Sharing Books and Learning Language: What do Latina Mothers and Their Young Children Do?
Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Early Education and Development
Volume
15
Issue
4
Publisher
Taylor and Francis
Publication Date
6-2010
First Page
371
Last Page
386
Abstract
This study examined low-income, Spanish-speaking, immigrant Latina mothers' book sharing behaviors in relation to their children's vocabulary. Participants were 47 3-year-old children and their mothers. We addressed two research questions: (a) What interactive behaviors are evident when low-income immigrant Latina mothers and their 3-year-old children look at books together? (b) For these children and their mothers, which book-sharing behaviors are related to children's expressive language? Overall, our results indicated that mothers were involved in several kinds of interactions with the books. They enhanced their children's attention to the printed text, promoted interaction or conversation with their children about what was in the books, and somewhat less often, used more complex literacy strategies. Mothers who did these things most had children with the largest vocabularies even when mothers' vocabulary was taken into account. Implications for designing interventions for similar families are discussed.
Recommended Citation
Boyce, L. K., Cook, G. A., Roggman, L. A., Innocenti, M. S., Jump, V. K., & Akers, J. F. (2004). Looking at books and learning language: What do Hispanic mothers and children do? Early Education and Development, 15, 371-385.
Comments
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