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Chinese middle-class mothers’ scaffolding strategies during shared book reading interactions with their young children
Author
Dai, Chenjun
Supervisor
Curdt-Christiansen, Xiao Lan
Abstract
Shared book reading (SBR), as a well-established literacy activity in many developed societies, is being practiced by more and more Chinese families. However, little is known about how Chinese parents approach this activity and what specific strategies they use to promote their children’s understanding of print and emergent reading skills. To address the above research gap, I investigated the shared book reading interactions of four Chinese middle-class mother-child dyads. Following the Vygotskian social constructivist framework (e.g., Bodrova & Leong, 2007; Rogoff, 1990; Vygotsky, 1978; Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976), I especially focused on the joint meaning-construction process and mothers’ scaffolding practices during this process.
This study seeks to answer the following two questions: 1) What is the basic contribution structure of shared book reading interaction between Chinese middle-class mothers and their young children? 2) What scaffolding strategies are especially preferred by this group of mothers and in what ways are these strategies employed to facilitate different aspects of early literacy development? To address the two research questions, a mixed research design was adopted in this study (Dornyei, 2007). Four mother-child dyads were video-recorded while they shared a picture storybook. The transcripts of video recordings were then analyzed systematically. The ratio of mothers’ and childrens’ respective contribution of utterances to the extra-textual discussion during shared book reading was first calculated and examined. Then, the mothers’ extra-textual utterances were coded and the frequency of each coding category (maternal scaffolding strategy) was calculated. The transcript excerpts of high-frequency scaffolding strategies were also analyzed qualitatively. Quantitative data analysis showed that shared book interactions in these dyads were basically dominated and guided by mothers, and six maternal scaffolding strategies (prompt, description of illustration, feedback, explicit attentional vocative, think-aloud or reasoning, and answering own question) were most frequently employed by this group of mothers. Qualitative data analysis indicated that these mothers were rather sensitive to their children’s needs and very flexible in employing various strategy resources in developing their children’s literacy knowledge and skills. In addition, the areas to be improved in later shared reading activity were also identified.
This study contributed to early literacy and shared reading research by investigating a less studied group of people. It confirmed several findings of previous research and identified new maternal scaffolding strategies that were particularly preferred by Chinese mothers. This interesting study would definitely inspire more research in this area with more diverse participants.
This study seeks to answer the following two questions: 1) What is the basic contribution structure of shared book reading interaction between Chinese middle-class mothers and their young children? 2) What scaffolding strategies are especially preferred by this group of mothers and in what ways are these strategies employed to facilitate different aspects of early literacy development? To address the two research questions, a mixed research design was adopted in this study (Dornyei, 2007). Four mother-child dyads were video-recorded while they shared a picture storybook. The transcripts of video recordings were then analyzed systematically. The ratio of mothers’ and childrens’ respective contribution of utterances to the extra-textual discussion during shared book reading was first calculated and examined. Then, the mothers’ extra-textual utterances were coded and the frequency of each coding category (maternal scaffolding strategy) was calculated. The transcript excerpts of high-frequency scaffolding strategies were also analyzed qualitatively. Quantitative data analysis showed that shared book interactions in these dyads were basically dominated and guided by mothers, and six maternal scaffolding strategies (prompt, description of illustration, feedback, explicit attentional vocative, think-aloud or reasoning, and answering own question) were most frequently employed by this group of mothers. Qualitative data analysis indicated that these mothers were rather sensitive to their children’s needs and very flexible in employing various strategy resources in developing their children’s literacy knowledge and skills. In addition, the areas to be improved in later shared reading activity were also identified.
This study contributed to early literacy and shared reading research by investigating a less studied group of people. It confirmed several findings of previous research and identified new maternal scaffolding strategies that were particularly preferred by Chinese mothers. This interesting study would definitely inspire more research in this area with more diverse participants.
Date Issued
2011
Call Number
LB1050.2 Dai
Date Submitted
2011