Reading, Literacy and

The Reader's Cognitive Apprenticeship

Literacy is much more than the ability to recognize letters and to assign phonemes to them. Reading provides access to the cultural conventions people use to communicate and to understand their social environment. Cultural techniques are acquired through guided participation. Like the process of learning crafts, reading is taught to children through presentation and participation, that is, when a parent reads aloud to the child. In the beginning, the parent serves as a model for handling books appropriately (modeling) and then encourages and assists the child in retelling a picture story (coaching, scaffolding). As time goes by, the parent decreases the amount of assistance given to the child (fading). Later in the process, adults can encourage the child to talk about reading experiences (articulation) and think about different reading strategies (reflection). The learning processes of articulation and reflection are often found in academic reading instruction. To foster reading progress, there should be a close fit between the child's reading abilities and the support offered by the expert.

Parental Strategies in Story Reading

Parents with different cultural backgrounds act differently when reading to preschoolers. The frequency of reading depends on ethnicity, child's age, number of siblings, and parents' education. Some researchers distinguish between parental “describers” and “comprehenders.” Describers encourage the child to label and describe pictures, while comprehenders make sure that children draw conclusions beyond description and include personal experiences in the conversation about pictures and stories. Describers are often found in groups like the social underclass in the United States, families of immigrants from Turkey or Suriname in the Netherlands, and the Maori in New Zealand. At the age of 6, the children of comprehender families perform better in vocabulary tests and understanding of stories. Other characteristics of parental reading strategies may also affect these findings. For this reason, some researchers recommend that parents offer a broad range of ways to read, rather than training children in a single style. Then parents can use strategies that fit the child's reading development, the demands of the book, and the reading situation. For example, reading aloud in preschool, where many children may be sharing one book, involves a specific way of reading (performance-oriented style); detailed information about the book is offered at the beginning, followed by reading that is rarely interrupted with comments and explanations. There is also evidence that the willingness of the child to take an active part in the reading situation influences the parental reading style.

...