The relationship between children’s spontaneous utterances during joint bookreading and their retellings

Abstract

This study examined relationships between the spontaneous utterances of pre-kindergarteners (mean age = 5 years and 1 month) from low-income families during joint bookreading and their story retelling skills. Parent—child joint bookreading sessions (N = 62 dyads) and child story retelling sessions (N = 46) were videotaped. Results showed that children made more frequent spontaneous utterances related to interpretation of story than event-related and evaluative utterances. In addition, children who produced more frequent spontaneous utterances during joint bookreading tended to produce higher-quality story retelling. Children who produced more frequent spontaneous utterances about interpretation of the story and spontaneous repetition of maternal utterances tended to include more story events and to use more sophisticated language in their story retelling. These findings suggest that children’s propensity for spontaneous verbal participation during joint bookreading may have a direct relationship with their retelling skills.