Parent-child conversations about literacy: a longitudinal, observational study.

Conversations about literacy-related matters with parents can help prepare children for formal literacy instruction. We studied these conversations using data gathered from fifty-six US families as they engaged in daily activities at home. Analyzing conversations when children were aged 1;10, 2;6, 3;6, and 4;2, we found that explicit talk about the elements and processes of reading and writing occurred even when children were less than two years old and became more common as children grew older.

Characteristics of Print in Books for Preschool Children.

Children begin to learn about the characteristics of print well before formal literacy instruction begins. Reading to children can expose them to print and help them learn about its characteristics. This may be especially true if the print is visually salient, for studies suggest that prereaders pay more attention to such print than to print that is visually less salient.

Letter Knowledge in Parent-Child Conversations.

Learning about letters is an important component of emergent literacy. We explored the possibility that parent speech provides information about letters, and also that children's speech reflects their own letter knowledge. By studying conversations transcribed in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000) between parents and children aged one to five, we found that alphabetic order influenced use of individual letters and letter sequences.

Letter knowledge in parent-child conversations: differences between families differing in socio-economic status.

When formal literacy instruction begins, around the age of 5 or 6, children from families low in socioeconomic status (SES) tend to be less prepared than children from families of higher SES. The goal of our study is to explore one route through which SES may influence children's early literacy skills: informal conversations about letters. The study builds on previous studies (Robins and Treiman, 2009; Robins et al.

Parent-Child Conversations About Letters and Pictures.

Learning about letters, and how they differ from pictures, is one important aspect of a young child's print awareness. To test the hypothesis that parent speech provides children with information about these differences, we studied parent-child conversations in CHILDES (MacWhinney, 2000). We found that parents talk to their young children about letters, differentiating them from pictures, by 1-2 years of age and that some of these conversational patterns change across the preschool years in ways that emphasize important features of letters, such as their shape.