The importance of early parental involvement on children's literacy development | 親子閱讀對孩子語文發展的重要性

Due to the fact that children’s literacy development is crucial to their academic achievements, many parents send their children to language learning centres, aiming to build and enhance their reading and writing skills. In fact, parental involvement is also very effective in enhancing children’s literacy skills. This article will introduce two home-based and cost-effective reading methods that parents could use to facilitate their children’s language and literacy development.

The first method is paired reading, a handy method for teaching children to read. Generally speaking, there are two phases, reading together and reading alone. Reading together requires the child and parent to read a storybook or an article aloud to each other synchronously. Then, when the child feels comfortable to read alone, the parent stops reading and becomes a listener. In both phases, when the child makes a mistake, the parent corrects the child by supplying the correct word.

A study published in School Psychology International by Professor Topping examined the usefulness of paired reading on more than a thousand western children and found that children who were in paired reading programme had large gains in English word reading accuracy and comprehension (Topping, 1986). Recently, Dr. Shui-fong Lam, an Associate Professor at The University of Hong Kong, and colleagues conducted a paired reading study and found that paired reading also enhances Chinese word recognition and reading fluency in Hong Kong Chinese children, as well as reinforcing their motivation to read. Besides, finding of the study also suggested that the parent-child relationship can be promoted under paired reading.

The second method is dialogic reading. Dialogic reading is a further developed technique of paired reading. In dialogic reading, the parent acts as an active listener and helps the child to become a storyteller by using the PEER sequence. In the PEER sequence, the parent:

Prompts the child to say something about the story, evaluates the child’s response, expands the child’s responses by rephrasing and adding information, and repeats the prompt to ensure the child has learned from the expansion. (Whitehurst, 1992, para. 9)

Here is an example of using the PEER sequence while the parent and the child are reading a book: The parent asks, "What is Polly holding? (the prompt)”. The child answers, "a pen", and the parent follows with "Good! (the evaluation); Polly is holding a black colour ink pen (the expansion); can you say a black colour ink pen? (the repetition)".  

To examine the effectiveness of dialogic reading, Professor McBride and colleagues conducted two dialogic reading studies on Hong Kong Chinese children and found that children in dialogic programme yielded gains in their Chinese literacy skills and English reading skills, as well as promoting their phonological awareness in both Chinese and English. More information about dialogic reading can be found in the following links: http://www.psy.cuhk.edu.hk/~qefproject/ & http://cityuass.wix.com/index

From these studies, we understand that parental involvement plays an important role in children’s literacy development. Therefore, we encourage parents to read with their children, using either the paired or dialogic reading method, for 5-15 minutes, few times a week. 

References

Chow, B. W.-Y., & McBride-Chang, C. (2003). Promoting language and literacy development through parent–child reading in Hong Kong preschoolers. Early Education and Development, 14, 233–248. doi: 10.1207/s15566935eed1402_6.

Chow, B. W.-Y., McBride-Chang, C., & Cheung, H. (2010). Parent–child reading in English as a second language: Effects on language and literacy development of Chinese kindergarteners. Journal of Research in Reading, 33, 284-301. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01414.x

Lam, S. F., Chow-Yeung, K., Wong, B. P., Lau, K. K., & Tse, S. I. (2013). Involving parents in paired reading with preschoolers: Results from a randomized controlled trial. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 38, 126-135. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2012.12.003

Topping, K. J. (1986). Effective service delivery: Training parents as reading tutors. School Psychology International, 7, 231–236. doi: 10.1177/0143034386074007

Whitehurst, G J. (1992). Dialogic reading: An effective way to read to preschoolers. Retrieved from http:// www.readingrockets.org/article/400

_____________________________________________________________________________________

This article was written by our guest blogger Miss. YIM, Yin Ting Sharon.  Miss. Yim is currently a research assistant in the Life Span Development Laboratory of The Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Miss. YIM, Yin Ting Sharon.

BA (Hons) (The Australian National University)

Research assistant 

Life Span Development Laboratory

Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

Email: sharonyim1009@gmail.com

---

由於孩子的語文發展對其學術成就有著關鍵的影響，因此現今很多家長會選擇讓孩子參加語言培訓班，藉此提升孩子的讀寫能力。事實上，親子閱讀能有效地提升孩子的語文技巧及能力。這篇文章會介紹兩種簡單且有效的閱讀方法，讓家長能夠在家裡陪伴孩子愉快地閱讀。 ​ 首先要介紹的是配對式閱讀(paired reading)。配對式閱讀主要分成兩個階段，分別是同步閱讀(reading together)及獨自閱讀(reading alone)。同步閱讀是指孩子與家長一起朗讀故事書或文章。當孩子有信心單獨朗讀時，家長便可以停止朗讀，從而轉換成傾聽者的角色。在這兩個階段中，假若孩子朗讀錯誤，家長須及時糾正孩子。 ​ Topping教授招募了超過一千名孩子，與他們進行了一項測試配對式閱讀效用性的研究 ，並刊登於《國際學校心理學》期刊 (School Psychology International)內。研究結果顯示，配對式閱讀能提升西方兒童的英文閱讀準確度及理解能力(Topping, 1986)。另外，香港大學心理學系林瑞芳博士及其研究團隊近期的研究發現，配對式閱讀能有效地提升香港兒童的中文認讀能力及閱讀流暢性，以及增強他們的閱讀動機。除了增強閱讀能力外，研究亦指出配對式閱讀能促進家長與孩子之間的關係。 ​ 接下來要介紹的是對話式親子閱讀(dialogic reading)。 對話式親子閱讀是配對式閱讀的延伸。在對話式親子閱讀下，家長是一個主動的傾聽者，並且使用「激發(Prompt)、評估(Evaluate)、延伸(Expand) 和複述(Repeat)」(簡稱PEER)的方法，以協助孩子成為主要的講故事者。在使用PEER 法時，家長首先以發問形式激發孩子敍述一些有關故事的內容(Prompt)，然後評估孩子的回應(Evaluate)，接著以改述句子和增加資料的方式來延伸孩子的回應(Expand)，最後鼓勵孩子複述之前的句子以確保孩子明白(Repeat)。例如，當家長和孩子在閱讀故事時，家長問孩子︰「Polly在拿著什麼? (激發)」。如果孩子回答︰ 「一枝筆」。家長便可以考量孩子的答案，並豐富其句子的內容︰ 「非常好！(評估) Polly 拿著一枝黑色的墨水筆(延伸)，請你再說一遍『一枝黑色的墨水筆』(複述)」。 ​ McBride教授及其研究團隊進行了兩項針對對話式親子閱讀效用性的研究。對話式親子閱讀不但能有效地提升香港兒童的中文讀寫能力及英文閱讀技巧，亦能夠增強香港兒童的中英文語音意識。如欲了解更多有關對話式親子閱讀的資料，請參考以下鏈結：http://www.psy.cuhk.edu.hk/~qefproject/ 及 http://cityuass.wix.com/index ​ 從以上的研究結果得出，親子閱讀對孩子的語文發展十分重要。在此建議，家長應每星期與孩子閱讀三至四次，每次約5至15分鐘，如能配以配對式閱讀或對話式親子閱讀的方法，便能大大地提升孩子的語文技巧及能力。 ​ ​ References Chow, B. W.-Y., & McBride-Chang, C. (2003). Promoting language and literacy development through parent–child reading in Hong Kong preschoolers. Early Education and Development, 14, 233–248. doi: 10.1207/s15566935eed1402_6. Chow, B. W.-Y., McBride-Chang, C., & Cheung, H. (2010). Parent–child reading in English as a second language: Effects on language and literacy development of Chinese kindergarteners. Journal of Research in Reading, 33, 284-301. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9817.2009.01414.x Lam, S. F., Chow-Yeung, K., Wong, B. P., Lau, K. K., & Tse, S. I. (2013). Involving parents in paired reading with preschoolers: Results from a randomized controlled trial. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 38, 126-135. doi: 10.1016/j.cedpsych.2012.12.003 Topping, K. J. (1986). Effective service delivery: Training parents as reading tutors. School Psychology International, 7, 231–236. doi: 10.1177/0143034386074007 Whitehurst, G J. (1992). Dialogic reading: An effective way to read to preschoolers. Retrieved from http:// www.readingrockets.org/article/400

______________________________________________________________________________________ 此文章由我們的客席博客嚴燕婷小姐撰寫。嚴小姐現為香港中文大學心理學系的研究助理。 嚴燕婷小姐 BA (Hons) (澳洲國立大學) 研究助理 香港中文大學心理學系 生命全期發展實驗室 電郵: sharonyim1009@gmail.com