Dialogic Reading And Vocabulary Development Essay

DIALOGIC READING AND VOCABULARY DEVELOPMENT:

Many researchers have dedicated studies assessing the outcomes dialogic reading has on preschooler’s vocabulary development and overall academic achievement. A number of studies conducted by Whitehurst and his colleagues built the method of dialogic reading and examined its potential impacts (Dixon-Krauss, Januszka & Chae, 2010). One study Whitehurst et al. (1988) orchestrated assessed the influences traditional storybook reading and dialogic reading had on children. Their sample consisted of thirty children ranging from the ages of twenty-one to thirty-five months from middle-class families living in Long Island, New York (Whitehurst et al., 1988). Parents in the treatment learned the dialogic

One limitation is this method’s generalizability to other age groups. Most of the studies looked at younger aged children and preschool aged children, and not many studies have looked at older children and the effects dialogic reading may have on their vocabulary development. Specifically, Erdogen and Simsek (2015) found that their study showed positive implications for the preschool aged children, but they do not know if their findings would generalize to another age group. An additional limitation is that dialogic reading is preferably an interactive activity between a parent and their child; however, many dialogic reading interventions take place in a classroom setting with many children. Dialogic reading is successful when used in small groups, but it may be inefficient when applied to a whole class at one time. Therefore, multiple teachers would need to assist in this intervention if implemented in one classroom (Whitehurst et al., 1994). Also, dialogic reading does not address every aspect of emergent literacy skills such as the understanding of printed words and phonological awareness (Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst & Epstein, 1994). Dialogic reading directly targets expressive vocabulary development because children actively express themselves throughout the story. Although dialogic reading is a stepping-stone for continuous skill building in literacy, it may not influence higher levels of reading because higher-level books do not have illustrations that would elicit the same responses as a lower level picture book (Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst & Epstein, 1994). This is why it is imperative to use dialogic reading for preschoolers, so they have the strong foundation to build upon new literacy skills at an older