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Attention To Print
Shared book reading with your children prepares children to develop foundational skills, which are needed to eventually become proficient in decoding and comprehension. (Hindman, Connor, Jewkes & Morrison, 2008). Decoding refers to understanding/recognizing letters and the sounds they make, whilst comprehension refers to making meaning of the story. Studies have shown that parents and children differ in their use of code and meaning making during their storybook conversations. However generally, the conversations during storybook reading are more about meaning making. (Hindman et al., 2008).
Shared book reading with your children prepares children to develop foundational skills, which are needed to eventually become proficient in decoding and comprehension. (Hindman, Connor, Jewkes & Morrison, 2008). Decoding refers to understanding/recognizing letters and the sounds they make, whilst comprehension refers to making meaning of the story. Studies have shown that parents and children differ in their use of code and meaning making during their storybook conversations. However generally, the conversations during storybook reading are more about meaning making. (Hindman et al., 2008).
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Here is the exciting research for parents and their children. If parents make explicit reference to print when reading with their children, this can accelerate children's development of print knowledge. (see Justice & Ezell, 2002 in Justice, Pullen & Pence 2008). How do parents do this? Research tells us this can be achieved by using two methods. One, choose books such as alphabet books and books which have accentuated print features such as changes in size of the print, and speech bubbles. Two, use verbal and non-verbal actions to draw children's attention to the print. This can be pointing to the print when reading, discussing and pointing to the letters and talking about what sounds the letters make. Questions such as "Can you point to the letter a in this page?" can be incorporated during your shared reading time. This then creates discussions with children about letters and sounds, (Justice, Weber, Ezell, & Bakeman, 2002 in Hindman et al.,), which leads to children having improved code related skills. (Bysterveldt, Gillon & Moran, 2006; Justice & Ezell, 2000 in Hindman et al).
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Research on attention to print consistently demonstrates that children’s knowledge of print represents a fundamentally important aspect of emergent literacy learning. Print knowledge is an essential stage, which comes before skilled reading. (Hammill,2004; National Early Literacy Panel, 2004; Stahl & Murray, 1994; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002 in Justice et al., 2008). Through parent child discussions and questioning, shared storybook reading has been exhibited as extending listening comprehension, oral language development, phonological awareness (sound of words), print awareness and concept of print. (Beauchat, Blamey, & Walpole, 2009; Senechal, et al., 1998 in LaCour et al; 2011). It has also displayed children’s knowledge of the semantic (meaning of words) and syntactic (order of words) components of books. (La Cour et al., 2011). Research has accentuated the amazing potential capabilities of preschool children, if they are introduced to print by parents during their shared reading time together.