Talking with Children The Road to Literacy Dr. Carole Peterson Beulah Jesso Memorial University Funded by CLLRNet & NSERC

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy2 Introduction Reading is a complex task, with many contributors My lab focuses on some discourse skills that underlie literacy Specifically: narrative skills –Autobiographical stories about one’s life experiences

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy3 Why did we choose narratives? Children can begin telling them by age 2 Omnipresent in human societies Even non-literate parents can engage their children in narration

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy4 Properties of narratives Extended discourse Decontextualized Sentences must be cohesive Causal & temporal connections Overall structural coherence Evaluation

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy5 Narratives and literacy Narrative properties similar to properties of texts children will be reading Children with good narrative skills have an important foundation upon which literacy can be overlaid

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy6 A tale of 3 stories

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy7 Crucial Question: Why are these stories so different? These differences often correlated with social class But social class is NOT the underlying cause. Rather, related to properties of the environment

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy8 Linguistic home environments Hart & Risley study –Visited families at home monthly for 2½ years –Children years old –Over 30,000 pages of transcripts –Included welfare, working class, & professional families

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy9 Differences between families Number of words spoken to child by parents Differences were stunning

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy10 What does this mean? Some children hear 2500 fewer words per hour. Extrapolating, some children have heard 32 million fewer words by kindergarten.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy11 Relationship between number of words & child outcomes Differences in words spoken to children was tightly linked to language differences in child outcomes. The more parents talked to their children, the faster the child’s vocabulary growth. The more parents talked to their children, the higher their child’s verbal IQ test scores years later.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy12 Relationship to socioeconomic factors Lots of variation within each social class. These variations were what mattered, not the family’s economic circumstances. Unfortunately, low income families most likely to be at low end of variation. Typically, a child in a low-income home heard only 3 million words/year, vs. 11 million words/year in professional families.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy13 More than just word frequency is important Two types of language –Language directed toward care & socialization –Extended talk

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy14 Care & Socialization behaviour management imperativesprohibitions Extended Talk past events properties of objects & events feelings explanations future plans

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy15 Style of extended talk was automatically different More varied vocabulary Descriptions of objects & events richer in nuances Causal & temporal connections made Events related to feelings Parental talk more positive in tone Parental talk more responsive to child’s talk

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy16 Important finding Families did not differ in amount of ‘business talk’ (care & socialization) Huge differences in amount of extended talk.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy17 Sentence Complexity Number of nouns, modifiers, & past- tense verbs per utterance

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy18 Relationship between measures of extended talk & child measures Greater vocabulary use at age 3 Higher verbal IQ at age 3 Better scores on language development tests at age 9-10 (correlation =.70)

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy19 Narrative skills & literacy Narratives are an important form of extended talk They have many properties important to literacy Children with poor narrative skills more likely to be labeled ‘learning disabled’ in school

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy20 How do narratives replicate the demands of literacy? Go beyond the here-and-now Must decontextualize language (eg, describe the there-and-then) Require several utterances or turns to build a linguistic structure Use linguistic cues to indicate organization of information Use more complex grammar Use a larger vocabulary

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy21 Research at Memorial Collaborators: Beulah Jesso, Allyssa McCabe (U. Mass.) Want to find a way to encourage extended talk in families. Specifically, personal experience narratives.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy22 Telling Their Life Adventures Children learn to tell personal experience narratives

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Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy25 Experimental research Do parental differences in style actually CAUSE differences in child narrative skill? Experimental study: –Low income parents –Intervention & control group –Taught intervention parents the principles of elaborative, topic-extending style

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy26 Results: Context-setting information pre-testpost-testfollow-up Control Intervention

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy27 Results: Total information pre-testpost-testfollow-up Control Intervention

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy28 Conclusions from experimental research Parental narrative-eliciting styles indeed cause differences in child skill Parental narrative style is crucial Parents can be taught how to become more elaborative Teaching parents good narrative-eliciting style leads to gains in relevant child skills

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy29 Current research project The prior study was very small Training in elaborative conversational techniques took place individually Current study is large Training takes place in groups Funded by CLLRNet Collaborators: Allyssa McCabe (U. Mass. at Lowell) & Anne McKeough (U. Calgary),

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy30 Method Low income families Recruited from preschools Randomly assigned to 2 groups –Intervention –Craft activity

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy31 Craft group Moms & children met weekly for 4 weeks 1 ½ - 2 hours per week Engaged in simple crafts that parent & child could do together Crafts used materials readily available at no cost

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy32 Intervention group Moms & children met weekly for 4 weeks 1 ½ - 2 hours per week Explained the importance of narratives for school readiness

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy33 Parental concerns “But we never do anything or go anywhere” “We have nothing to talk about”

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Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy37 Intervention Watched videos of elaborative vs. topic- switching parent-child interactions Parents invited to evaluate & compare styles Role played elaborative style of interaction with each other & group leader Recorded their home conversations with children Played these for discussion & feedback

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy38 Principle 1 Find the time to talk to your child one on one.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy39 Principle 2 Talk to your child about things that happened in the past. Do this over and over.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy40 Principle 3 Spend lots of time talking about each event.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy41 Principle 4 Help your child build a story with a beginning, middle and end.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy42 Principle 5 Ask “Wh” questions like who was there, what happened, where was this, when did that happen?

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy43 Principle 6 Listen closely to what your child says, and help them say more by asking them to say more. Encourage them to keep talking.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy44 Principle 7 Help your child say more than one thing at a time. Say things like “really?” “yeah?” and “and?”

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy45 Principle 8 8. Talk about the things your child wants to talk about.

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy46 Follow-up phone calls For 6 months following group meetings: Parents called bi-monthly Discuss principles –Which have parents used –How well they are working –Provide additional help as requested

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy47 Our expected results Will follow children through first few years of school Expect intervention children to be significantly better at language skills Better vocabularies Better narratives Better reading skills

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy48 Strengths Doesn’t depend on parents having good reading skills Empowers parents who themselves have poor literacy skills Doesn’t involve expensive resources

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy49 Possible tangential effects Huebner taught parents to interact more constructively with preschoolers during book-reading Parents reported decreased parenting stress in follow-ups

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy50 Our parents – pretest data Parents highly stressed –At 81 st percentile on Parenting Stress Index (= borderline clinical significance) –Parents rate children as more difficult than average (Difficult child subscale) Parent-child attachment mostly insecure

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy51 Implications Professionals who deal with high-risk families Teachers in preschools Community centres School outreach programs

Talking with Children - The Path to Literacy52 Long-term goals Develop a program that is easy to use & easy to deliver Can be readily used in a range of situations Can be used inexpensively in group settings