Support (N = 13) Storybook with text

Wordless picture book

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

Children measuresa No. Tokens Lexical diversity No. Utterances MLU

3.92 2.52 1.54 2.14

1.56 0.80 0.56 0.38

7.13 3.62 2.76 2.23

Teachers measuresa No. Tokens Lexical diversity No. of utterances MLU

103.79 23.14 13.89 5.625

13.07 4.04 1.80 0.52

Instructional Support Score Concept Development Quality of Feedback Language Modeling

1.74 1.38 1.69 2.15

0.62 0.50 0.75 0.89

a * ** *** †

Student t (paired samples)

Effect size (Cohen’s d)

2.69 1.25 1.08 0.41

−4.50** −3.78* −5.27*** −0.768

1.41 1.01 1.22

105.60 31.30 12.81 4.980

17.75 6.37 4.16 0.60

−0.36 5.41*** 1.00 4.95***

2.46 2.07 2.15 3.15

0.61 0.75 0.55 0.89

−4.93*** −2.92* −2.14† −6.24***

1.42 −1.13 1.16 1.07 0.67 2.02

Linguistic measures have been normalized by time (unit of time: minutes). SD = standard deviation. 95% Confidence level. 99% Confidence level. 99.9% Confidence level. 94% Confidence level (Nominal alpha levels have been Bonferroni corrected for related language measures).

Table 3 Results of Regression Models. Children’s No. of tokens

(Constant) Teacher’s Experience Type of book Lexical diversity MLU Concept Development Quality of Feedback Language Modeling

Children’s Lexical diversity

Children’s No. utterances

B

SE

B

SE

B

SE

4.393 −0.183 0.427* 0.323 −0.330 0.064 0.455* −0.028

5.91 0.80 1.03 0.11 1.01 0.80 0.82 0.66

1.556 −0.301† 0.471† 0.538 −0.334 0.136 0.512* −0.146

2.97 0.39 0.52 0.06 0.51 0.40 0.39 0.33

2.052 −0.088 0.363** 0.515** −0.540** 0.105 0.532** 0.088

1.530 0.21 0.27 0.03 0.26 0.21 0.21 0.17

Note. B = standardized betas. SE = standard error. † p < 0.1. * p < 0.05. ** p < 0.01.

across conditions (lexical diversity and MLU), and the three dimensions of instructional support (Concept Development, Quality of Feedback and Language Modeling). In all three models, VIF values were less than 10 and tolerance statistics were greater than 0.2, suggesting that multicollinearity did not bias the results. Finally, we included another predictor variable, the level of teacher’s experience, based on the number of years they have been teaching. It was dummy-coded to indicate whether teachers have more than 6 years of experience. Results are displayed in Table 3. All three models were significant: children’s number of words tokens (F(1, 24) = 4.38, p = 0.005), children’s lexical diversity (F(1, 24) = 3.04, p = 0.027) and children’s number of utterances (F(1, 24) = 12.4, p = 0.000), and they accounted for 48%, 37% and 76% of the variance, respectively. The results of the regression analysis showed that only a few variables are significant predictors of children’s production outcomes, when controlling for the other measures. Among instructional support dimensions, Quality of Feedback proved to be the only significant predictor of children’s number of words tokens (p = 0.042), lexical diversity (p = 0.04) and number of utterances (p = 0.001). Concept Development and Language Modeling were not significant predictors of either number of words tokens (p = 0.83, p = 0.91), lexical diversity (p = 0.65; p = 0.60) and number of utterances (p = 0.51; p = 0.60). This suggests that when teachers used more and/or better strategies to provide feedback, children produced more word tokens and utterances as well as more

diverse vocabulary. Also, children’s number of utterances was positively predicted by teachers’ lexical diversity (p = 0.01), however, neither children’s number of tokens (p = 0.40) nor children’s lexical diversity (p = 0.21) were predicted by this measure. Teachers’ MLU was negatively associated to children’s number of utterances (p.004 = 0.004), but not with children’s number of tokens (p = 0.20) and children’s lexical diversity (p = 0.26). Type of book was significant, even when the other measures were controlled for (p = 0.04 and p = 0.01 for number of tokens and number of utterances, respectively). This suggests that the positive effect of wordless picture books might go beyond affecting teachers’ instructional support and language. Finally, teachers’ experience was not a significant predictor of children’s number of tokens (p = 0.24), lexical diversity (p = 0.09), and number of utterances (p = 0.40).

4. Discussion The main purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of book type (namely, storybook with text and wordless-picture books) on children’s spontaneous language production and teachers’ language and instructional support. The results suggest that using a wordless picture book during shared reading influences positively children’s number of words, sentences and lexical diversity. Higher levels of children’s language mirror teachers’ levels of instructional support and lexical diversity. Overall, this is consistent

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with studies that suggest that wordless picture books encourage not only the adult but also the child in active engagement, promoting higher levels of story verbalization (Graham, 1998; Nikolajeva & Scott, 2001; Nodelman, 1988). To our knowledge, this is the first study directly comparing the effect of wordless picture books and books with text on instructional support and children’s spontaneous language. Using a wordless picture book elicited higher levels of quality in teacherchild interactions and children’s spontaneous productions when compared to its texted counterpart. Importantly, these two effects seem to be associated. As shown by the regression analysis, higher levels of Quality of Feedback may in turn boost children’s linguistic productions. Levels of instructional support are higher when teachers use wordless picture books. A possible explanation is that readers engage more actively in the process of meaning construction because the narrative is not verbally explicit (Arizpe, 2013). In doing so, they engage the viewer in the creative process, prompting participation through questions and feedback loops. Meaning construction entails creating hypotheses from the pictures that will be confirmed or readjusted in the course of reading. Additionally, visual signs (such as pictures) could elicit a wider range of different interpretations compared to spelled ones, therefore demanding more of a meaning construction process from the reader (Arizpe, 2013; Ramos & Ramos, 2012). These factors are likely to affect interactions during shared reading especially when the reader has not received specialized training on shared book reading. In this condition, children are encouraged to build the story jointly through strategies such as open-ended questions that require higher-order thinking skills, and comments that expand children’s understanding. On the other hand, when narrative books combine text and illustrations, readers are prone to focus on textual reading instead of promoting extra-textual interaction (HammettPrice et al., 2009). It is possible that teachers invite children to talk more during the wordless picture book because they have different expectations regarding children’s participation. In favor of this interpretation, a close look to teacher-child interactions revealed that questions are indeed more frequent during wordless picture book reading, suggesting that teachers may encourage children to talk more in this condition. The regression analyses showed that, when controlling for other factors, there is one particular dimension of Instructional Support that is positively associated to more productive language in children: Quality of Feedback. This is consistent with previous studies demonstrating that the quality of literacy instruction plays a pivotal role in children’s expressive language. For example, Girolametto et al. (2003) found that higher quality of instruction was associated with students constructing significantly more utterances and multiword combinations, and using more peer-directed utterances. Similarly, Wasik et al. (2006) found that when teacher received training on book reading and oral language strategies (e.g., asking open-ended questions, building vocabulary practicing, modeling rich language, and providing feedback), students obtained higher scores in expressive and receptive language outcomes. Taken together, these results suggest that multiple factors associated to reading wordless picture books are likely to affect children’s productions. Wordless picture books may foster instructional support, which in turn, may influence positively children’s language. Also, wordless picture books may elicit greater interest or more questions from children, which in turn, may have encouraged teachers’ responses. Book type remains a significant predictor of children’s productions even when instructional support is controlled for, suggesting that there are other properties of wordless books that are important too. For example, illustrations attract children’s attention toward the book, and make books’ content more concrete and meaningful

(Greenhoot & Semb, 2008). In line with this, Tower (2002) found that children make more references to the pictorial characteristics and engage in longer conversations related to illustrations when compared to the content of the text. Although both books used here have illustrations, teachers may demand closer attention to pictures in the wordless picture book condition in order to establish the spatial and temporal relations between signs (Bosch & Durán, 2009). Finally, we found that teachers’ language production also differed across conditions. Specifically, we found that teachers produced longer sentences (MLU) during book-with-text sharing. This is not unexpected since teachers’ utterances mirror book utterances when reading from text. Cameron-Faulkner and Noble (2013) compared syntactic constructions in a sample of books and child-directed speech in mother-child dyads, finding more complex constructions in the book sample. However, we found a more diverse lexicon (more types) during wordless-picture-book sharing. Consistent with the view that shared book reading is important for teachers’ lexical diversity (e.g., Montag et al., 2015), our results further suggest that the properties of the book have an effect on the amount of diversity produced. In accordance with work mainly conducted in the US, our results provide accumulating evidence of the benefits of using wordless picture books during shared reading sessions. An additional contribution of this study is to build towards a better understanding of book reading practices in the region. Little is known about reading styles among Latin American parents, and less in the Colombian context (cf. Arias, 2012). We found that when teachers read a wordless picture book, they tend to build the story together with their students. Precisely such co-constructive style has been shown to be absent in Latino parents living in the US (see Caspe, 2009; for a review). Thus, although Colombian reading practices are not fully understood, promoting such a style could be particularly useful, especially in the light of the low levels of instructional support typ˜ et al., ically found in the context of Bogotá (Maldonado-Carreno 2015). Our findings may have important implications for educational settings, especially in the case of Colombia. There are crucial crosscultural differences in storytelling styles. Importantly, what is considered “effective” scaffolding for building literacy skills may vary across cultures (Caspe, 2009; Mejía-Arauz, Rogoff, & Paradise, 2005). Most developmental studies conducted in North American or European settings generally assume that effective scaffolding during shared reading involves the use of co-constructive styles, including positive feedback with instructive purposes, the use of open questions and an emphasis on discussion. However, as noted by Caspe (2009), ethnographic research reveals that there are other styles of teaching that are common in other cultures (Mejía-Arauz et al., 2005). For example, the use of “intent participation” is part of cultural teaching traditions in Latino American parents (MejíaArauz et al., 2005). Intent participation refers to learning that is characterized by observation and listening as part of the process of engaging in an ongoing endeavor, rather than the building of co-constructive teaching activities (Rogoff, Paradise, Mejía-Arauz, Correa-Chávez, & Angelillo, 2003). There is evidence that Latino American parents in the United States tend to favor an intent participation approach to learning (Caspe, 2009) and a wide range of cultural studies have shown that learning through intent participation is very common in a number of communities across the world including some parts of Latin America (see Rogoff et al., 2003 for a review). Thus, an interesting question for future research would be to explore the lexical and syntactic properties of language productions, as well as the nature of child-adult interactions, during storytelling employed in a wide range of activities that may involve intend participation.

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The importance of caregivers’ training has been long studied (e.g., Arnett, 1989), and the role of teachers’ level of education and training on the quality of education has been well established (see Burchinal, 2010 for a review). Unfortunately, there are very few studies in Colombia assessing the quality of preschool education and its relationship with teachers’ level of education and training. Sarmiento Gómez (2010) has provided some data regarding the preschool Colombian teachers’ level of education. Specifically, over 90% of them do not reach 15 years of education and 40% of them have not received a Bachelors’ degree. Only 12% of preschool teachers have coursed any kind of graduate studies. Given these figures, it is reasonable to expect low levels of specific training on literacy teaching techniques. This is consistent with recent data coming from observational studies of instructional quality in 61 preschool classrooms in low-to-middle class neighborhoods in ˜ et al., 2015). In this study, the authors Bogotá (Maldonado-Carreno revealed that the quality of instruction in the language and reasoning domain, as measured by the Early Childhood Environment Rating Scale-Revised (ECERS-R; Harms, Clifford, & Cryer, 1998), was in fact below the international minimum standards. The ECERSR language and reasoning dimension assesses aspects of literacy instruction by measuring the use of books in the classroom, the use of communication stimulation techniques and the use of informal and specific language to promote reasoning abilities. These findings point towards the need of engaging teachers in specific training on literacy instruction in preschool settings in Colombia. The current study has a number of limitations and the results should be interpreted in the context of the following considerations. First, we observed only two reading sessions per teacher (each teacher read both books). A higher number of sessions might increase the reliability of the data (Hockenberger, Goldstein, & Haas, 1999). Second, we used only one book of each type. It is possible that individual book features (besides containing or not containing text) influenced the dependent variables. We made an effort to minimize this risk by choosing a wordless picture book that matched the storybook with text in all possible dimensions. Also, we used books that were unfamiliar to the participants. This could affect typical behaviors and interactions (as suggested in Goodsitt et al., 1988). To minimize this risk we chose a storybook with text as prototypical as possible, and used a sample of 30 books used in local preschools to establish prototypicality. Third, transcription of verbatim speech was included in the transcriptions of teacher’s talk when reading books with text. Then, words and grammar within the book added to extra-textual conversation in teachers’ language measures for the case of books with text. However, because the data favor wordless picture books, including verbatim for books with text represents the most conservative stand, that is, no utterance produced by the teacher when reading the book with text was discarded from the analysis. Another possible caveat of our method is that we used simple, yet standard, measures of language complexity including lexical diversity and MLU (see Johansson, 2008 and Parker & Brorson for recent discussion on these measures). These measures have the advantage of enabling automatic quantification. However, other measures such as the analysis of complex noun phrases (e.g., Huttenlocher et al., 2002) could be quite revealing, suggesting an interesting direction for future analyses. Finally, small groups of children during book sharing are not representative of how teachers read to young children in Colombia, since class˜ rooms are typically much larger (Betancur & Maldonado-Carreno, 2013). However, using small groups offers the advantage of allowing a deep-seated study of teacher-child interactions. To conclude, in accordance with a growing bulk of work conducted in North America, our data shows that teachers’ strategies during shared book reading, including the choice of book, has consequences on children’s spontaneous productions and engagement. Shared book reading should be a planned activity, in which the

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reader establishes aims about the kind of language skills he wants to promote and selects a book accordingly. Books with text may be more suitable for exposing children to complex grammatical structure, while wordless picture books may be chosen with certain instructional goals in mind, for example, to promote joint meaning construction.

Appendix A. Teacher-child interaction excerpts Below are examples of teacher-child interactions during shared book reading sessions. In both conditions, it was fairly common that children talk on top of each other and interrupt the teacher freely. When reading the wordless picture book, teachers engage in longer conversations with children and clearly showed interest in children’ talk. Turn-taking was very present in this condition, and teachers usually followed-up children’s comments by repeating and expanding them. This kind of feedback contributes to increase instructional support scores, especially the Quality of Feedback dimension. The following excerpt from a session using the wordless book provides an example (CH# = child number # and TEA = teacher): Excerpt 1: CH3: es que él estaba vivo. [what happened is that he was alive] TEA: ¿él estaba vivo? [he was alive?] CH3: sí. [yes.] CH3: y antes era viejito. [and he used to be old.] TEA: ¿qué le pasó? [what happened to him?] CH5: está [/] está +/. [he is.] CH3: está viejito. [he is old.] TEA: estaba viejito. [he was old.] TEA: ¿y qué pasó? [and what happened to him?] CH5: los dinosaurios no son viejos. [dinosaurs are not old.] CH3: sí. [yes.] CH5: no. [no.] CH3: cuando se vuelven viejos se [/] se [/] se le comen la piel. [when they become old they eat the skin.] CH2: qué. [what.] TEA: ¿y quién se le come la piel? [and who eats the skin?] CH2: ¿dinosaurio o qué? [a dinosaur or what?] TEA: ¿sí? [yes?] TEA: sí por eso. [yes, exactly.] TEA: ¿qué le habrá pasado a ese dinosaurio? [what happened to the dinosaur?] CH3: estaba +/. [it was.] CH5: estaba peleando. [it was fighting.] TEA: por ahí. [around.] TEA: ¿por estar peleando? [because he was fighting?] TEA: ¿qué más? [what else?] TEA: ¿tú qué piensas Lorena? [what do you think, Lorena?] TEA: ¿qué le pasó al dinosaurio? [what happened to the dinosaur?] CH2: ¿se murió? [did it died?] TEA: ¿pero eso es un dinosaurio o qué es esto? [but is it a dinosaur or what is it?] Additionally, in the wordless picture book condition, teachers allowed for children’s point of view to a greater extent, enabling children to establish connections between the book content and real life. Moreover, teachers frequently let children initiate conversation or make personal comments, fostering children’s reflection. Also, teachers asked questions that promoted children’s thinking and participation and they used language facilitation strategies, such as maintaining conversation and encouraging children to talk. This type of interactions contributed to increase scores of instruc-

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tional support, especially the Language Modeling and Concept Development dimensions. Consider the following two excerpts: Excerpt 2: TEA: cuando los tres animales estaban [/] en el mar había mucho viento. [when the three animals were in the see/the see was very windy.] CH5: sí. [yes.] CH5: yo sé qué [/] qué pasa ahí. [I know what/what happens there.] TEA: soplemos. [let’s blow.] TEA: mucho viento viento. [lots of wind wind.] TEA: &-ahhah pero miren qué pasó. [ahhh but look what happened.] TEA: por tanto viento hubo una ola. [therefore there was a wave.] CH5: que +/. [what.] CH5: yo sé por qué es eso. [I know why is that.] TEA: ¿quién ha ido al mar? [who has been to the see?] CH5: yo. [me.] CH1: yo.[me.] TEA: yo. [me.] TEA: ¿y qué hay en el mar? [and what is there in the see?] CH5: olas. [waves.] CH1: olas. [waves.] TEA: olas.[waves.] TEA ¿y qué más? [and what else?] CH5: y cangrejos peces pulpos &-hmm medusas cocorilos ballenas y tiburones. [and crabs fish octopus hmm jelly fish crocodiles wales and sharks.] TEA: hay muchas cosas. [there are lots of things.] TEA: qué tal que uno se meta por ahí a la playa. [what if one went around in the beach.] TEA: y se lo como un cocodrilo así. [and a crocodile eats them like that.] Excerpt 3: TEA: y es una cueva. [and it is a cave.] CH5: y mira. [and look.] CH5: dejaron al gallo y +/. [they let the rooster there and.] TEA: ¿&-ahhah después de que estaban durmiendo que pasaría ahí? [and after they were sleeping what would have happened there?] CH5: hay huesos. [there are bones.] TEA: acá mira. [here look.] CH5: hay huesos. [there are bones.] TEA: huesos. [bones.] CH5: y mira. [and look.] TEA: ¿pero qué pasó acá? [but what happened here?] TEA: ¿estaban qué? [what were they doing?] CH5: asustados que tenían ahí un huevo dorado que [/] que está junto [//] a esto. [they were frightened because they had a Golden egg that is next to this.] CH5: y le dio mucho miedo. [and they were very scared of it.] TEA: [//] cuando entraron a la cueva las tortu miren el conejo y el oso todavía estaban durmiendo. [when they entered the cave the turtles look at the rabbit and the bear they were still asleep.] CH5: durmiendo. [asleep.] CH5: y al gallo. [and the rooster.] TEA: ¿pero el gallo estaba qué? [but the rooster was what?] CH5: despierto. [awake.] TEA: ¿y estaba qué? [and they were what?] CH1: asustado. [scared.] CH5: sorprendido. [surprised.] CH4: asustado. [scared.] TEA: no. [no.] CH5: sorprendido. [surprised.] TEA: sorprendido así &-ahhah. [surprised like this ahhhh.]

TEA: asombrado &-ahhah. [astonished.] TEA: ¿qué es eso? [what is that?] CH5: ¿qué es eso? [what is that?] TEA: ¿qué es esto Ana? [what is this Ana?] CH5: es un huevo. [it is an egg.] TEA: espera. [wait.] TEA: espera a Ana. [wait for Ana.] CH4: un huevo dorado. [a Golden egg.] TEA: ¿un huevo dorado? [a Golden egg?] TEA: ¿y qué hay adentro? [and what is there inside?] TEA: ¿qué animal hay adentro? [what animal is there inside?] CH4: &-hmm no sé. [hmm I don’t know.] CH2: un pollito chiquitico. [a little chicken.] TEA: ¿un pollito chiquitico? [a little chicken?] References ˜ y su relación con el Arias, N. (2012). Diferencias en la lectura conjunta adulto-nino estilo cognitivo del adulto [Differences in adult-child shared reading and its relationship with adult cognitive style]. Revista Colombiana de Educación, 64, 199–223. Arizpe, E. (2013). Meaning-making from wordless (or nearly wordless) picturebooks: What educational research expects and what readers have to say. Cambridge Journal of Education, 43(2), 163–176. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/ 0305764x.2013.767879 Arnett, J. (1989). Caregivers in day-care centers: Does training matter? Journal of Alied Developmental Psychology, 10, 541–552. Beckett, S. (2012). Crossover picturebooks: A genre for all ages. London: Routledge. Bernstein, N., & Brundage, S. B. (2013). A clinician’s complete guide to CLAN and PRAAT.. Retrieved from. http://childes.psy.cmu.edu/clan/Clinician-CLAN.pdf ˜ C. (2013). La calidad de la educación inicial en Betancur, L., & Maldonado-Carreno, Bogotá: Estudio exploratorio en jardines infantiles de nivel socioeconómico medio y bajo [Preschool education quality in Bogotá: A exploratory study in kindergartens with middle- and low-SES]. Master dissertation. Bogotá: Department of Psychology, Universidad de los Andes. Bosch, E. (2010). El juego de Pululeer y juegos para releer [the game of Pululeer and the games to read]. Bloc Revista Internacional De Arte Y Literatura Infantil, 6, 6–21. Bosch, E., & Duran, T. (2009). OVNI: un álbum sin palabras que todos leemos de manera diferente [OVNI: A wordless picture book that all of us read in different manners]. AILIJ Anuario de Investigación de Literatura Infantil y Juvenil, 7(2), 39–52. Boyce, L. K., Cook, G. A., Roggman, L. A., Innocenti, M. S., Jump, V. K., & Akers, J. F. (2004). Sharing books and learning language: What do Latina mothers and their young children do? Early Education & Development, 15(4), 371–385. Bronfenbrenner, U., & Morris, P. (2006). The bioecological model of human development. In R. Lerner (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology: Theoretical models of human development (pp. 793–828). New York: Wiley. Burchinal, M. (2010). Differentiating among measures of quality: Key characteristics and their coverage in existing measures. OPRE research-to-policy, research-to-practice. Washington, DC: Office of Planning, Research and Evaluation, Administration for Children and Families, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Cameron-Faulkner, T., & Noble, C. (2013). A comparison of book text and child directed speech. First Language, 33(3), 268–279. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/ 0142723713487613 Cameron-Ponitz, C., & Rimm-Kaufman, S. E. (2011). Contexts of reading instruction: Implications for literacy skills and kindergarteners’ behavioral engagement. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 26, 157–168. http://dx.doi. org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2010.10.002 Caspe, M. (2009). Low-income Latino mothers’ booksharing styles and children’s emergent literacy development. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 24, 306–324. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecresq.2009.03.006 ˜ S., & Castro, J. (2012). Concepciones de lectura y el cambio de concepción Castano, por la participación en un programa de lectura [Conceptions of reading and changing conception for participating in a reading program]. Revista Educación y Desarrollo Social, 6(2), 105–122. Chen, L., & Pan, N. (2009). Development of English referring expressions in the narratives of chinese-english bilinguals. Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, 12(4), 429–445. Daller, H., Van Hout, R., & Treffers-Daller, J. (2003). Lexical richness in the spontaneous speech of bilinguals. Applied Linguistics, 24(2), 197–222. Dickinson, D. K., & Porche, M. V. (2011). Relation between language experiences in preschool classrooms and children’s kindergarten and fourth-grade language and reading abilities. Child Development, 82(3), 870–886. Dickinson, D. K., Griffith, J. A., Michnick, R., & Hirsh-Pasek, K. (2012). How reading books fosters language development around the world. Child Development Research, 2012 http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2012/602807. Retrieved from Dynia, J. M., Justice, L. M., Pentimonti, J. M., Piasta, S. B., & Kaderavek, J. N. (2013). Text features and preschool teachers’ use of print referencing. Journal of Research in Reading, 36(3), 261–279.

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