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Mothers’ and fathers’ guidance behaviours during storybook reading

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 12(4) 415–442 ! The Author(s) 2011 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1468798411417381 ecl.sagepub.com

Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler Elon University, USA

Bianca Sassine Elon University, USA

Carly Price Elon University, USA

Caitlin Brilhart Elon University, USA

Abstract The nature of parental guidance during book reading is an important influence on developmental outcomes linked to literacy and language. Despite extensive research documenting the importance of gender roles and schemas on young children’s participation in the sociocultural environment, little is known about the possible influences of parent and child gender on participation in literacy activities. The purpose of this study was to observe guidance behaviours employed by 26 mothers and fathers when reading to their three-year-old child in separate sessions. There was a consistent pattern of findings indicating that fathers provided more guidance to daughters, whereas mothers had higher rates of guided participation with sons. However, there were no differences on parental ratings of enjoyment or frequency of reading with sons or daughters. The results highlight interesting differences in parent-child interactions during reading and suggest that both parent and child gender may influence exchanges during shared storybook reading. Keywords Child gender, parent-child interactions, parent gender, storybook reading, three-year-olds

Corresponding author: Maureen Vandermaas-Peeler, Elon University, 2337 Campus Box, Elon, NC, 27244, USA Email: [email protected]

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Journal of Early Childhood Literacy 12(4)

Introduction Within the sociocultural theoretical perspective, children learn by observing and participating in culturally relevant and developmentally important activities with others in their families and cultural communities who mediate learning and provide both support and challenges (e.g. Rogoff, 1990, 2003; Vygotsky, 1978; Wood et al., 1976). Participation in social interactions with adults and older siblings enables children to practise and develop skills beyond their current level of expertise. Research on literacy conducted within a sociocultural perspective often focuses on observations of parent-child behaviours in a social context, with a particular emphasis on the parental guidance provided during an activity (e.g. Anderson et al., 2004; Neuman, 1997; Rogoff, 2003; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2009). During literacy activities such as storybook reading, for example, adults and older siblings employ guidance techniques such as questioning and commenting that extend young children’s knowledge and also communicate sociocultural values (Anderson et al., 2010; Gregory, 2004; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2009). In communities that place a high value on formal schooling, one of the most important early literacy practices is shared book reading (Hammer et al., 2005; Hayden and Fagan, 1987). Shared book reading has been linked to a wide range of cognitive, emotional and social benefits for young children’s early literacy development. Book reading has been shown to enhance young children’s vocabulary acquisition, expressive language, general knowledge and comprehension (De Temple and Snow, 2003; Fletcher et al., 2008; Snow and Ninio, 1986), particularly when parents encourage extra-textual talk such as asking children to make inferences and predictions during literacy activities (Baker et al., 2001; De Temple and Beals, 1991; Haden et al., 1996; Walsh and Blewitt, 2006). When parents read with their children, the social interactions are believed to be beneficial not only for the development of literacy skills but also for increased positive affect and motivation to participate in literacy activities, which is promoted by the shared exchanges (Baker et al., 1997; Baker et al., 2001; Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). Thus, the nature of parental guidance and the structure and quality of parent-child conversations during book reading are important influences on the developmental outcomes linked to literacy and language (Haden et al., 1996). However, early literacy research focused more on the frequency of reading than on the types of guidance parents provide during shared book reading (Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). In addition, the preponderance of research has been conducted on maternal talk during shared reading, and few studies have

Vandermaas-Peeler et al.

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examined fathers reading with young children (Korat et al., 2008). Parental differences in reading style have rarely been studied with young children (Blake et al., 2006), and the role of child gender in shared literacy practices has also been neglected. The present study was designed to observe both the mother and the father in two-parent families reading to their three-year-old child, and to compare the nature of the interactions of each parent with their son or daughter.

Parental guidance during shared book reading When parents read with their young children, they often go beyond the story itself and describe story-related events, pictures and concepts, ask questions, offer positive reinforcement, and much more (Haden et al., 1996; Hayden and Fagan, 1987; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2009). Research has shown that both the specific nature of the extra-textual conversation and the affect expressed during reading influence literacy development (Haden et al., 1996; Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). In one of the first experimental studies of social interactions during book reading, Whitehurst et al. (1988) trained parents of two-year-olds to use a dialogic or interactive tutorial style while reading, involving the children in the story through open-ended questions and techniques designed to engage the child as a joint storyteller. They found this method was associated with significant literacy gains in the children compared to those in a control group. In a subsequent meta-analysis of dialogic reading studies, Mol et al. (2008) examined 16 studies that included an experimental condition in which parents were instructed to use specific types of child-directed speech compared with a control condition. Their aim was to determine if there was continuing evidence to support the hypothesis that the nature of parent talk during shared book reading enhances vocabulary gains, the primary dependent variable of interest in the research. The results described a positive effect for interactive reading, but only for families with young children (aged two to three). For older children the benefits of dialogic reading were negligible but, as noted by Mol et al. (2008), this may be due to changes in the nature of shared reading for the child’s developmental needs (e.g. increased benefit of just reading rather than talking with interruptions and explanations, or targeting more advanced skills during book reading). The familiarity of the story influences parent-child interactions during joint reading activities. Hayden and Fagan (1987) analysed the reading patterns of parents reading familiar and unfamiliar stories to preschoolers, and discovered that parents read unfamiliar stories with few pauses or interruptions. However,

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when reading familiar stories many parents provided contextualization, relating the events within the texts to their child’s life. Hayden and Fagan (1987) concluded that knowing the story enabled parents to expand on the ideas and develop social connections between the child’s experiences and the story. This was particularly true for children who had high print awareness. When reading to children with low print awareness, parents did not take many opportunities to contextualize familiar or unfamiliar texts. Analyses of the discourse during shared book reading have often focused on parents’ ability to involve their children in the dialogue, but less often on the nature of that dialogue itself or on parental consistency in reading styles over time (Haden et al., 1996). In one of the few longitudinal studies of mothers’ extra-textual comments during reading, Haden et al. (1996) examined the nature of mothers’ comments during reading over time and with different types of texts. Haden et al. (1996) characterized parental talk during book reading according to the level of distance from the text itself and the level of demand it placed on the child to go beyond the stated text. High-level distancing strategies included asking the child to draw conclusions not directly apparent in the story itself (e.g. asking them to make inferences or predict what would happen next). These are more cognitively demanding than low-distancing strategies such as asking the child to describe the pictures or what happened in the story. Haden et al. (1996) found evidence that high-level cognitive demands were associated with benefits for children’s literacy abilities (e.g. story comprehension and receptive vocabulary). They concluded that mothers were relatively consistent within book types, but less consistent across familiar and unfamiliar books. The authors underscored the importance of parental book reading techniques with preschoolers, and the need to explore individual differences in social interactional contexts. Since most of the research has only explored mothers’ talk during shared reading, further investigation of the influences of both parent and child gender on the nature of guidance and talk during book reading is warranted.

Gender and literacy Despite extensive research documenting the importance of gender roles and schemas on young children’s participation in the sociocultural environment, including diverse activities ranging from play and toy preferences to family work and daily routines, little is known about the possible influences of parent and child gender on participation in literacy activities. Nichols (2002) argued that parental perceptions of boys’ and girls’ interests and their early


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interactions with sons and daughters provide an important foundation for young children’s interpretation of subsequent formal school-based literacy activities. Nichols (2002) interviewed middle-class Australian parents and found that both mothers and fathers assigned gendered categories when describing their children. She found that parents attributed literacy-related interests to their girls more often than to boys and that parents associated literacy with femininity and not with masculinity. Although these findings could be an authentic reflection of the children’s real interests, Nichols (2002) argued that the interpretations of children’s likes and dislikes were strongly influenced by the parents’ understanding of gendered preferences and categories (e.g. masculinity being defined by sports). In one of the few observational studies comparing mothers’ and fathers’ behaviours during shared book reading, Korat et al. (2008) assessed cognitive mediation, including adult teaching and other communicative behaviours, and the emotional support provided by low and middle socioeconomic status (SES) Israeli parents to their five- to six-year-olds while reading an unfamiliar story. They found that although both mothers and fathers provided cognitive support to their children, fathers used a higher level of cognitive expandsion than mothers. Fathers talked about issues beyond the text more often while mothers paraphrased the text (a lower level of cognitive support). However, mothers were more likely to talk to the children about other events in their daily life and fathers focused more on the task at hand (the book). The authors surmised that mothers were more comfortable and had more experience reading with their children, and therefore were able to balance the reading with other parts of the child’s life, whereas fathers remained more focused on the goal. Korat et al. (2008) also found that mothers encouraged their children more than fathers during story reading, and used a more supportive tone. The possible influence of the child’s gender was not assessed in the study. Child gender emerged as an important influence on maternal beliefs and behaviour during shared reading in a study conducted by Meagher et al. (2008). With an economically diverse sample of mothers and their five- to six-year-olds, Meagher et al. (2008) assessed maternal beliefs regarding the importance of reading and grade expectations for their children and their learning-focused and emotional tone during reading, as well as children’s engagement in the task. The results indicated that, for girls, maternal beliefs about grade expectations were positively related to higher-quality scaffolding, but there was no association for boys. For boys, mothers’ beliefs that reading should be fun were significantly related to their engagement in the reading activity. The authors note the possible importance of endorsing a philosophy

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corresponding to the importance of reading for entertainment to enhance boys’ interest levels in reading. Mothers’ expectations for reading achievement were consistent for boys and girls, and positive emotional tone did not differ with child gender. Mothers did ask more questions of girls than boys, and girls were rated higher in engagement during reading than boys. The authors conclude that the relationships among maternal beliefs and behaviours during reading vary for sons and daughters, and that parent-child literacy activities are an important foundation for academic development. In one of the only known studies to compare mothers’ and fathers’ guidance provided to their sons or daughters during reading, Anderson et al. (2004) observed 25 parent-child dyads in two sessions with four book-sharing episodes. Results differed with the type of text (narrative or non-narrative), but overall in their study they found that the fathers engaged in more interactions during book reading than the mothers. Anderson et al. (2004) found an interesting opposite-gender pattern of interaction such that mothers interacted more with sons than with daughters when reading non-narrative texts, and elaborated more with sons when reading narratives, although there were few other gender differences when mothers read narrative texts. Regardless of the type of text, fathers interacted more with daughters, one exception being that fathers elaborated more with boys during non-narrative text readings. As noted by Anderson et al. (2004), interpretation of the findings is limited by the small sample size as well as the fact that the comparison of parent-child dyads was across families rather than being a within-family comparison.

The present study Given that few studies have compared mothers and fathers of the same child, the purpose of the present study was to observe a range of guidance behaviours employed by mothers and fathers when reading to their preschooler and to examine the influences of both parent and child gender on these interactions. In accordance with a Vygotskian (1978) theoretical framework and past research, we examined two broad categories of adult guidance provided during shared reading in the present study. Literacy-related guidance included behaviours specifically related to reading a storybook, such as commenting on the picture or asking a question related to the story (Haden et al., 1996). Guided participation referred to interactions or dialogue that characterized or extended the shared participation in the activity, such as relating the pictures in the story to prior events or parent feedback on the child’s behaviour during the


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activity (Rogoff, 1990; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2003). We expected that both mothers and fathers in the middle-class families in this study would provide high levels of guidance during storybook reading (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2009). However, no specific hypotheses due to parent or child gender were generated given the paucity of relevant data. A within-subject design was used in order to examine the similarities and differences in mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with their three-year-old child.

Method Participants Twenty-six three-year-olds (13 boys and 13 girls) participated in the study with their mothers and fathers. The children had a mean age of 41.42 months (SD ¼ 3.46). The majority of the families were middle- to uppermiddle-class and 96% identified themselves as Caucasian. The mean age of mothers was 34.69 years (SD ¼ 2.56) and the mean age of fathers was 36.52 (SD ¼ 3.24). All parents were high school graduates and 92% were college graduates. The majority of both mothers and fathers worked full-time outside of the home (61.5% of mothers, 92.3% of fathers). There were no differences in the sample demographics due to child gender. The participants were all families from North Carolina, USA. Families were recruited by email and personal contacts through a university, and by letters sent to preschools in the community.

Materials Two books were used, Bunny Cakes (Wells, 1997) and Froggy’s Day With Dad (London, 2004). These picture books were chosen specifically to appeal to three-year-old children’s interests and cognitive abilities, and are both from book series that are familiar to children and their parents. A video-camera and tripod were used to record the parent-child interactions during storybook reading and play. A brief demographic survey provided basic information about those living in the home (age, education, occupation and ethnicity). Parents also rated the familiarity and enjoyment of the reading and play activities, both today and typically, for themselves and for their child, on a fourpoint scale ranging from 1 (‘does/did not enjoy’) to 4 (‘enjoyed a lot’). In addition, parents were asked how familiar the books and toys were to their children, and if they owned the books or similar toys. Finally, parents completed

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questions related to the frequency with which they typically read and played with their child (1 ¼ ‘never’, 2 ¼ ‘monthly’, 3 ¼ ‘weekly’, 4 ¼ ‘daily’).

Procedure After both parents agreed to participate, they were contacted by a researcher to schedule a home-based interview for each of the parents. The interviews for mothers and fathers were scheduled on different occasions, approximately one week apart. The order of parent interviews was counterbalanced, and each parent read the two books, also in counterbalanced order, with their child. The gender of the child was also taken into account in the counterbalancing, such that approximately half of the boys and girls participated first with their father and half of them participated first with their mother. Parent-child dyads were videotaped as they read. Parents were instructed to read one book after the other, and to read as they normally would with their child if the researcher were not present. As part of a larger study, a 15-minute play activity followed the reading. After the play activity was completed, each parent was asked to complete the surveys. Only the first participating parent completed the demographics on the family.

Coding the reading exchanges The two storybook reading episodes for each parent-child dyad were transcribed verbatim from the video recordings. Coders utilized the video recordings and written transcripts simultaneously. In order to capture the dyadic nature of the parent-child exchanges, all parental guidance was coded as either parent-initiated or child-initiated, depending on who started the exchange. For example, if the child asked a question that prompted the parent to provide an elaborated description, the interaction was coded as ‘child-initiated’. Two categories of parental guidance were included in the coding. The first coding scheme was specific to the literacy-related exchanges and adapted from prior research (e.g. Haden et al., 1996); the modified codes are described in Table 1. Guided participation in the shared activity was also assessed by a broader set of codes that described the social context of the interactions, based on prior observational research in a similar activity context (e.g. VandermaasPeeler et al., 2009) (Table 2). All utterances and behaviours were examined and assigned a guidance code as appropriate. The overall inter-reliability of each coding scheme was established between two independent coders for 20% of the interviews for both mothers and fathers at an average of 80% agreement.


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Table 1. Descriptions of literacy-related guidance Code

Definition and example

Simple description

Refers to a simple action or attribute of the story – e.g. ‘Froggy’s making breakfast.’ Adding on to information that was known or simple; explaining or summarizing the story – e.g. ‘There’s a little picture of Max that means no Maxes allowed!’ Providing information about what might happen next in the story; reasoning for motivation, internal states, or causality in the story – e.g. ‘She’s going to eat that cake first because it looks better.’ References to the title, author or process of reading – e.g. ‘We read from left to right.’ Identifying or asking about words and letters in print; pausing to allow the child to finish the word – e.g. ‘What does that word say?’ Counting or referring to numbers or quantity – e.g. ‘Can you count the golfballs?’ The child memorizes text or imitates what the parent just said; asking the child to repeat a word – e.g. ‘Can you say Bunny Cakes?’

Elaborated description

Predictions/Inferences

Book concepts Letter-word references

Number references Recalling/Reciting text

Averages across each different type of code ranged from 64% to 90% agreement, with disagreements being resolved by the primary coder.

Results In order to examine the influences of parent and child gender on the parentchild interactions during storybook reading, a series of 2 (child gender) 2 (parent gender) mixed model repeated measures analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted in SPSS. Child gender was the between-subjects variable and parent gender was the repeated measures variable (mother-child and father-child dyads were from the same family). The means and standard deviations for the literacy-related guidance codes are shown in Table 3, and for the guided participation variables in Table 4. Tests of within- and betweensubject effects were performed on statistically significant interactions, with an accepted significance level of p < .05.

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Table 2. Descriptions of guided participation in a shared activity Code

Definition and example

Building bridges

Making a connection between real-world knowledge or prior experiences and the book – e.g. ‘We went to putt-putt too.’ Making connections across stories and characters – e.g. ‘Remember we saw Max and Ruby on TV?’ The parent shows affection to the child; the parent and child share a joke, laugh, or smile with one another – e.g. ‘Would you ever eat an earthworm cake?’ (laughter) Comments used to redirect or guide the child, verbal praise, or repeating the child’s statement – e.g. ‘That’s right, good job!’ Using language and gestures to keep the child on task – e.g. pointing to the picture or telling the child to look at it.

Story connections Social connections

Feedback Focusing attention

Literacy-related guidance The seven literacy-related guidance codes were first summed into a ‘total literacy-related guidance’ variable, and the results of the 2 (child gender) 2 (parent gender) ANOVAs revealed a marginally significant main effect of parent gender (F(1, 24) ¼ 3.38, p < .08) and a marginally significant interaction of parent and child gender (F(1, 24) ¼ 2.77, p < .10). Mothers provided approximately equal total amounts of literacy-related guidance to daughters and sons (M daughters ¼ 55.08, SD ¼ 53.85; M sons ¼ 58.85, SD ¼ 38.77), whereas fathers provided more than twice as much literacy-related guidance to daughters (M ¼ 53.31, SD ¼ 31.54) compared with sons (M ¼ 23.69, SD ¼ 12.80). The seven literacy-related guidance codes were analysed with 2 2 ANOVAs. Simple descriptions were by far the most common type of literacy exchange during the storybook reading sessions. Simple descriptions were coded as parent-initiated if the parent responded with no prompting from the child and child-initiated if the parent responded to the child’s enquiry. In addition, children’s spontaneous simple descriptions of the story were coded. For parentinitiated simple descriptions, there was a significant interaction of parent and child gender but no main effects (F(1, 24) ¼ 7.47, p < .01). Mothers provided more simple descriptions to sons than daughters and fathers used over three times as many simple descriptions with daughters compared with sons (Table 3). The same pattern emerged for the analyses of children’s simple descriptions (p < .01). This interaction was not significant for childinitiated simple descriptions made by parents, but a main effect of child gender


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Table 3. Mean literacy-related guidance provided during reading two storybooks, by parent and child gender Mothers

Fathers

Guidance codes

Daughters M(SD)

Sons M(SD)

Daughters M(SD)

Sons M(SD)

Simple descriptionsa Parent: Parent-Initiated** Parent: Child-Initiated Child** Elaborated descriptions** Predictions/Inferences Book concepts Letter-word references Number references Recall/Recite text

20.85 (18.72) 4.62 (5.62) 3.69 (4.48) 4.23 (5.55) 12.77 (30.50) 7.54 (6.13) 3.31 (5.30) 1.15 (1.68) 5.23 (8.52)

30.85 (25.34) 2.0 (1.96) 4.62 (3.79) 5.62 (5.33) 5.15 (4.32) 6.69 (2.50) 5.46 (6.95) 1.69 (1.84) 3.38 (3.93)

26.77 (21.86) 4.46 (6.29) 6.08 (7.08) 6.77 (6.31) 3.54 (3.95) 7.62 (3.94) 2.54 (3.84) 1.62 (2.79) 4.46 (4.58)

8.77 (5.20) 0.92 (1.66) 2.38 (3.57) 0.62 (0.87) 1.31 (1.60) 6.23 (3.47) 3.23 (4.00) 0.77 (1.74) 2.80 (3.37)

a

Simple descriptions are coded for parent or child initiation and children’s responses; all other variables are parent-initiated responses, as the means for child-initiated and child responses were below 1.0. **p < .01.

Table 4. Mean guided participation in a shared activity Mothers

Fathers

Guidance codes

Daughters

Sons

Daughters

Sons

Building bridges+ Story connections Social connections* Feedback* Focusing attention*

3.92 (6.71) 0.69 (0.75) 4.92 (4.29) 17.31 (17.93) 7.92 (8.07)

6.08 (4.59) 1.31 (2.21) 7.69 (4.96) 17.38 (8.65) 10.92 (4.92)

5.85 (5.86) 0.92 (1.11) 6.92 (4.91) 21.31 (15.70) 9.31 (5.78)

2.77 (2.62) 0.85 (1.07) 4.77 (3.06) 7.00 (5.40) 5.54 (3.48)

+p < .10, *p < .05.

approached significance (p < .07). Girls initiated approximately twice as many simple descriptions with their parents than did boys. It is interesting to note that the frequency of children’s simple descriptions mimicked the pattern of their parents in each reading session. The three-year-old sons responded quite differently to the reading sessions with their mothers than with their fathers, perhaps in part because the fathers initiated so few simple descriptions as compared with the mothers.

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For the remaining six literacy guidance variables, child responses and parents’ child-initiated responses were of too low frequency to analyse (means less than 1.0), so only parent-initiated responses are included in the subsequent analyses. The 2 2 ANOVA conducted on elaborated descriptions yielded a significant interaction of parent and child gender (F(1, 24) ¼ 7.26, p < .01), such that fathers reading to daughters made or prompted nearly seven elaborated descriptions as compared with less than one on average with sons; mothers made slightly but not significantly more elaborated descriptions with sons during reading (approximately five). For predictions/inferences, there were no significant findings from the ANOVA, although the means showed a similar pattern to that described above. There were no significant differences due to parent or child gender for letter-word references, number references or recalling/reciting text. Although there were also no significant effects of either parent or child on book concepts introduced during the reading session, it was interesting that most parents of three-year-olds made reference to book concepts about six or seven times while reading.

Guided participation in a shared activity The guided participation variables were summed into a ‘total guided participation’ variable, which was analysed in a 2 (child gender) 2 (parent gender) mixed-model ANOVA. The results yielded a significant interaction of parent and child gender (F(1, 24) ¼ 7.21, p < .01), but no main effects. Fathers engaged in significantly more guided participation with daughters (M ¼ 44.31, SD ¼ 22.98) than with sons (M ¼ 20.92, SD ¼ 10.37); mothers’ mean guided participation totals for sons were higher than for daughters (M sons ¼ 43.38, SD ¼ 10.09; M daughters ¼ 34.77, SD ¼ 33.32). Separate analyses of each of the guided participation variables were conducted, and the means for each of these variables are displayed in Table 4. For building bridges, there was a marginally significant interaction of parent and child gender, but no main effects (F(1, 24) ¼ 3.6, p < .07). Once again, the trend was explained by the fathers’ and sons’ low frequency of making connections to prior experiences and events and the story together. The interaction of parent and child gender was statistically significant for social connections (F(1, 24) ¼ 6.01, p < .05). Mothers made more social connections in interactions with sons, whereas the opposite pattern applied to fathers. There were no significant differences due to parent or child gender in the number of story connections made during reading; for all parents and children, few were made (around one per dyad). With regard to feedback, the interaction of


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parent and child gender was significant (F(1, 24) ¼ 5.59, p < .05). There were no differences in the amount of feedback mothers provided to daughters compared with sons (about 17 times on average during reading), whereas fathers interacting with daughters provided significantly more feedback than fathers interacting with sons (21 vs. 7). Parental use of attention-focusing behaviours was also significantly different due to parent and child gender (F (1, 24) ¼ 4.72, p < .05). Fathers interacting with sons did less of this than fathers interacting with daughters, whereas the reverse pattern was again true for mothers reading with sons, who used more attention-focusing techniques as compared with mothers reading to daughters.

Survey results Parents who completed the demographic survey were asked if their children had read each book previously. Only two children in the sample had read Bunny Cakes, and four had read Froggy’s Day with Dad. Some parents wrote comments indicating that their children knew the characters, as both books are part of a series, but this was not a question on our survey. In order to examine the influences of parent and child gender on the parent survey questions regarding their own and their child’s enjoyment of reading today and typically, a series of 2 (child gender) 2 (parent gender) mixed-model repeated measures ANOVAs were conducted. There were no significant differences due to either parent or child gender on any of the questions regarding enjoyment of reading stories together. Parents reported high levels of enjoyment for both themselves and their children (all means over 3.0 on the fourpoint scale). However, when asked how often they typically read to their child, mothers reported reading more often than did fathers (F(1, 23) ¼ 5.36, p < .05). Although all parents reported reading at least weekly and there were no differences due to child gender; the mothers’ mean score was 3.88 (SD ¼ 0.33) and the fathers’ 3.64 (SD ¼ 0.57). To investigate the degree of correspondence between mothers’ and fathers’ ratings of their child’s enjoyment of reading and how often they read with the children, paired samples correlations were conducted. The enjoyment ratings were not significantly correlated, but the ratings of how often you read or look at books with your child were significantly positively correlated (r(25) ¼ .42, p < .05). To investigate a potential relationship between parental guidance and parental perceptions of their child’s enjoyment of reading, both today and typically, paired samples correlations were conducted between literacy guidance,

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total guided participation and the enjoyment ratings, but no significant correlations were obtained. The amount of guidance provided during storybook reading did not correlate with parental perceptions of the child’s enjoyment of the activity.

Transcript examples The following transcript examples illustrate some of the differences observed between mothers’ and fathers’ interactions with their sons and daughters. Literacy-related guidance codes are in parentheses and guided participation codes are in square brackets. Sentences from the books are in italics. In the first example, we compare and contrast the guidance provided by a mother and a father during reading to a son who is not very engaged in the reading activity. He has to be coaxed to sit and read in both interviews, and at several points he tries to get up and move around. Indeed, each parent assigns him a 2, having low enjoyment of the activity today, in their separate interviews. Interestingly, both parents also rated their own enjoyment of reading with him today at 2, but they both rate his typical enjoyment of reading as a 4. In the beginning of the interview with his mother, the child indicated that he did not want to read. The mother told the interviewer in an aside: ‘[child’s name] usually likes to sit and read.’ She then read the first pages of the book, pausing after a mishap in the Froggy story: Mother: What’s wrong? (simple description) Son: He’s making a mess on the floor. M: He’s making a mess on the floor, yes he is. [feedback] Then he served his dad breakfast in bed. Wow. ‘Happy Father’s Day!’ said Froggy. She reads the story for several pages, ending with The eggshells are nice and crunchy. M: Do you like eggshells in your eggs? [social connection] S: Noooo!!!!


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M: (smiles) No. Mother reads a few more pages until Froggy does a somersault and lands upside down. M: Do you see? Do you see where he landed? He went all the way from here and ended up in that boat. He’s flying through the air. (3 simple descriptions) She keeps reading a few more pages. M: Did you see where the ball went? He swung it and it went boop, boop, boop all the way over here. The ball went far. (3 simple descriptions) Can you do that? [social connection] S: No. M: No? Can’t hit the ball? Well you’ve never played golf. In this example, the mother stopped reading on several occasions to connect the story to her son’s experiences and to highlight the exciting parts of the story. This seemed to sustain his interest and keep him more engaged in the story. Her literacy-related guidance totaled 51 codes and there were 56 guided participation codes. Thus, she made many comments related to the ongoing story and also provided feedback and personal connections with her son while reading. The father began reading the Froggy story by asking, ‘You going to sit there? Okay.’: Father: Reads the title. Froggy’s Day with Dad. (book concept) He reads the first few pages. Son: Tries to turn the page and look at the next picture. F: (whispers) Let’s finish this page first. He reads the story for several pages, ending with The eggshells are nice and crunchy. F: Do you like your eggs crunchy? [social connection]

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S: No, I get scrambled! F: (laughs) You do like your eggs scrambled. The father continued reading. On one page he pointed to the words ‘Zap! Zip! Zim! Zoop! Zup! Zat!’ as he read, but he made no comments. He then finished reading the entire story without any further comments or questions. The father seemed to adopt the strategy of reading quickly without many interruptions, perhaps in hopes of keeping his son engaged in the reading activity. He did make a social connection in the same place in the story as the mother (the crunchy eggs), and his son extended the connection with his own preferences for eggs (scrambled) but, unlike the mother, this father did not continue to engage the child with personal connections to the story throughout the reading activity. As they read the second story, the child tried to get off the couch several times and each time the father merely said ‘come here please’ and kept reading. Across both stories, 16 literacy-related guidance comments were coded, and there were only nine codes for guided participation in the father-son interaction. In the second example of parents reading to their son, the little boy is more engaged in the reading and is rated by both parents with a 4 on the enjoyment scale, both today and typically. The father is reading from Bunny Cakes: Father: Don’t bump the table Max! said Ruby. But it was too late. Ruby sent Max back to the store with a list that said: (pauses and points to the book) This says milk. (letterword reference) Son: (nods yes) F: This time Max wrote ‘‘Red-hot marshmallow squirters’’ in a different way. Max (pauses) F: You have to say what that is (pointing to book) [attention-focusing]. (continues reading for several pages) This time Max wrote ‘‘Red-hot marshmallow squirters’’ in the most beautiful writing he knew. F: There ya go (leans into the child and points to the book). [attentionfocusing] F: (continues reading) Max, the kitchen is no place for you said Ruby. F: There’s Max. (simple description)


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In the rest of the transcript, the father continues reading and occasionally points out something from the story, using a simple description but not requiring or waiting for any response from his son. Near the end he makes a social connection, asking his son which cake he would like to eat (Max’s earthworm cake or Ruby’s pink cake). His son points to the book, and his father smiles and says: ‘The pretty one. The end.’ The mother is also reading from Bunny Cakes: Mother: Ruby sent Max to the store with a list that said: M: Guess what it says. (letter-word reference) Son: I don’t know. M: Well he broke all the eggs so what does he have to go get out of the store? (elaborated description) S: More eggs. M: So it says Eggs. (letter-word reference) M: (reading) Eggs. Max wanted Red-hot marshmallow squirters for his earthworm cake. So he wrote ‘‘Red-hot marshmallow squirters’’ on the list. M: See how he wrote it? (letter-word reference) C: Mmmhhh. M: Do you see any letters? (simple description) C: No M: Did he write any letters? C: There (points) M: No, he scribbled it all. [feedback] What are these letters?

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The mother continued reading and each time in the story that Max writes his own list, she asked her son to identify the letters and gave him high-fives and praise when he got them correct. She made elaborated connections between what Max spilled and what he went to the store to get. In reading both books, the mother focused on letters and words, and asked her child to help interpret the pictures. The following example from the same mother reading the Froggy book illustrates her use of guided participation while reading: Mother: (reading) He flopped out of bed and flopped to the kitchen – flop flop flop. M: Ha, look at his pajamas! (simple description) Son: Mom, mom is that the mommy or the daddy? (simple description child-initiated) M: You tell me. [feedback] S: Daddy. M: Ah! S: Mommy. M: In a nightgown, a silly hat and slippers, that one is Mommy. (simple description) S: Ya. M: Looks just like me when I go to bed, doesn’t it? [building bridge] S: Yeah (laughing) like ME! [social connection] M: Ha ha, you’re silly. Throughout the reading activity, this mother made elaborated literacy-related and social connections with her son and he remained very engaged in the activity. When the father read the same books, he read the story and asked only a few questions, sometimes without waiting for the son to answer. He did not offer many opportunities for his son to connect to the stories in a personal way.


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The third example provides a comparison of a mother and a father reading with their daughter. The mother rated her daughter’s enjoyment of reading both today and typically at 4, and the father rated her enjoyment in both categories at 3. Both parents provided high levels of guidance, ranging from 50 to 77 codes across the two main categories. The transcript examples below demonstrate their style of commenting and questioning during the storybook reading activity as soon as they pick up the book: Mother: Huh, look Bunny Cakes! [focusing attention] See the bunny? (simple description) Daughter: That’s her. M: What is she doing? (simple description) D: Cooking. M: Cooking. [feedback] Let’s see. Alright. Bunny Cakes. (book concept) What do you see? (simple description) (Looking at the front cover) D: (mumbles) M: That’s a spatula! (simple description) D: (mumbles) M: That looks like butter. (simple description) D: (points) M: What’s that? (simple description) D: A bowl. M: A mixing bowl. [feedback] They proceeded to talk about the pictures for the next couple of minutes, and the transcript goes on for two pages before the mother begins reading the story. She paused throughout her reading to identify letters, words and pictures, and

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also to provide feedback to her daughter. The father had a similar style of reading: Father: It’s Froggy. It says ‘‘Froggy’s Day with Daddy.’’ [book concept] Wooohooo. Very good. Let’s see. Froggy’s Day with Daddy. It says. . . (and he reads the first page.) Daughter: What? (looking at the picture) F: What color is it? (simple description) D: Pink. F: What color is it? [feedback] D. Red. F: What’s red? (simple description) D: His shoes. F: Mmmhmmm. [feedback] D: Uh oh. F: What’s that? D: He spilled. (simple description child-initiated) F: Yes, he did. [feedback] What was she making? (simple description) D: Some potatoes! F: Potatoes? Look again, what is that (pointing to book)? [feedback] D: Eggs. F: Uh huh. [feedback] He was trying to make eggs for his dad. (simple description) He’s been waiting a long time for Father’s Day to come. At school he’d made a special present.


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D: (smiles and points) He’s got an egg on his toe! (simple description childinitiated) F: (laughs) He does have an egg on his toe, doesn’t he? [feedback] D: Yes he does. In these examples, several different styles of parent-child interactions during storybook reading are illustrated. Although some fathers reading with sons employed high levels of guidance for both literacy and social interactions, the majority did not contextualize or personalize the text as much as mothers, seeming to prefer to read continuously. As shown by the above transcript example, fathers reading to daughters were more likely to incorporate both literacy-related guidance and personal connections to the stories. However, it should also be noted that there were large individual differences in the way the dyads participated in the shared storybook reading activity, and these examples do not characterize patterns that can be applied to each dyad.

Discussion Parent–child interactions during storybook reading were examined for differences due to parent and child gender. Mothers and fathers read two stories to their three-year-old child in separate sessions. Like Anderson et al. (2004), we obtained an interesting pattern of results indicating that mothers and fathers engaged in different amounts of guidance when reading with sons as compared with mothers and fathers reading with daughters. Overall, fathers reading with daughters provided significantly more guidance than fathers reading with sons. Although mothers reading to daughters, as compared with sons, did not differ in their overall pattern of literacy guidance, they provided more simple descriptions to sons than daughters. Girls elicited twice as many simple descriptions from their parents, as compared with boys. A similar pattern emerged when guided participation in the shared activity was examined. Mothers interacted more with sons, whereas fathers had much higher rates of guided participation with daughters on exchanges such as bridging connections between known and new information, providing feedback, focusing attention and making social connections. Given extensive prior research findings that dialogue during storybook reading influences children’s literacy development, the low levels of interaction between fathers and sons during storybook reading merit further investigation.

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Past research has often relied on parental reports of reading behaviours, rather than direct observations (Meagher et al., 2008) and has rarely included fathers. We found that not only literacy-related guidance but also guided participation related to cognitive and affective interactions during shared reading differed greatly in father-son interactions as compared with all other dyads. Research has shown that the affective nature of storybook interactions is important both for children’s literacy achievements and for their motivation to participate in literacy activities (Baker et al., 1997; Baker et al., 2001; Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). Given that fathers provided personalized connections to the story when reading to daughters, their choice to read the story almost continuously without interruption to sons may indicate their perceptions of the importance or enjoyment of the activity for boys versus girls. However, parental ratings of their child’s enjoyment of reading stories together, and their own enjoyment of reading to their child, did not differ due to child gender. Interestingly, maternal and paternal ratings of their child’s enjoyment of literacy were not correlated, nor were they related to the guidance they provided during the reading activity. There also were no differences in the ratings of how often parents read to children due to children’s gender. The results indicate that mothers reported reading to their children more often, but even fathers reported reading to their children at least several times a week. Thus, the findings are not easily explained by parents’ perceptions of children’s enjoyment of or participation in the activity. However, it is possible that parents’ perceptions of children’s interest in or willingness to participate in the activity differed, or that they placed a different value on the importance of this activity for sons and daughters that affected their interactions with their children during shared reading. Although parents were not asked about gender role ideologies in the present study, Nichols (2002) found that parents perceived reading stories to be an activity enjoyed more by girls and associated literacy more with femininity than with masculinity. In their review of family literacy programmes, Anderson et al. (2010) concluded that although past research demonstrated the involvement of fathers in literacy activities, mothers are targeted in family literacy programmes to the extent that fathers may feel feel threatened or unwelcome. Anderson et al. (2010) also emphasized the importance of conceptualizing family literacy activities more broadly than just shared storybook reading. Research on family and community literacy practices should investigate less traditional formats such as digitized texts. How might the familiarity of the stories have affected the findings? The specific books read in this study were not familiar to most children although many parents reported that the children knew the characters from


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other books in the series. The dyadic interactions may have been affected by reading unfamiliar texts. Results of research by Haden et al. (1996) suggest that unfamiliar texts reveal more about mothers’ style of teaching during storybook reading. They found that maternal reading style during unfamiliar texts was more predictive of emergent literacy than consistency across texts. However, Hayden and Fagan (1987) found that parents were more likely to contextualize texts when reading familiar stories. Although both mothers and fathers participated in their study, the authors did not present analyses related to the gender of the parent or child. In their results, however, the authors provided an interesting example of a mother who was trying to explain the use of the term ‘flax’ while reading a fairy tale with her preschool daughter. The mother used bridges to connect information her child knew and understood (linen tablecloths at Christmas) to the new information (a grain that makes the material). In the second example, a father explained ‘flax’ to his son without connecting the explanation to the child’s knowledge or experience. Although anecdotal, these examples support patterns in this study of fathers reading stories to their sons without including much personalized or contextual information as compared with mothers. Future research should compare mothers and fathers reading familiar and unfamiliar texts to preschoolers, in order to explore the influences of type of text on contextualizing behaviours. Hayden and Fagan (1987) surmised that contextualizing stories is one way that parents help children understand that reading is a ‘meaning-getting’ process. How important this is for reading achievement is unclear, but our findings support the conclusion that parents enhance the social aspect of joint storybook reading by linking elements of the story to children’s experiences and understanding (Hayden and Fagan, 1987). Preschool girls in our study were provided with this opportunity significantly more often than boys. Haden et al. (1996) also suggested that familiarity of the text may increase children’s interactions during the shared activity context of storybook reading. In familiar stories, the child has knowledge of the story and may also have heightened excitement or emotional connections to the book. Although some children recognized the characters in the stories, few of them owned or had read the book previously. This, in addition to children’s young age, may be a partial explanation for the finding that the majority of comments related to the story were simple descriptions. It may also be a contributing factor to children’s enjoyment of the stories and their engagement in shared reading activity. Another interesting avenue for future research is an exploration of boys, and girls, differential responses to familiar and unfamiliar texts during shared reading.

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The most frequent type of parental response during the shared storybook reading interactions consisted of simple descriptions, or references to simple actions or components of the story. However, parents also made a relatively large number of references to book concepts such as pointing out the title page, letter or word references (e.g. ‘what does that say?’) and text recitations (e.g. asking the child to repeat words from the story) (Table 3). This is particularly surprising given the young age of the children in the study and in light of prior research indicating that parents of four- and five-year-olds made very few print references during joint reading activities at home (Audet et al., 2008; Evans et al., 2000). Letter name and sound knowledge has been linked with reading comprehension and spelling achievements, and may be reciprocally related (Evans et al., 2000); developing these skills should be of interest in multiple reading contexts, including shared storybook reading at home. Our findings correspond with previous research by Evans and Saint-Aubin (2005), who found that young children very seldom fixated on print, and with Yaden et al. (1989) who observed four-year-old children’s spontaneous questions during reading and found that they were often about the pictures and the story meaning. The three-year-old children in our study did initiate simple descriptions of the story but rarely generated spontaneous comments related to letters, sounds or other print references. This behaviour is expected to increase with age, especially from three to five years (Evans et al., 2008), and the amount of parental attention to print during storybook reading may be an important contextual factor. Children’s responses to the stories and their initiation of parental guidance play an important and often uninvestigated role in research on parent-child interactions in a shared activity context such as storybook reading. Childinitiated guidance during the stories and children’s literacy-related comments were examined in this study, and the pattern for both children’s simple descriptions of the story and their initiations of parents’ simple descriptions mimicked the pattern obtained for parent-initiated guidance. Overall, girls initiated and made more simple descriptions than boys during the reading, especially with their fathers. When reading with their fathers, the young boys in this study did not initiate as many interactions as when reading with their mothers. There are two important considerations that influence the interpretations of these findings. First, the children were being read the same books, and the orders in which they were read and in which parents participated in the session were both counterbalanced. Children’s attention to the selected stories may have varied across the observations but this may be attributable in part to the nature of the parent reading. Prior research suggests that children’s interest is related to adults’ behaviour during reading (Fletcher et al., 2008). Second,


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neither parent nor child gender alone can explain the findings. Given that the children were observed with both their parents, the differences in those reading sessions must be attributed to the dynamic interactions and not to a more static explanation such as boys’ activity levels or girls’ higher interest rates in reading as a shared activity. Thus, we support the conclusions of Meagher et al. (2008) that parents’ and children’s behaviours during reading are bidirectional; each is shaped by the other and also by the sociocultural context in which the activity occurs. Observational research on paternal guidance and shared conversation during literacy activities is an interesting and important avenue for future research, and a multi-method approach with an investigation of parental beliefs about their sons and daughters’ interest in literacy activities and their importance for future academic achievement might help shed light on some of the differences observed in parent-child interactions in this study.

Limitations The results of this study must be interpreted cautiously, given the small sample size and the exploratory nature of the data. There were a number of limitations to the present study that limit its generalizeability and conclusions. The study sample was relatively small and included primarily middle-class Caucasian families. In past research, we compared low- and middle-income families in storybook reading and play and found that middle-class parents provided nearly twice the amount of guidance during reading as compared with lowincome families, and also reported the former reading to their children more frequently (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2009). Low-income mothers provided considerable guidance during both literacy and play activities but the nature of the interactions differed across socioeconomic groups. It is vital that researchers acknowledge the importance of socioculturally distinct patterns of interaction as well as the inherently ‘middle-class’ nature of the materials employed in literacy studies. The present study results must also be interpreted within the context of practices and values supported by middle-class families in the USA.

Conclusion Storybook reading with one parent has become synonymous with family literacy (Anderson et al., 2010) but a wide variety of individuals participating in diverse activities actually contribute to children’s language and literacy development. Gregory’s research (e.g. 2001, 2004) has documented the importance of the role of siblings and extended family members in home literacy

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practices, especially with immigrant or minority families. Future research should be conducted to extend the findings to larger more diverse samples and include a broader array of literacy-related activities. Multiple observations of reading interactions over a longer time span with each parent would also enhance the ecological validity of future research findings. In summary, observations of guided participation during a storybook reading activity context yielded a fairly consistent pattern of fathers interacting more with daughters than sons during reading, and mothers providing more guidance to sons than daughters. The within-family design enabled a comparison of children’s interactions with each parent, and emphasized the importance of examining the interactions across parent and child gender rather than unilateral interpretations of one or the other. These patterns have seldom been examined in prior research but are important considerations for children’s literacy development. The social practices in the home influence the child’s knowledge and practice of literacy-related skills, and the specific nature of the parental guidance and the conversations during book reading are important influences (Haden et al., 1996). Thus, the findings have implications for developmental outcomes related to literacy and language. In addition, social interactions related to literacy are beneficial not only for literacy skills and knowledge, but also for increased positive affect and motivation to participate in literacy activities (Baker et al., 1997; Baker et al., 2001; Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). The findings of markedly low levels of interaction during reading between fathers and sons signify a targeted opportunity for future literacy-related interventions. Given the paucity of observational research on paternal reading interactions with young children and the lack of inclusion of both child and parent gender as variables of interest in most literacy research, the study results merit further investigation. Acknowledgements

We are extremely grateful to the families who participated in this study. We thank the Undergraduate Research Program of Elon University for funding support for the undergraduate co-authors, and the Faculty Research and Development Committee at Elon University for support provided to the first author. References

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