Talking During Book Sharing Between Parents and Preschool Children

Reading Research Quarterly 44(2) pp. 171194 dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.44.2.
4 2009 International Reading Association 171

AB S T R ACT
The purpose of the current study was to explore parent and child extratextual utterances during storybook and exposi-
tory book sharing. Sixty-two parents and their 3- to 4-year-old children from middle income families participated in the
study. Dyads were videotaped on 2 occasions reading unfamiliar storybooks and expository books. Parent and child
extratextual utterances were coded for their content, and parent utterances were coded for their utterance length and
diversity of vocabulary. Content coding categories included feedback and acknowledgment, talk about print and book
conventions, and talk about the book that was at lower levels of cognitive demand (Levels 1 and 2) and higher levels of
cognitive demand (Levels 3 and 4).
Within-subjects comparisons across the 2 genres revealed that parents were more likely to read the entire text during
storybook sharing than they were during expository book sharing. Expository book sharing was longer in duration and
resulted in higher rates of extratextual utterances by both parents and children. During expository book sharing, parents
used significantly higher rates of feedback utterances and utterances at Levels 1, 3, and 4; children used significantly
higher rates of feedback utterances and utterances at Levels 3 and 4. The mean length of parent extratextual utterances
was significantly longer in the expository book condition, and their talk contained significantly greater vocabulary diver-
sity. These findings indicate that the genre of book can influence the amount of talk that takes place during book sharing,
and it can alter the content, vocabulary diversity, and sentence length of extratextual utterances.
F
rom a social and cultural perspective (e.g., Barton
& Hamilton, 2000; Rogoff, 1990, 2003), parents
expose their children to the literacy practices val-
ued by their cultural community, and they influence the
amount and types of literacy knowledge children bring
to school upon their entry (Heath, 1982; Snow & Ninio,
1986; Teale & Sulzby, 1987). One activity that parents
and children from literate communities often engage in
is book sharing, during which parents mediate texts for
young children, scaffolding their comprehension through
interactions about the content and the illustrations (e.g.,
Ninio, 1980) and helping the child to participate in more
sophisticated ways than he or she would be capable of
independently. In trying to evaluate the contribution
of book-sharing routines to later language and literacy
outcomes, researchers have explored their frequency (for
reviews, see Bus, Van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995;
Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994) and the interactions
that take place during the activity (e.g., Aram & Levin,
2002; Leseman & de Jong, 1998; van Kleeck, Gillam,
Hamilton, & McGrath, 1997; Wells, 1985).
When parents read books with their children, a dy-
namic context is created in which the parent, the child,
and the book all interact, and all three of these com-
ponents have the potential to affect the talk that oc-
curs during the activity (see Barton & Hamilton, 2000;
Talk During Book Sharing Between
Parents and Preschool Children:
A Comparison Between Storybook
and Expository Book Conditions
Lisa Hammett Price
Indiana University of Pennsylvania, USA
Anne van Kleeck
The University of Texas at Dallas, USA
Carl J. Huberty
The University of Georgia, Athens, USA
Ab s t r a c t
Reading Research Quarterly 44(2) 172
Pellegrini & Galda, 2003). However, to date, little atten-
tion has been paid to the books used, and the major-
ity of the research describing parentpreschooler book
sharing has been based on the extratextual interactions
that occur while sharing storybooks. And indeed, sto-
rybooks are the most common text genre that adults
choose to read to preschool children (De Temple &
Snow, 1996; Dickinson, De Temple, Hirschler, & Smith,
1992; Duke, 1999; Phillips & McNaughton, 1990).
Storybooks are typically defined (here and elsewhere)
as books for young children that contain a fictional nar-
rative with a common structure: a problem, attempts
to solve the problem, and a resolution of the problem.
There are, however, other genres of books intended for
young children.
The purpose of the current study was to compare
the discussion that parents and preschool children en-
gage in while reading two genres of books, storybooks
and expository books. Expository books, also referred
to as information or nonfiction books, were of interest
in the current study because of the features that dif-
ferentiate them from storybooks, including the text
structure, visual design features, linguistic features, ab-
stract concepts, and diversity of vocabulary that they
contain. Exploring the effects of such features on the
book-sharing routine is of interest because of growing
evidence that they influence what children can and do
learn from book-sharing interactions, as we discuss in
detail later (Pappas, 1991, 1993; Smolkin, Conlon, &
Yaden, 1988; Smolkin & Yaden, 1992; Smolkin, Yaden,
Brown, & Hofius, 1992).
Parent Talk With Young Children
When researchers study the interactions that take place
during book-sharing routines, they analyze the extra-
textual talk, that is, the talk that goes beyond actual text
reading. Analyzing the extratextual talk is consistent
with the social and cultural theoretical perspective that
learning is a socially mediated process (e.g., Barton &
Hamilton, 2000; Rogoff, 1990, 2003). Literacy events,
such as book sharing, can be observed to document
the social practices that parents and children engage
in while sharing a particular text (Barton & Hamilton,
2000). Specifically, the interest in the book-sharing
research has been on parent extratextual talk during
book sharing, primarily because such discussions can
scaffold childrens comprehension of and engagement
with the text in ways that have been shown to facilitate
childrens development of language and literacy (e.g.,
Harkins, Koch, & Michel, 1994; E. Reese, Cox, Harte, &
McAnally, 2003; van Kleeck et al., 1997). Even though
parents may not view their extratextual talk as a meth-
od of explicit teaching, they do adjust their interactions
in ways that support the childs learning (Rogoff, 1990,
2003). Indeed, research on child language development
and research on parentchild book sharing have sug-
gested that several aspects of parents talk have im-
portance, including the amount of talk, the syntactic
complexity and vocabulary diversity of the talk, and the
content of the talk.
Amount of Talk
First, the literature on parentchild verbal interactions
provides evidence that greater amounts of interaction
give children a long-lasting language advantage (Hart
& Risley, 1995; Huttenlocher, Haight, Bryk, Seltzer, &
Lyons, 1991). Evidence of this comes from Hart and
Risleys study, which found that within and across so-
cioeconomic groups, parents varied significantly in
the amount of talk they offered during everyday rou-
tines at home, and amount of talk was strongly associ-
ated with the childrens trajectory of language learning.
Huttenlocher et al. found that approximately 20% of the
variance in toddlers vocabulary growth was accounted
for by mothers raw frequency of words spoken, and
the age of acquisition of specific words by the child was
highly correlated with the relative frequency of the use
of those words in the mothers talk. Although other re-
search has suggested that nearly 50% of the variance in
childrens conversational language can be explained by
genetic factors (DeThorne et al., 2008), the finding that
20% of the variance in toddlers vocabulary growth can
be explained by the amount of maternal input indicates
that this environmental variable has the potential to
substantially alter outcomes and is, therefore, of inter-
est in the research on parentchild interactions during
book sharing.
The belief is that it is the interaction during book
sharing that facilitates childrens language abilities.
Indeed, interventions that have taught parents and
teachers to use a highly interactive approach called
dialogic reading resulted in gains in childrens language
abilities (e.g., Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, & Epstein,
1994; Crain-Thoreson & Dale, 1999; Lonigan, Anthony,
Bloomfield, Dyer, & Samwel, 1999; Whitehurst,
Arnold, et al., 1994; Whitehurst, Epstein, et al., 1994;
Whitehurst et al., 1988). In these studies, adults were
taught to encourage the child to verbally interact dur-
ing book sharing through the use of completion and
recall prompts, open-ended prompts, questions, and
distancing prompts that related the book content to the
childs life. In addition, they were taught to use praise,
expansions, and evaluations of the childs contribu-
tions. The result was a move away from straight reading
of a book to highly interactive book-sharing practices,
where the adult and child jointly construct meaning.
Although such interaction is viewed as positive, many
researchers have reported wide variations across par-
ents in the amount of talk they engage in during book
reading, even within fairly homogenous samples, and
173 Talk During Book Sharing Between Parents and Preschool Children
the amount of interaction that is ideal for child learning
outcomes is not known (e.g., De Temple & Tabors, 1994;
Hammett, van Kleeck, & Huberty, 2003; Leseman &
de Jong, 1998; Shapiro, Anderson, & Anderson, 1997;
Sorsby & Martlew, 1991; van Kleeck, DeTemple, Snow,
& Breshears, 1996; van Kleeck et al., 1997).
Although amount of talk appears to vary widely
across families (Hart & Risley, 1995, 1999), there is
evidence for stability in amount of talk within families.
Hart and Risley (1995) found high correlations (r > .70)
in parents amount of talk across eight-month intervals
over the three years families participated in the study.
Thus, the parents who talked the least continued to talk
the least over the course of the study; the parents who
talked the most continued to talk the most. Hart and
Risley (1999) also identified a point in the childrens
language development around 28 months of age when
children began talking as much as their parents talked
to them (p. 187). This suggests that within the envi-
ronment of the family, children were socialized in the
amount of talk considered to be appropriate. In the cur-
rent study, therefore, it was deemed important to con-
sider the effects of book genre on the overall amount
of talk during parentchild book-sharing interactions
and on the consistency of parents amount of talk across
book-genre conditions (i.e., if parents who talked more
with one book genre were also those who tended to talk
more with the other).
Syntactic Complexity and Vocabulary
Diversity of Talk
Two additional aspects of parent talk that appear to
be important for childrens language development are
the syntactic complexity of and vocabulary diversity
within the utterances offered. Hart and Risley (1995,
1999) found advantages in later language outcomes for
children whose parents displayed greater numbers of
different words, multiclause sentences, past and future
verb tenses, declaratives, and questions. In addition,
86% to 98% of the words in the childrens vocabular-
ies were words also recorded in the parents talk. In
another study, Weizman and Snow (2001) found that
even after controlling for maternal education, childrens
nonverbal intelligence and amount of child talk, over a
third of the variance in childrens second-grade vocabu-
lary performance was accounted for by the density of
rare vocabulary used by mothers during conversations
when their children were 5 years old and the extent to
which these rare words were embedded into instruc-
tive and helpful interactions. Beals and Tabors (1995)
reported similar positive associations; in addition, they
found that childrens use of such rare words during an
elicited report was positively correlated with later scores
on a standardized test of receptive vocabulary, suggest-
ing that children who hear such rare vocabulary words
and go on to use them benefit from such practice by
later exhibiting larger vocabularies compared with chil-
dren who do not. During book sharing, children learn
targeted vocabulary better when parents both read and
discuss the text compared with when they only read the
text (Hargrave & Snchal, 2000; Snchal, 1997).
Content of Parent Talk
Another aspect of parent talk that researchers have
studied is the content of the utterances, specifically, the
use of utterances that vary in cognitive demand, the
use of praise and feedback, and the use of utterances
about print and book conventions. First, the content of
talk can be conceptualized along a continuum ranging
from less cognitively demanding to more cognitively de-
manding (Blank, Rose, & Berlin, 1978a; Moffett, 1968;
Vygotsky, 1972). Utterances are considered more cog-
nitively demanding when they involve objects, actions,
or events that are not present in the perceptual scene
and/or when they require perspective taking (Blank et
al., 1978a; Cummins, 1983; Mason, 1986; Scollon &
Scollon, 1982; Sigel, 1982; Vygotsky, 1986/1934). High
cognitive-demand tasks include making inferences and
predictions, hypothesizing, summarizing, or explain-
ing. Smolkin and Donovan (2002) have called such
utterances comprehension-related moves because they
engage children in analytical interactions and discus-
sions that serve them well in the comprehension of text
when they read independently. Indeed, these types of
utterances are similar to the comprehension strategies
often taught to students later in elementary school (e.g.,
Trabasso & Bouchard, 2002).
Interest in parents use of high cognitive-demand
utterances has grown because of evidence that they
contribute to childrens development of language and
literacy skills. For example, Harkins et al. (1994) found
that childrens use of utterances with higher cognitive
demands during a narrative retelling task was highly
correlated with their mothers use of such utterances
during the initial storytelling. Parents use of utterances
with higher cognitive demands has also been related to
childrens higher cognitive-demand language capabili-
ties measured longitudinally (Gordon, 1984; Peterson
& McCabe, 1994).
Praise and feedback is a second content category of
utterances that is believed to be important. Research
on the use of praise and feedback during book sharing
has revealed that these utterances serve to acknowledge
and encourage childrens verbal and nonverbal partici-
pation and attention (DeLoache & DeMendoza, 1987;
Fagan & Hayden, 1988; Flood, 1977; Haden, Reese,
& Fivush, 1996; Hammett et al., 2003; E. Reese et al.,
2003; Shapiro et al., 1997; Sorsby & Martlew, 1991),
and child participation has been shown to be important
for learning from the activity (Pellegrini, Perlmutter,
Galda, & Brody, 1990; Wells, 1985). In fact, parents use
of positive reinforcement during this activity has been
found to be one predictor of childrens concurrent lan-
guage and literacy abilities (Flood, 1977). Furthermore,
parents who use more praise and feedback utterances
appear to create a highly supportive climate, and they
are also more likely to use open-ended questions, ex-
pansions, and high cognitive-demand utterances (Bus,
Leseman, & Keultjes, 2000; Crain-Thoreson & Dale,
1999; McNeill & Fowler, 1999).
A third category of extratextual utterances that re-
searchers have analyzed is parent utterances about print
or book conventions (Hammett et al., 2003; Justice &
Ezell, 2000; E. Reese et al., 2003; Shapiro et al., 1997;
van Kleeck et al., 1997), primarily because childrens
knowledge of print is linked to later decoding ability as
they learn to read (e.g., Menyuk et al., 1991; Share, Jorm,
Maclean, & Matthews, 1984; Stuart, 1995). During
book sharing, when parents were trained to use print
references, their children exhibited gains in their un-
derstanding of concepts about print and in their alpha-
bet knowledge (Ezell, Justice, & Parsons, 2000; Justice
& Ezell, 2000). Despite evidence for its benefits, the
most common finding in studies of naturally occurring
interactions during book sharing reveals that middle in-
come parents rarely provide print references during sto-
rybook sharing (Ezell & Justice, 1998; Justice & Ezell,
2000; Phillips & McNaughton, 1990; Stuart, 1995; van
Kleeck et al., 1997). There is some evidence, however,
that when reading storybooks with highly salient print
embedded within the illustrations, parents and children
make more references to print compared with books
without such features (Holdaway, 1979; Smolkin et al.,
1988; Smolkin et al., 1992). This is discussed further
on. And of course, as preschool-age children approach
school age, alphabet books are sometimes shared with
them at home, and discussion of alphabet letters when
sharing this genre of book abound (for discussion, see
van Kleeck, 2006).
Book Genre as a Variable
in Book-Sharing Research
An important variable in the research on parent
child book sharing is the book itself (for discussions,
see Pellegrini & Galda, 2003; van Kleeck, 2003). The
book is the focus of attention during the activity and
provides the content around which interactions occur.
Until recently, book-sharing research relied almost ex-
clusively on storybooks, and most of the recent interest
in expository text is in the context of classrooms and
teacherchild book sharing (e.g., Duke & Kays, 1998;
Pappas, 1991; D.A. Reese & Harris, 1997; Smolkin &
Donovan, 2000; Tower, 2002). In the current study,
storybooks were compared with expository books
to determine whether genre had an effect on the talk
that occurred between parents and their preschool-age
children. Numerous features of expository books and
storybooks differ, and research has indicated that these
features can affect childrens language- and literacy-skill
development. In addition, there are three studies that
have revealed that the differences between these genres
do affect interactions between parents and preschool-
age children.
Features of Expository Books
In the current study, as in other research, the exposi-
tory genre refers to books written with the purpose of
providing more scientific type of information about a
topic. Some expository books also contain a storyline
and, hence, a narrative structure that is most often as-
sociated with the genre of storybooks. Such books blur
the line between these two genres (Collerson, 1988) and
are not the focus here. Rather, the type of expository
text used in the current study includes the following
types of content about a specific topic: (a) presentation
of a topic, (b) description of attributes, (c) events or ac-
tivities characteristic of or related to the topic, (d) com-
parisons and contrasts between members of the class,
and (e) an optional final summary (Kamberelis, 1999;
Pappas, 1991, 1993, 2006). The linguistic features also
differ from those found in storybooks, with references
to categories (e.g., Cats are felines) rather than using
specific nouns and pronouns (e.g., The cat... he...) and
the use of timeless verb constructions (e.g., Cats have
excellent sight) rather than past tense (e.g., The cat saw
the mouse; Kamberelis, 1999; Pappas, 1991, 1993).
Storybooks and expository books also differ in the
diversity of vocabulary they include. Stories are more
likely to include characters intentions and perspec-
tives, and to use mental state verbs (e.g., thought, knew,
wondered) and temporal connectives (e.g., and, then, fi-
nally). Expository texts contain technical words associ-
ated with the topic (e.g., nocturnal, echolocation; Duke &
Kays, 1998; Kamberelis, 1999; Pappas, 1993). In a study
of a corpus of fifth-grade reading materials compar-
ing 28 (narrative) story texts and 28 expository texts,
Gardner (2004) found that expository texts contained
larger proportions of high-frequency academic words
(e.g., affected, enables, adapted) and unique words (also
called technical vocabulary; e.g., expeditions, eruption,
inhabited) compared with narrative texts, making them
more lexically challenging for young readers. In a com-
parison of the storybooks and expository books written
for preschool children used in the current study, the
text of the expository books was found to have signifi-
cantly higher vocabulary diversity (Price & Erickson,
2006).
Storybooks and expository books also differ in the
types of visual design features they include that can
Talk During Book Sharing Between Parents and Preschool Children 175
support understanding of concrete and abstract con-
cepts, and visual literacy is an important skill for chil-
dren to acquire (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006). Although
both these genres include picture scenes, pictures in
expository books contain specific features intended to
assist in conveying more technical, scientific kinds of
information (rather than supplementing the story line).
There is a body of work describing the use of graphics
in texts and how these graphic features affect learning
(e.g., Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006; Mayer, 1994; Mayer,
Hegarty, Mayer, & Campbell, 2005). However, descrip-
tions by Moline (1995) and Pappas (2006) of visual
design features characteristic of texts designed specifi-
cally for children were most consistent with those used
in the books in the current study, and therefore, they
were used here. Moline described a number of visual
design features used in expository texts, including pic-
ture glossaries and scale diagrams that reveal the parts
and dimensions of parts of objects, cutaways and cross-
section diagrams that provide views of the interior of
an object, flow diagrams that show a process or cause
effect relationships, tree and web diagrams that reveal
relationships among ideas within a topic, line and bar
graphs that visually represent quantitative information,
maps showing spatial relationships and contexts, and
tables showing comparisons or patterns (for in-depth
discussion, see Moline, 1995). Expository texts also
rely on what Pappas (2006) called illustration extensions,
including labels, captions, keys, and dialogue bubbles
that provide explanations to aid in interpretation of
diagrams. These can help intentionally link the written
and visual texts on the page (Moline, 1995).
Effects of Text Features
Given these differences between storybooks and ex-
pository books, these two genres have the potential to
differentially affect childrens language comprehension
and use. Indeed, research on preschool and kindergar-
ten childrens emergent readings of storybooks and ex-
pository books has revealed that they learn to use the
referencing strategies, grammatical features (e.g., tense),
and vocabulary characteristics of each genre (see ex-
amples above; Duke & Kays, 1998; Pappas, 1991, 1993;
Pappas & Pettegrew, 1991; Tower, 2002).
Similarly, researchers have found that the visual de-
sign features contained in books affect attention to and
talk about the print itself. One study found that when
parents and children share books that include highly
salient forms of print, such as speech balloons, labels
within pictures, and/or letters or words in isolation or
highlighted using color, size, and font, children were
much more likely to focus their gaze on them (Justice,
Skibbe, Canning, & Lankford, 2005) or to at least gaze
longer at the illustrations that included them (Evans &
Saint-Aubin, 2005). Smolkin et al. (1992) looked instead
at childrens print-related utterances while book sharing
and found that books with more highly salient print
(e.g., letters in isolation, print in pattern, letters as 3D
objects) were associated with greater numbers of such
utterances. Similarly, parents are more likely to offer ut-
terances referencing the print when sharing books with
more highly salient print (Holdaway, 1979; Smolkin et
al., 1988). One feature of expository books is greater
amounts of print embedded within the illustrations and
often print that is more salient compared with the print
in storybooks. Therefore, expository books might pro-
mote greater print referencing than storybooks would.
Beyond print referencing, three studies have com-
pared storybook to expository book sharing between
parents and preschool children and revealed other ways
in which the talk differed while sharing each genre
(Pellegrini et al., 1990; Potter & Haynes, 2000; Vander
Woude, 1998). Pellegrini et al. investigated the effects of
genre on the interactions between 13 African American
mothers with low socioeconomic status (SES) and their
children, aged between 3 years, 6 months old and 5
years old. In their study, the expository texts contained
a sequence of pictures and labels that were not tempo-
rally or causally related, and in this way, they differed
from the expository books of interest in the current
study. Results revealed that mothers offered more extra-
textual talk during interactions focused on expository
texts (M = 303, SD = 250) compared with during story
texts (M = 73, SD = 82), and, based on calculations us-
ing the data they reported, the difference represented a
very large effect size (Cohens d = 1.25). Mothers pro-
portions of utterances that were coded as being of high
cognitive demand were also significantly more frequent
during interactions focused on expository texts (16%)
compared with during story texts (4%; there was insuf-
ficient information provided to calculate an effect size).
Similarly, children used greater numbers of initiations,
book-relevant responses to questions, and text-external
responses (e.g., relating text to life) when sharing the
expository texts compared with the story texts.
Vander Woude (1998) conducted a qualitative dis-
course analysis of four middle SES mothers and their
children with language disorders during four book-
sharing episodes using familiar and unfamiliar exposi-
tory books and storybooks. Two of the children were ap-
proximately 4 years old and two were 6 years, 6 months
old and 7 years old. Mothers used greater numbers of
extratextual utterances during expository book shar-
ing (M = 179.5, SD = 75.6) compared with their num-
ber during storybook sharing (M = 132.3, SD = 53.4),
and, based on reported data, this difference repre-
sented a medium to large effect size (Cohens d = 0.72).
Expository book sharing included higher proportions of
object-labeling routines and initiation-reply-evaluation
sequences, whereas storybook sharing included more
action-labeling routines. Use of utterances requiring high
cognitive demands was quite low with these children
with language impairments, and therefore, there were
no differences attributable to book genre. While reading
storybooks, mothers would read a large chunk of text,
signal a time of extratextual interaction by slowing her
rate and gazing toward the child, and then engage in ex-
tratextual talk; during expository book reading, on the
other hand, extratextual talk occurred often after only
one or two lines of text were read.
Potter and Haynes (2000) studied motherchild
dyads with children who were much younger than
those in the Vander Woude (1998) and Pellegrini et
al. (1990) studies. Their sample included 10 African
American mothers and 10 Caucasian mothers from
low SES families with their 2-year-old children (M = 2
years, 1 month; range = 1 year, 6 months2 years, 10
months). The researchers videotaped dyads sharing four
wordless picture books; two were stories and two were
expository books, similar to those used by Pellegrini
et al. Even in interactions with such young children,
the results revealed a strong effect of genre based on
our calculations of effect sizes using data they report.
During interactions focused on expository books,
mothers exhibited significantly higher frequencies of
asking wh-questions (d = 0.49), labeling (d = 1.42), and
feedback (d = 0.73) utterances compared with the story-
book interactions. Storybooks elicited more descriptive
utterances (d = 1.35), consistent with Vander Woudes
results. Children offered more imitations (d = 0.57) and
incorrect verbal responses (d = 0.54) during expository
book sharing compared with storybook sharing. Potter
and Haynes did not analyze whether culture explained
any of the variance in book-sharing interactions, and
this may be a confounding variable.
Although these three studies provide evidence
that book genre does affect parentchild book-sharing
interactions, their differences in terms of sample char-
acteristics and research designs prohibit making gener-
alizations or overall conclusions. Further research using
a larger sample size that either controls for childrens
age, family SES, and cultural group, or that calculates
the amount of variance explained by these variables, is
needed to provide evidence for the effects of book genre
on parentchild interactions. In addition, although these
studies considered the amount of talk and the content
of utterances across the two genres of books, none of
them considered the semantic and syntactic complex-
ity of the parent utterances. Given the limited nature of
the current literature, the aim of the current study was
to explore parent and child extratextual utterances dur-
ing storybook and expository book sharing in a large,
homogenous sample of middle income families with
children in a narrow age range. Specifically, a within-
subjects descriptive research design was used to answer
the following research questions:
1. Are there differences in the numbers and rates of
extratextual utterances that parents and children
contribute during storybook and expository book
sharing?
2. Is there a correlation between the numbers of ex-
tratextual utterances that parents and children
contribute during storybook sharing and the
numbers they contribute during expository book
sharing?
3. Are there differences in the content of the extra-
textual utterances that parents and children con-
tribute during storybook and expository book
sharing?
4. Are there differences in the length and vocabu-
lary content of parent extratextual utterances
contributed during storybook and expository
book sharing?
We hypothesized that there would be differences
in the numbers and content of extratextual utterances.
Based on previous research, we predicted that parents
and children would contribute greater numbers of extra-
textual utterances in the expository book-sharing con-
dition, with more utterances at high levels of cognitive
demand and more print- and book-convention utter-
ances, compared with the storybook-sharing condition.
Given the evidence that families have a tendency toward
either more or less talk in general, we hypothesized that
there would be a significant correlation between the
amount of talk offered in the storybook condition and
the expository book condition. Furthermore, we hy-
pothesized that parents utterances would be longer and
include greater vocabulary diversity during expository
book sharing compared with storybook sharing due to
differences in these features of the texts themselves.
Method
Participant Sample
Sixty-two parentchild dyads (55 mothers and 7 fa-
thers) were recruited to participate through flyers given
out at childcare centers, preschool programs, mothers
groups, local public libraries, and word of mouth in a
small city in the southeastern United States. Written in-
formed consent was obtained from all parents and ver-
bal assent was obtained from the children. English was
the primary language spoken in the home for all fami-
lies, although four families also spoke another language
with the child and extended family. The families were
of middle to upper middle SES based on the Two Factor
Index of Social Position developed by Hollingshead and
Redlich (Hollingshead, 1971; Hollingshead & Redlich,
1958). Parent education and occupation were the ba-
sis for classification, and McLoyd (1998) suggested that
this combination provides a more stable and representa-
tive measure than income does. Parents had completed
a mean of 17.5 years of education, with a range of 13
to 22 years. Fifty-four of the families were of European
American descent, three were African American, and
five families included one parent with Hispanic, Asian,
or German backgrounds. Thirty-two of the parents
(52%) had some background in teaching (i.e., elemen-
tary, middle, or high school teacher; speech-language
pathologist; early intervention specialist; or university
professor). Because this could be a potentially con-
founding variable, analyses were initially conducted us-
ing educator status as a grouping variable (i.e., educators
vs. noneducators) to determine whether it accounted for
a significant amount of the variance.
The mean age of the children in the sample was 3
years, 7 months (range = 3 years, 4 months4 years, 2
months). This age range resulted from attempts to se-
lect a sample comparable to that in a previous study
(Hammett et al., 2003). There were 31 girls and 31 boys.
Children were included in the sample if they were con-
sidered to be typically developing; therefore, they had
to meet the following four criteria: (1) no history of sig-
nificant hearing loss or current middle-ear infection; (2)
no history of any syndrome, neurological impairment,
or head injury; (3) adequate hearing, determined with
a hearing screening administered during the first ses-
sion; and (4) average to above average language skills.
To ensure average or above average language skills, the
children had to meet cutoff criteria on the Structured
Photographic Expressive Language TestPreschool
(Werner & Kresheck, 1983), which was designed as a
screening tool for use with children between 3 years old
and 5 years, 11 months old to identify those who might
be considered language impaired. The test consists of
a set of pictures used to elicit specific syntactic and
morphological features of the English language. Plante
and Vance (1995) found that this test had 83% sensi-
tivity (i.e., it was 83% accurate in identifying children
who indeed had a specific language impairment) and
95% specificity (i.e., it was 95% accurate in identify-
ing children who indeed had normal language) when
cutoff scores were based on a z score of 1.39. For the
youngest children in the current study, those who were
3 years and 4 to 5 months old, a score of 13 was ac-
cepted as passing, representing a z score of 1.42, to
ensure that the criterion for inclusion for these children
was not substantially more stringent than that for the
older children. Overall, the children in the sample dem-
onstrated a mean z score of 0.54 (range = 1.42 to 0.97,
SD = 0.63).
Data Collection Procedures
Lisa Hammett Price, a certified speech-language pathol-
ogist, administered screenings during one session that
lasted approximately 30 minutes. Parents also complet-
ed a questionnaire about their book-sharing practices
with their child. It included questions about how often
reading occurred with the child at home, with whom
and for how many minutes per week, the types of books
read with the child, and how the child typically involved
him- or herself in the activity. Each parentchild dyad
was videotaped in their home on two different days, on
average one week apart (M = 7.5 days between sessions,
range = 135), sharing two unfamiliar storybooks and
two unfamiliar expository books (i.e., one of each genre
on each day). The order of the genre of books shared
was counterbalanced across conditions and across days.
Parents and children were asked to read wherever was
most comfortable for them (e.g., in the childs bed, on
the couch, on the floor) and the camera was set up at a
45 angle to capture the faces of both the parent and the
child. An external microphone was used to obtain the
highest quality audio.
To ensure that the books read were unfamiliar, par-
ents and children were shown an array of 10 books and
asked to identify any that were familiar to them; these
were removed from the choices. Very few parents or
children had previously seen or read the books present-
ed; therefore, children typically had choices regarding
which books they wanted to read (within the limits de-
scribed for the book sets described later). Parents were
told that the researcher was interested in what takes
place when parents and children share books together.
Further details regarding what the researcher was inves-
tigating were withheld until after parents and children
had completed the second session of book sharing. The
specific instructions given to the parent were to share
the books just like you typically would when looking at
books at home. The researcher set up the video camera
and went to another room in the house while the parent
and child shared the books.
Storybooks and Expository Books
Dyads shared two of the following storybooks: (a)
Mooncake (Asch, 1983), (b) Moongame (Asch, 1984),
(c) Bears Bargain (Asch, 1985a), (d) Moonbears Shadow
(Asch, 1985b), (e) Moondance (Asch, 1993), and (f )
Moonbears Dream (Asch, 1999). All of the books re-
volved around the adventures of the same two main
characters, Bear and Little Bird. The books each con-
tained a similar narrative structure, including a prob-
lem, several attempts to solve the problem, and a final
resolution of the problem. Although these are clearly
storybooks, each included a concept that parents might
choose to explain (e.g., making a bargain with a friend,
trying to escape from ones own shadow, playing hide
and seek with the moon). Thus, these storybooks gave
parents opportunities to offer utterances at high levels
of cognitive demand.
Dyads also shared two of the following expository
books: (a) Pigs (Gibbons, 1999b), (b) Dogs (Gibbons,
1996b), (c) Cats (Gibbons, 1996a), and (d) Bats (Gibbons,
1999a). These four books by Gail Gibbons were cho-
sen because they exemplify typical information texts
(Pappas, 2006). To compare storybook sharing to ex-
pository book sharing, it was important to ensure that
the expository books did not reflect hybrid or atypi-
cal examples of this genre, for example, those that in-
clude some narrative features, as this would confound
the comparison. These specific books by Gail Gibbons
were selected for the following three additional reasons:
(1) the topics were likely somewhat familiar and of in-
terest to preschoolers, (2) the illustrations were engag-
ing, and the visual design features were comparable
across books, and (3) similar types of information were
presented in each book in a similar sequence. In their
original form, each of these four books contained 70 to
90 sentences, and therefore, some pages and sentences
were deleted and/or altered to make the books appro-
priate in length for children between 3 and 4 years of
age without disrupting the cohesiveness or expository
features of the texts. The resulting book texts were simi-
lar to each other in mean length of sentence and in their
vocabulary diversity. Two preschool teachers with mas-
ters degrees in education and 9 to 25 years of classroom
experience read these altered texts and judged that they
were appropriate for children of this age.
Compared with most other studies that have ana-
lyzed only one book-sharing session, two sessions in-
creases the representativeness of the data and reduces
variance attributable to single-session artifacts (e.g.,
a child being overly tired, a parent feeling worried).
Choosing books by the same authors, rather than vary-
ing the author, increases the internal validity of the data
collected, which is an appropriate design choice for an
initial study directly comparing these two genres. This
choice, however, decreases the external validity of the
study. Therefore, as in all book-sharing studies, the re-
sults need to be interpreted within the context of the
specific books used. Tentative generalization can be
made to other books within each genre to the extent
that the features of those books are similar to the fea-
tures of the books chosen for the current study.
All analyses comparing the expository and story-
book conditions were based on the parent and child
sharing two of each genre of book (and, as noted, one
book of each genre was shared during each session).
Within each genre, books were placed into paired sets
to create equivalent book-sharing experiences across
dyads in terms of sentence length, vocabulary diversity,
and book length (see Table 1). The texts of the exposi-
tory book sets were slightly longer (M = 101.4 total sen-
tences, SD = 4.1) than the storybook sets were (M = 96
total sentences, SD = 4.5), but this difference was not
statistically significant with set at .05, t(6) = 1.79,
p = .12, r
2
pb
= .35. However, the effect size suggested
that text length may indeed be different; therefore, rate-
per-minute variables were calculated and analyzed to
control for differences in duration of book sharing that
could be attributable to length of the book sets (see
Table 1 for descriptive data on the book sets for each
book-genre condition).
Remember that although each dyad read just two
books of each genre, there were nonetheless six story-
books and four expository books to choose from in or-
der to have choices available in case any of the books
were already familiar to the dyad; all books needed to
be unfamiliar due to previous research showing that
verbal interactions differ for familiar and unfamiliar
books (Anderson-Yockel & Haynes, 1994; De Temple &
Snow, 1996; Fagan & Hayden, 1988; Goodsitt, Raitan,
& Perlmutter, 1988; van Kleeck et al., 1997). The four
storybook sets and four expository book sets differed
in terms of the length of sentences and, as expected
based on previous research, in the amount of vocabu-
lary diversity they contained. The expository book sets
included greater numbers of morphemes per sentence
(M = 12.4 morphemes per sentence, SD = 0.10) com-
pared with the storybook sets (M = 11.1 morphemes
per sentence, SD = 0.58; equal variances not assumed,
t[3.17] = 4.59, p = .017, r
2
pb
= .87), representing a large
effect size.
The diversity of vocabulary contained in the books
was measured in two ways: (1) number of different
words (NDW) and (2) the vocabulary diversity (VOCD)
measure, obtained using the Computerized Language
Analysis (CLAN) program (MacWhinney, 2000). Simply
counting NDW is an obvious method for measuring vo-
cabulary diversity; however, the disadvantage is that it is
influenced by the sample size. VOCD offers an alterna-
tive that is independent of sample size. It is calculated
through an iterative process; initially, VOCD takes 100
random samples of 35 tokens and calculates the type
token ratio for each. Next, it takes 100 random samples
of 36 tokens, and so on, until it has taken 100 random
samples of 50 tokens. The average typetoken ratio from
this process constitutes the VOCD measure. Higher val-
ues of VOCD represent greater diversity, and these have
been found to range from 5, in a sample from a 5-year-
old child with language impairment, to 120, in a sample
of academic writing (Richards & Malvern, 1999).
VOCD has been used to measure the vocabulary di-
versity contained in academic writing samples, in the
talk of children with specific language impairment, and
in the talk of second-language learners, and it has strong
reliability and validity (see Durn, Malvern, Richards, &
Chipere, 2004; Malvern & Richards, 2002). The VOCD
measure in the current study reflects the diversity of
vocabulary used in the text of the book and, further
on, in the parents talk. The expository book sets con-
tained higher NDWs (M = 493, SD = 18.2) and higher
VOCD scores (M = 93, SD = 4.5) compared with the sto-
rybooks sets (NDW M = 368, SD = 14.6; VOCD M = 71,
SD = 7.4), and these differences were statistically sig-
nificant: NDW t(6) = 10.72, p < .001, r
2
pb
= .95; VOCD
t(6) = 5.02, p = .002, r
2
pb
= .81; both representing a
large effect size.
The number of illustrations and the visual design
features in the illustrations included in the storybooks
and expository books were also analyzed and shown to
differ significantly (Moline, 1995; Pappas, 2006). The
numbers of pictures contained in the sets of books dif-
fered across genre, with the expository sets (M = 75.3,
SD = 6.1) containing a mean of 8 more pictures than
the storybooks did (M = 68.5, SD = 3.4), equal vari-
ances not assumed, t(4.72) = 1.94, p = .10, r
2
pb
= .44. In
a qualitative analysis of the visual design features, five
similarities and four differences were identified across
the genres. First, in terms of similarities, both types of
books contained two-page spreads with either a sepa-
rate picture on each page or a scene that encompassed
both pages. Second, the illustrations in both contained
painted shapes; in the storybooks, the painted shapes
were computer generated whereas in the expository
books, the painted shapes were pen-and-ink, colored
pencil, and watercolor. Third, both genres of books
included illustrations that were highly consistent with
what was described in the text on most pages, and they
also at times included details in the illustrations that
were not explicitly mentioned or explained in the text.
For example, in Mooncake (Asch, 1983), the text con-
veys that Bear went to the junkyard (p. 9) to buy
items to build a rocket ship. The illustration, however,
contains additional details that could be discussed,
such as the junkyard bear, his dog, his house, and his
clothes hanging out on a clothesline. Similarly, in Dogs
(Gibbons, 1996b), the final page states Best of all dogs
are wonderful pets, (p. 23) and the illustration includes
a girl throwing a ball and a dog chasing it. In this way,
the illustrations remain relatively consistent with the
text but at times also provide opportunities for further
discussion.
A fourth similarity was that in both genres, a pri-
mary function of the illustrations was to show action.
For example, in the storybooks, many pages show what
Bear and Little Bird are doing (e.g., climbing up a high
cliff, running, jumping over a brook, hiding behind a
tree, placing a seed in a hole). Similarly, in the exposi-
tory books, the animals were shown behaving in typical
ways for their species (e.g., in Cats [Gibbons, 1996a],
various cats are shown jumping, climbing, eating,
Book sets Total # of
sentences
Mean length of
sentences
Mean VOCD Total NDW
Combined sets of two storybooks
Bear Shadow
Moonbears Dream
101 10.73 77 385
Bears Bargain
Moondance
96 11.51 61 355
Mooncake
Moongame
90 11.65 69 374
Moongame
Moonbears Dream
97 10.46 76 356
Combined sets of two expository books
Pigs
Dogs
98 12.30 87 468
Pigs
Bats
98 12.47 93 494
Pigs
Cats
104 12.52 92 496
Dogs
Bats
106 12.48 98 512
Table 1. Descriptive Data for the Sets of Storybooks and Expository Books
Note. VOCD = vocabulary diversity; NDW = number of different words.
smelling, playing with a ball of string). Fifth, both genres
of books included pages containing what are often re-
ferred to as storyboards (several topically related pic-
tures separated by bands of white space). For example,
in the storybooks, several pictures were used to show a
sequence of events (e.g., the sun moving across the sky
along with the changes in the position and length of
the shadows it created); in the expository books, several
pictures showed multiple examples of a concept (e.g., a
three-picture cluster showing how a cat displays various
feelings, like anger, fear, and happiness).
There were four differences across the genres with
regard to several additional visual design features. First,
the books differed in how the text blocks were situated.
In the expository books, the text blocks were at the bot-
tom of each page, typically containing one to two lines.
Although the storybooks also used text blocks under
the illustrations, they often contained greater amounts
of text in one block. They contained some two-page
spreads in which there was a single text block on one
page with the accompanying illustration on the oppo-
site page or a single text block under one of the two
pictures. Thus, the text was clustered in larger por-
tions in storybooks than it was in the expository books.
Second, although both genres included pages contain-
ing storyboards, or sets of topically related pictures,
these occurred more frequently in the expository books
(storybooks M = 5.5, SD = 1.3, range = 47; expository
books M = 9.8, SD = 1.3, range = 811), t(6) = 4.72,
p = .003, r
2
pb
= .79. Third, the expository books all con-
tained diagrams that are characteristic of expository
texts (Moline, 1995), and, not surprisingly, the story-
books contained none. Specifically, all the expository
books contained a picture glossary of the animal with
labels for its parts (e.g., legs, snout, hooves, tail). Some
contained additional picture glossaries (e.g., a cats teeth,
the parts of a pig that we eat) or a scale diagram (e.g.,
showing the comparative length of a bats wingspan to
its body length). The expository book sets contained a
mean of 6.75 diagrams (SD = 0.5, range = 67). Fourth,
the expository books contained print embedded within
the illustrations and diagrams in what Pappas (2006)
called illustration extensions; in contrast, the story-
books contained only a few words embedded within
the illustrations. Specifically, the expository books con-
tained labels, label series that depict parts of an object
or relationships of parts, captions (i.e., brief sentences
that provide an explanation), and occasionally dialogue
bubbles. Although the embedded print was noticeable
because it was large, it was not highlighted through the
use of such features described earlier, such as 3D for-
mat, shadowing, print patterns, or letters in isolation.
Clearly these two sets of books differed in ways that
might influence the extratextual talk that occurred dur-
ing the book-sharing activity. If differences exist in the
extratextual talk that occurs during book sharing with
these two book genres, those differences could be at-
tributable to differences in sentence length, vocabulary
diversity, and/or the numbers and types of illustrations
contained.
Coding of Extratextual Utterances
All parent and child extratextual utterances included in
the book-sharing interactions were transcribed and cod-
ed based on their content. The coding system involved
three main categories: (1) print- and book-convention
utterances, (2) feedback and acknowledgment utter-
ances (including praise), and (3) book content related
utterances. Utterances coded as book-content related
were coded further into four levels of cognitive demand
(Levels 1, 2, 3, 4) based on the van Kleeck et al. (1997)
adaptation of the levels of cognitive demand created by
Blank et al. (1978a, 1978b). This created a total of six
mutually exclusive content categories: (1) print- and
book-convention utterances (print/book), (2) feedback
and acknowledgment utterances (feedback), (3) Level 1
utterances, (4) Level 2 utterances, (5) Level 3 utterances,
and (6) Level 4 utterances (see Table 2).
The four levels describe the cognitive demands of
an utterance, moving, for example, from less cognitively
challenging uses of language, such as simply labeling an
object, to far more cognitively challenging uses of lan-
guage, such as providing explanations. Specifically, in
the context of book sharing, Level 1 utterances require
matching perception and include comments and ques-
tions that involve noticing an object or character, label-
ing a picture, or locating an object within a scene. Level
2 utterances require selective analysis or integration of
perceptions, including descriptions of objects or scenes.
Level 3 utterances are those requiring reordering of per-
ception or inferring, including recalling information,
making comparisons or judgments, making inferences
(except those involving predictions), and summarizing
information across pictures. Level 4 utterances require
reasoning about perceptions, such as making inferences
involving predictions, providing definitions, or explain-
ing ideas beyond what is included in the story.
Coding of the parent extratextual utterances was
conducted by Lisa Hammett Price and three research
assistants. Eleven percent of the book-sharing sessions
from the entire sample were randomly selected by Lisa
Price and given to another research assistant to code
independently without knowledge of the purpose. The
overall Cohens kappa for coding of parent utterances in
the storybooks was 0.76. For individual coding catego-
ries, the percent of exact agreement ranged from 91%
to 96%, and kappas ranged from 0.72 to 0.81, with the
exception of the category of print and book conven-
tions. In this category, the kappa was 0.66; although
there was 0.94 observed agreement, the code occurred
infrequently enough to make the expected agreement
quite high (0.82), resulting in a lower kappa score.
Interrater agreement for parent utterances in the exposi-
tory books revealed a Cohens kappa of 0.70. For indi-
vidual coding categories, the percent of exact agreement
ranged from 89% to 96%, and kappas ranged from 0.63
to 0.76, again, with lower kappas for categories with a
high expected agreement. Interrater percent of exact
agreement for the child utterances during storybook
sharing was 81% with a kappa of 0.74. For the exposi-
tory book sharing, percent of exact agreement was 82%
with a kappa of 0.76. Fleiss (1981) indicated that kappas
between 0.40 and 0.60 are fair, kappas between 0.60
and 0.75 are good, and kappas above 0.75 are excellent.
Table 2. Definitions and Examples of Coding Categories for Parent and Child Extratextual Utterances
Print and book
convention
utterances
References to the print including
letters, words, sound-symbol
associations
References to book conventions
including author, illustrator,
cover, title page, message is
conveyed by the print
P: Its called Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs by Gail Gibbons.
P: He wrote this to Jan. [Dedication]
P: Whats this book about?
C: The end!.
C: What does that say? P: This says ear.
C: Theres my name! P: Oh B thats in your name.
Feedback and
acknowledgment
utterances
Provide praise, positive or
negative feedback
Confirmation or
acknowledgement of childs
verbal and nonverbal
participation
P: Really?
P: Youre right, we did [have a pet].
P: Lots of cats. (exact imitation of child utterance)
P: Very good.
C: Uh huh.
C: What? (asking for clarification)
Level 1: Matching
perception
Label objects or characters
Comment on or ask for location
of object or character
Notice or direct attention to
pictured object or character
Rote counting
P: Look at these pigs.
P: A piglet.
P: Wheres the moon? Show me.
P: Lets see, look at the teddy bear.
P: What are those? C: Cats.
C: Theres a bear and, and, and theres a bird.
C: Hes inside the rocket.
C: Oooo a cake!
C: And thats a dog.
Level 2: Selective
analysis/integration
of perception
Describe characteristics of objects
or characters (size, shape,
color, quantity, parts)
Describe a scene including
actions that are perceptible in
the pictures
P: He has four toes on each foot.
P: Look, her babies are all drinking from that her pig milk.
P: That pig is following that lady.
P: What is that pig doing? C: Getting all the mud off.
C: What are they eating?
C: Thats a brown one.
C: Hes gonna go on his bicycle.
C: Theres a dog catching a ball.
Level 3: Reorder/
infer about
Make inferences
Recall information presented
earlier
Make judgments or evaluations
Identify similarities or differences
Text-to-life comparisons between
the childs life and something
in the book
Text-to-text comparisons
P: See, the dog is making [the cat] feel scared and hes hissing.
P: Do you think Bears sad maybe?
P: They see lots better than us, huh? C: Yeah, and they can...and they can
at night.
P: Pigs get hot and roll in the mud just like you get in your swimming pool
to cool off.
P: The pig weighs more than daddy does!
P: We read another book with a bat in it, Stella Luna.
C: No, but we had one [a pet]. It was Jons and his name was Shiloh. And
then he died away.
C: Why is he scared? P: Hes scared because he saw these paw prints in
the snow and he thought they may be a moon monster paw prints.
C: The bear is sleepy.
C: And thats like thats, thats my white dog.
C: He want a bite of cake.
Level 4: Reasoning
about perception
Make predictions
Provide factual knowledge or
definitions
Provide explanations
P: And then sometimes pollution from big plants makes it so bats cant live
healthy anymore.
P: So, when the baby bats only three months old, it flies by itself.
P: Ham comes from a pig, right? And bacon comes from a pig.
P: Piglets, which are baby pigs, right.
C: Does delicious mean good? P: Delicious means great! Delicious means
so good like the best thing ever!
C: Hes gonna blow it? (asking if Bear is going to blow out the candle)
Note. Coding system adapted from van Kleeck et al. (1997) and Blank, Rose, and Berlin (1978a; 1978b).
Thus, kappas above 0.70 would represent good to excel-
lent agreement and were considered acceptable for the
coding system in the current study. In addition, 66%
of the 248 transcripts coded (i.e., 164) were reviewed
and checked by a second coder who identified disagree-
ments; these disagreements were then resolved. Another
pair of research assistants marked all the bound mor-
phemes in the parent extratextual utterances because of
the importance of bound morphemes in correctly calcu-
lating mean length of utterance. Percent of exact agree-
ment on 20% of the samples revealed 98% agreement
for the storybooks (range = 81%100%) and 97% agree-
ment for the expository books (range = 79%100%). All
disagreements were resolved.
Analysis Methods
To accommodate for differences across dyads in the du-
ration of their interactions, some analyses were conduct-
ed using rate data calculated by dividing the number of
utterances in a content category by the duration in min-
utes for that condition, resulting in a rate-per-minute
variable. These variables were then assessed for univari-
ate normality. Several of the rate-per-minute variables for
parents in both conditions were found to violate normal-
ity. To address this issue, we used two procedures that
were recommended by Field (2005, p. 79). First, outliers
were identified using box plots and z scores greater than
2.5 standard deviations above the mean; their scores
were replaced with a score one unit larger than the next
highest score. Second, natural log transformations were
calculated for each variable, achieved by adding 1 and
taking the log for each value. These corrections resulted
in variables that did not violate normality based on the
Shapiro-Wilk test of normality. An alternative strategy
would be to delete outliers from the sample; however,
according to Field, deleting a case is only justifiable if
there is reason to believe that this case is not from the
population that you intended to sample (p. 78). A previ-
ous study (Hammett et al., 2003) revealed that there is a
small group of parents in this population that offers high
numbers of extratextual utterances; therefore, it would
be inappropriate to delete them from the sample.
Several of the measures of mean length of utterance
and vocabulary diversity also violated normality; there-
fore, natural log transformations were applied to all
those variables, again resulting in univariate normality.
Data on child extratextual utterances exhibited nonnor-
mality, and a variety of attempts to correct this were not
successful. Therefore, nonparametric tests were used for
the child variables. Effect sizes are reported through-
out. For simple comparisons, the correlation coefficient
r or the point-biserial correlation coefficient (r
2
pb
) is
reported. Cohen (1992) suggested that r values of .10
constitute a small effect, values of .30 constitute a me-
dium effect, and values of .50 constitute a large effect.
When multiple factors were included in an analysis of
variance (ANOVA), the partial eta squared (partial
2
)
is reported. Both partial
2
and r
2
pb
are interpreted as
the amount of outcome variable variance explained by a
specific variable (e.g., the grouping variable, interaction
effect, or within-subjects condition).
Results
Book-Sharing Questionnaire
A book-sharing questionnaire was used to collect data
on the home literacy practices of each family. Parents
in this sample reported that they began sharing books
with their children when they were infants (M = 4.0
months of age, SD = 4.1 months, range = 012 months).
Seventy-four percent of the parents in the sample re-
ported reading to their children daily or more than once
a day, 16% reported reading five to six times a week,
and 10% reported reading one to four times a week.
They estimated reading for a mean of 194 minutes per
week (SD = 159 minutes, range = 20840 minutes); this
included four stay-at-home parents who reported read-
ing for 500 minutes or more per week. They owned a
mean of 156 childrens books (SD = 110, range = 30
700). Parents were asked to quantify the types of books
they read by answering the question For every ten
books that you read, how many are the following types
of books? They reported that the majority of their
reading involved storybooks (M = 50%, SD = 18.53%,
range = 10%80%) and, less often, rhyming books
(M = 14%, SD = 10.46%, range = 0%60%), nonfic-
tion books (M = 14%, SD = 11.66%, range = 0%60%),
alphabet books (M = 11%, SD = 6.12%, range = 0%
30%), and counting books (M = 10%, SD = 7.36%,
range = 0%40%).
Storybook and Expository Book-Sharing
Sessions
When sharing the books provided in the current study,
parents read a mean of 98% of the text in both story-
books (SD = 10.4%), and they read 89% of all the text
in both expository books (SD = 23.4%). This differ-
ence was statistically significant, t(61) = 3.44, p < .001,
r
2
pb
= .16. Expository book sharing was significantly
longer in duration (M = 16 minutes, 26 seconds for both
books, SD = 5 minutes, 7 seconds) than was storybook
sharing (M = 11 minutes, 27 seconds for both books,
SD = 3 minutes, 40 seconds), t(61) = 10.84, p < .001,
r
2
pb
= .66, indicating that genre explained 66% of the
variance in duration. Pearson product-moment corre-
lations revealed high correlations between the story-
book condition and the expository book condition for
the duration of interactions (r = .71, p < .001), for the
total numbers of parent extratextual utterances (r = .68,
p < .001), and for parent rates of extratextual utter-
ances (r = .63, p < .001). This indicated that parents
were consistent across conditions; that is, parents who
offered large numbers of, and high rates of, extratextual
utterances during the storybook condition also offered
large numbers and high rates during the expository
book condition and vice versa. Medium to high correla-
tions were also found across conditions for parent use
of utterances in each coding category (print and book
conventions r = .27, p < .05; feedback r = .66, p < .001;
Level 1 r = .46, p < .001; Level 2 r = .55, p < .001; Level
3 r = .57, p < .001; Level 4 r = .58, p < 0.001). Similarly,
there were high correlations between the storybook and
expository conditions for childrens total numbers of
extratextual utterances (r = .71, p < .001) and for chil-
drens rates of extratextual utterances (r = .58, p < .001)
and medium to high correlations for utterances in each
coding category (print and book conventions r = .45,
p < .001; feedback r = .75, p < .001; Level 1 r = .29,
p < .05; Level 2 r = .65, p < .001; Level 3 r = .67, p < .001;
Level 4 r = .57, p < .001).
Parent Extratextual Utterances
Four aspects of parent extratextual talk were analyzed
across conditions: (1) amount of extratextual talk based
on frequencies of extratextual utterances as well as rate-
per-minute, (2) the content of extratextual talk using
rate-per-minute variables for each of the six coding
categories, (3) mean length of extratextual utterances
(MLU), and (4) vocabulary diversity based on NDW
and VOCD measures. All analyses were initially con-
ducted using two-by-two mixed-factors ANOVAs with
a between-groups factor comparing educator parents
to noneducator parents to see whether educator par-
ents shared the books differently than did noneducator
parents. None of these analyses revealed either group-
by-genre interactions or between-groups main effects.
Therefore, analyses were conducted with educator par-
ents and noneducator parents pooled.
Amount of Talk
Analysis of the number of extratextual utterances pro-
vided by parents during each genre condition was con-
ducted using a repeated-measures ANOVA, revealing
that parents provided significantly greater numbers of
extratextual utterances during expository book shar-
ing (M = 199, SD = 85) compared with storybook shar-
ing (M = 98, SD = 64; see Table 3), F(1, 61) = 146.93,
p < .001, partial
2
= .71, explaining 71% of the vari-
ance. Given the number of sentences in each type of
book, this means that parents offered about one extra-
textual utterance for every sentence in the storybooks,
and they offered about two extratextual utterances for
every sentence in the expository books.
Because analyses using raw data do not take into
consideration the differences across conditions in the
durations of the sessions, amount of talk was also
analyzed using the rate of extratextual utterances per
minute. Again, a repeated-measures ANOVA was sta-
tistically significant, F(1, 61) = 85.17, p < .001, partial
2
= .58, indicating that genre accounted for 58% of
the variance in rate of extratextual utterances. In the
Variable Storybooks Expository books
M
(SD) Range
M
(SD) Range t p value
Effect size
r
Print & book
conventions
6.65
(4.63)
126 11.79
(10.14)
152 4.41 .000 .48
Feedback 23.42
(17.70)
395 44.76
(30.38)
4187 9.70 .000 .78
Level 1 23.02
(17.32)
077 47.37
(24.52)
11135 8.66 .000 .74
Level 2 17.61
(13.06)
156 24.72
(12.66)
159 4.80 .000 .51
Level 3 18.06
(12.89)
059 41.08
(22.15)
9132 11.31 .000 .82
Level 4 9.73
(11.15)
053 29.74
(20.66)
0118 11.67 .000 .83
Mean total
utterances
98.05
(63.72)
15289 199.00
(85.38)
54447 F = 146.93 p < .001 partial
2
= .71
Table 3. Parent Mean Numbers of Extratextual Utterances, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for Each Coding Category
During the Sharing of Two Storybooks and Two Expository Books
expository condition, parents offered a mean of 11.90
utterances per minute (SD = 3.33), and in the storybook
condition they offered a mean of 8.04 utterances per
minute (SD = 3.42; see Table 4). Thus, even after ac-
counting for differences in duration, parent extratextual
talk occurred at higher rates while reading expository
books.
Content of Extratextual Talk
The content of parent extratextual utterances was ana-
lyzed by comparing their rates of utterances in each of
the six coding categories using a two-by-six repeated-
measures ANOVA with a within-subjects factor of genre
(with two levels, storybook and expository book) and a
within-subjects factor of content category (with six lev-
els coded, including feedback, print and book, Level 1,
Level 2, Level 3, and Level 4). Mauchlys test indicated
that the assumption of sphericity was violated for the
main effect of content category,
2
(14) = 37.28, p = .001.
Therefore, the degrees of freedom for that analysis were
corrected using the Huynh-Feldt epsilon estimate of
sphericity ( = 0.884).
Results revealed that all effects were statistically
significant. There was a statistically significant genre-
by-content category interaction, F(5, 300) = 22.03,
p < .001, partial
2
= .27, accounting for 27% of the vari-
ance and indicating that rates of extratextual utterances
in each of the six coding categories depended upon the
genre of the book (see Figure 1). Results also revealed
a significant main effect for genre, F(1, 61) = 105.07,
p < .001, partial
2
= .63, which accounted for 63% of
the variance. The main effect for content category was
also significant (using the Huynh-Feldt epsilon esti-
mate), F(4.42, 270) = 92.32, p < .001, partial
2
= .60,
accounting for 60% of the variance and indicating that
some types of extratextual utterances occurred at sig-
nificantly higher rates than others did. These findings
must be interpreted within the context of the interac-
tion effect, and therefore, multiple contrasts were run
using related-samples t tests, adjusting the p value for
family-wise error rate (i.e., p < .008 was necessary for
statistical significance). Although parents used simi-
lar rates of print- and book-convention utterances and
Level 2 utterances across the two conditions, they used
significantly higher rates of feedback, Level 1, Level 3,
and Level 4 utterances during expository book sharing
compared with during storybook sharing (see Table 4
and Figure 1).
Utterance Length
The MLU by parents in each of the two genre conditions
was compared as one method for exploring whether
genre affected the morphosyntax of parent extratextual
talk. A paired-samples t test revealed that parents exhib-
ited a significantly higher MLU during the expository
book condition (M = 5.72, SD = 1.12, range = 3.75
8.13) compared with during the storybook condition
(M = 5.32, SD = 0.86, range = 3.217.09), t(61) = 3.72,
Figure 1. Parent rates of extratextual utterances per minute in each of the six coding categories in each of the book genre
conditions
P
r
i
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t
/
b
o
o
k
L
e
v
e
l

4
L
e
v
e
l

3
L
e
v
e
l

2
L
e
v
e
l

1
F
e
e
d
b
a
c
k
Coding category
R
a
t
e
s

o
f

u
t
t
e
r
a
n
c
e
s

p
e
r

m
i
n
u
t
e
Parent extratexual utterances
Expository
Story
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
p < .001, r = .42, with genre explaining 18% of the vari-
ance in MLU. Recall that the mean length of sentences
contained in the texts of the expository book sets was
12.44, and the mean for the storybook sets was 11.09.
Thus, in both conditions, parents demonstrated MLUs
that were substantially lower than those of the sentenc-
es in the books themselves.
Vocabulary Diversity
Two measures of vocabulary diversity, NDW and
VOCD, were obtained and entered into analyses.
Results revealed that parents used greater NDWs dur-
ing the expository book condition (M = 387, SD = 111)
compared with the storybook condition (M = 221,
SD = 93), and the difference was statistically significant,
t(61) = 12.11, p < .001, r = .84, accounting for 71% of
the variance. This can be compared with the NDW con-
tained in the book sets; the expository books contained
a mean of 493 different words, whereas the storybook
sets contained a mean of 368 different words.
The second measure of vocabulary diversity, VOCD,
also revealed differences across the two genre condi-
tions. Although NDW is influenced by the number of
utterances included in the analysis (Klee, 1992), VOCD
is not, and therefore, it is likely a more stable measure
of vocabulary diversity. Six parents used too few ex-
tratextual utterances during at least one condition to
calculate a VOCD score, and therefore, this analysis
was conducted using the remaining 56 parents. The
results of a related-samples t test revealed that parent
VOCD scores were significantly higher during the ex-
pository book condition (M = 94, SD = 22) compared
with during the storybook condition (M = 75, SD = 19),
t(55) = 7.82, p < .001, r = .73, indicating that genre ac-
counted for 53% of the variance in VOCD scores. Parent
VOCD scores were comparable to the VOCD scores for
the book sets themselves (expository VOCD M = 93, SD
= 4.5, storybook VOCD M = 71, SD = 7.4).
Childrens Extratextual Utterances
Two aspects of childrens extratextual talk were ana-
lyzed across genre: (1) amount of extratextual talk based
on numbers of extratextual utterances and rates of ex-
tratextual utterances per minute and (2) the content of
extratextual talk using rate-per-minute data for each of
the six coding categories. Because the child variables
violated univariate normality and no method of trans-
formation successfully corrected this, nonparametric
analyses were used. Specifically, the Wilcoxon signed-
ranks test for related samples was used along with an
effect size measure (r = Z/N, where N equals the total
number of observations; Field, 2005).
Amount of Talk
Children offered significantly greater numbers of ex-
tratextual utterances during expository book shar-
ing (M = 78.55, SD = 49.19) compared with storybook
Table 4. Parent Mean Rates of Extratextual Utterances per Minute, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for Each Coding
Category During the Sharing of Two Storybooks and Two Expository Books
Storybooks Expository Books
Variable M
(SD)
Range M
(SD)
Range t p value* Effect size
r
Print & book
conventions
0.58
(0.33)
.101.48 0.61
(0.31)
.121.14 0.72 .475 .09
Feedback 1.93
(1.07)
.334.75 2.64
(1.28)
.407.71 5.91 .001 .60
Level 1 1.89
(1.18)
.004.53 2.87
(1.15)
.927.17 6.54 .001 .64
Level 2 1.46
(0.88)
.083.65 1.5
(0.70)
.073.14 .92 .363 .12
Level 3 1.46
(0.72)
.003.00 2.43
(0.85)
.914.39 8.69 .001 .74
Level 4 0.70
(0.56)
.001.90 1.77
(1.15)
.006.41 9.93 .001 .79
Mean rate of
utterances per
minute
8.04
(3.42)
2.0016.80 11.90
(3.33)
5.4522.32 F = 85.17 p < .001 partial
2
= .58
*Based on a Bonferroni adjustment for family-wise error rate, p < .008 was considered statistically significant.
sharing (M = 40.18, SD = 27.95), and the Wilcoxon
signed-ranks test revealed that this difference was sig-
nificant (Z = 6.6, p < .001, r = .59), explaining 35% of
the variance (see Table 5). Children also exhibited high-
er rates of extratextual utterances per minute in the ex-
pository condition (M = 4.59, SD = 1.84) compared with
in the storybook condition (M = 3.33, SD = 1.66), and
this difference was statistically significant (Z = 5.07,
p < .001, r = .46), with genre explaining 21% of the
variance (see Table 6).
Content of Extratextual Talk
Again, the Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests for related
samples were used to compare childrens rates of utter-
ances in each coding category. Children did not differ
statistically across the two genres in the content catego-
ries of print and book conventions, Level 1, or Level
2 (see Table 6 and Figure 2). Thus, some children ex-
hibited higher rates for these content categories in the
storybook condition, whereas others exhibited higher
rates in the expository condition. Childrens rates did
differ significantly, however, in the content categories
of feedback, Level 3, and Level 4 utterances. In these
content categories, children were much more likely to
exhibit higher rates of talk during the expository con-
dition than they were in the storybook condition. The
effect sizes for these content categories were medium
(feedback r = .39, Level 4 r = .25) to large (Level 3
r = .53).
Discussion
When parents and preschool children engage in book
sharing, their focus is on a particular book; the content,
including the text and the illustrations, is the focus of
their interaction. In the current study, analyses of the
talk that occurred when sharing storybooks versus ex-
pository books revealed that the book does indeed have
strong effects on the talk that takes place. Such find-
ings need to be interpreted within the context of the
studys four limitations, and therefore, we present those
upfront. First, the focus of the current study was on
parent and child extratextual utterances during book
sharing, but parent utterances were analyzed separately
from child utterances, rather than looking at the se-
quential nature of the interactions. Conceptually, it will
be important in future research to study the reciprocal
effects of adults and childrens utterances during inter-
actions, as has been done in previous studies (Yaden,
2003). Second, the sample in this study represented
families who were middle to upper middle SES, primar-
ily European American (87%), who reported book shar-
ing as an established routine and who had children who
were typically developing. Although this creates strong
internal validity, it limits the external validity of the
current results. Further research is needed with fami-
lies from other populations, including economically and
culturally diverse families, children with language or
developmental delays, and families who have not yet es-
tablished book sharing as a routine. Third, no attempt
Storybooks Expository books
Variable M
(SD)
Range M
(SD)
Range Wilcoxon signed-ranks
test Z
p value Effect size r
Print & book
conventions
1.87
(2.63)
014
5.05
(8.28)
044
-3.85 .000 -.35
Feedback 12.40
(9.26)
040
24.34
(16.73)
291
-6.25 .000 -.56
Level 1 11.13
(8.21)
033
17.40
(12.35)
159
-3.61 .000 -.32
Level 2
5.74
(5.03)
025
9.92
(8.48)
045 -4.47 .000 -.40
Level 3 5.34
(6.22)
036
14.69
(13.63)
188
-6.27 .000 -.56
Level 4 3.69
(5.13)
029
7.15
(6.50)
032
-4.35 .000 -.39
Mean total
utterances
40.18
(27.95)
2160
78.55
(49.19)
17295
-6.60 .000 -.59
Table 5. Child Mean Numbers of Extratextual Utterances, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for Each Coding Category
During the Sharing of Two Storybooks and Two Expository Books
was made to determine the effects of extratextual talk
during book sharing on childrens later language out-
comes. Further research will be required to determine
whether the differences in parentchild talk across
genres have direct implications for childrens language
learning. Fourth, as in all research on book sharing, the
results must be interpreted in the context of the specific
books used in the study. The books were written by a
single author within each genre, and although this in-
creases the internal validity of the results, it decreases
the external validity. Thus, the results of this study can-
not be generalized to all storybooks or all expository
books. Although additional research is needed in each
of these areas, the current study is the first to directly
compare the effects of book genre on extratextual talk
in a large sample of parentchild dyads controlled for
*Based on a Bonferroni adjustment for family-wise error rate, p < .007 was considered statistically significant.
Table 6. Child Mean Rates of Extratextual Utterances per Minute, Standard Deviations, and Ranges for Each Coding
Category During the Sharing of Two Storybooks and Two Expository Books
Storybooks Expository books
Variable M
(SD)
Range M
(SD)
Range Wilcoxon signed-
ranks test Z
p value* Effect size
r
Print & book
conventions
0.16
(.22)
.001.15
0.28
(.41)
.001.68 -2.30 .021 -.20
Feedback
1.07
(.66)
.002.78
1.46
(.78)
.113.73 -4.35 .000 -.39
Level 1
0.93
(.64)
.003.23
1.03
(.61)
.062.71 -1.08 .000 -.10
Level 2
0.47
(.35)
.002.07
0.78
(.41)
.001.96
-1.89 .058 -.17
Level 3
0.41
(.37)
.001.74
0.84
(.54)
.052.59 -5.87 .000 -.53
Level 4
0.28
(.34)
.001.40
0.40
(.32)
.001.25 -2.83 .005 -.25
Mean rate of
utterances per
minute
3.33
(1.66)
.228.92
4.59
(1.94)
1.419.03 -5.07 .000 -.46
Figure 2. Child Rates of Extratextual Utterances per Minute in Each of the Six Coding Categories in Each of the Book
Genre Conditions
P
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4
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2
L
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1
F
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Coding category
R
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a
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Child extratexual utterances
Expository
Story
3
2.5
2
1.5
1
0.5
0
SES. Analyses revealed five similarities across story-
book and expository book sharing and five differences,
and these have implications for families, educators, and
researchers.
Similarities Between Storybook
Despite substantial differences across the two sets of
books, there were five similarities across storybook and
expository book sharing. First, correlations revealed
that dyads within the sample who talked more and en-
gaged in book sharing for longer durations tended to
do so with both genres of books. This similarity across
the two conditions provides evidence that middle in-
come parents and children demonstrate tendencies to-
ward more or less talk and that these tendencies remain
consistent regardless of book genre, at least for the two
book genres studied here. Such findings corroborate the
idea that amount of talk might be related to general ten-
dencies in families toward more or less talk across all
activities (Farkas & Beron, 2004; Hart & Risley, 1995,
1999). As will be discussed below, however, the fact
that parents and children who talked more with one
genre of book also tended to talk more with the other
genre does not mean that the genre did not have any ef-
fect on the overall amount of talk. Group comparisons
did reveal significantly more talk with the expository
books than with the storybooks.
Second, there were no significant differences across
conditions in the rates of utterances in the content cat-
egory of print and book conventions. Although parents
and children tended to use greater raw numbers of
print- and book-convention utterances in the expository
book condition, these differences disappeared when
rate variables were calculated based on the durations
of the book-sharing sessions. This finding is somewhat
surprising given the frequency of print embedded in the
illustrations in the expository books; however, it pro-
vides additional evidence that parents and children fo-
cus on the content in books rather than print and book
conventions when reading unfamiliar storybooks and
extends these findings to the expository book genre. It
is possible that repeated exposure to the same books
might result in more talk about print and book conven-
tions. Alternatively, it may be that the print in these
books was not as salient as was the print in previous
studies that did show higher amounts of print-related
talk (Holdaway, 1979; Smolkin et al., 1988, 1992).
Third, there were no significant differences across
conditions in parent rates of Level 2 utterances, which
included talk about the characters, actions, and attri-
butes. Previous research has revealed that parents and
children tend to focus on the illustrations when dis-
cussing the book (Ezell & Justice, 1998; Ninio, 1983;
Shapiro et al., 1997; Tower, 2002). Every page in the
Frank Asch books contained illustrations showing what
Bear and Little Bird were doing; similarly, every page
of the Gail Gibbons books contained illustrations of
animals engaged in characteristic behaviors. Therefore,
given the books used in the study, similar numbers of
Level 2 utterances might be expected in both conditions
and so this finding is not surprising.
Fourth, in both conditions, parent extratextual ut-
terances were significantly shorter in MLU compared
with the sentences of the text in the books themselves.
Parents used utterances with a mean length of 5.32
morphemes in the storybook condition and 5.72 mor-
phemes in the expository book condition compared with
the much longer mean length of sentences contained in
the texts (11.09 and 12.44, respectively). Children who
are typically developing in this age range are expected
to exhibit an MLU of 3.3 to 5.1 (Owens, 1999). Based
only on the parents MLU and ranges for the sample,
parents appeared to be providing extratextual talk dur-
ing both conditions that was slightly above the expres-
sive language abilities of typically developing children
in this age group. Such reduced utterance length could
provide an important scaffold for children between the
more complex language of the books and the childrens
current linguistic abilities, possibly facilitating better
comprehension of the text, although more research is
needed to determine whether there is a direct causal
relationship.
Finally, in both genre conditions, parents and chil-
dren exhibited a wide range of variability in the numbers
and rates of extratextual utterances offered during book
sharing, despite the fact that the sample represents a
relatively homogenous group in terms of SES. The rang-
es for each content category were very large both for
parents and for children. This corroborates earlier find-
ings (e.g., Allison & Watson, 1994; Shapiro et al., 1997;
Sorsby & Martlew, 1991; van Kleeck et al., 1996, 1997)
and provides additional evidence that we should expect
high variability within this population regardless of the
genre of book. Although there is evidence that amount
of talk is associated with SES (Bus et al., 2000; Hart
& Risley, 1995, 1999; Leseman & de Jong, 1998), the
substantial variability within this sample would suggest
that even middle income families vary in their practices
during book sharing in terms of amount of talk. It sug-
gests further that educators should not assume that all
families from this population are highly interactive dur-
ing book sharing. Furthermore, it may be important to
not assume that more is better regarding the amount of
book-sharing discussion that occurs. To date, there is
no evidence regarding how much interaction is optimal
or whether too frequent interactions may interfere with
the benefits of book sharing (e.g., making it hard for
the child to follow the story because it is interrupted
too often). Future research might fruitfully explore the
issue of optimal amounts of book-sharing discussion,
which may not turn out to be a simple relationship but
may instead vary for different child language outcomes
(e.g., vocabulary, sentence complexity, story narrative
skills, later reading comprehension skills).
Differences Between Storybook
Parents and children also exhibited five differences be-
tween the two genre conditions in the talk that occurred.
First, there were significant differences between the two
conditions in the proportion of the text read by parents.
Parents read 98% of the text in the storybook sets and
89% of the text in the expository sets. Parents could be
responding to the nature of expository text structure
itself, especially the structure of these particular books
written by Gibbons, which allows greater flexibility
than in storybooks to skip text without substantially
interfering with comprehension of the subsequent text.
During storybook sharing, parents may have responded
to the fact that comprehension of narrative text likely
depends on reading without omissions, and therefore
they read 98% of the text with these books. The fact
that parents chose to omit any text could be viewed
negatively because it is the text that exposes children to
the written language register, including dimensions of
that register that tend to differ between storybooks and
expository books, such as the references to categories
and the use of timeless verb constructions in expository
books. However, it is important to emphasize here that
these parents did read a mean of 89% and 98% of the
sentences across the two genres, indicating that most of
the text was read in both conditions.
Second, parentchild interactions focused on ex-
pository books were longer in duration and included
significantly higher numbers and rates of extratextual
utterances compared with interactions focused on sto-
rybooks. Parents and children interacted on average for
five minutes longer when sharing two expository books
(16 minutes, 26 seconds) compared with when sharing
two storybooks (11 minutes, 27 seconds). Furthermore,
parents used on average over two times as many utter-
ances during expository book sharing compared with
storybook sharing, and their mean rate of talk increased
from 8.04 utterances per minute in the storybook con-
dition to 11.90 utterances per minute in the expository
book condition. Even parents who used the lowest num-
bers of extratextual utterances in the storybook condi-
tion offered substantially higher numbers and rates of
utterances during expository book sharing. Likewise,
children used on average almost two times as many
utterances during expository book sharing compared
with during storybook sharing, and their mean rate of
talk increased from 3.33 utterances per minute during
storybook sharing to 4.59 during expository book shar-
ing. Findings of longer durations and greater numbers
and rates of extratextual utterances by parents and chil-
dren are consistent with the results of previous studies
that explored the effects of genre on book-sharing inter-
actions (Pellegrini et al., 1990; Potter & Haynes, 2000;
Vander Woude, 1998). The limited experience these
families had with expository books compared with sto-
rybooks, as reported on their home book-sharing prac-
tices questionnaires discussed earlier, might explain
these differences, and this is discussed further on.
The third difference between the storybook and ex-
pository book sharing results is that although parents
and childrens talk was predominantly at low levels of
cognitive demand in both conditions, they used greater
numbers and rates of utterances at higher levels of cog-
nitive demand during expository book sharing com-
pared with during storybook sharing. Parents offered a
mean of 71 utterances at Levels 3 and 4 during exposi-
tory book sharing at a rate of 4.20 per minute, whereas
during storybook sharing, they offered a mean of 28 ut-
terances at a rate of 2.16 per minute. Similarly, children
offered a mean of 22 utterances at Levels 3 and 4 during
expository book sharing at a rate of 1.24 per minute,
whereas during storybook sharing they offered a mean
of 9 utterances at a rate of 0.69 per minute. Thus, inter-
actions about these expository books naturally led to
an increase in talk at higher levels of cognitive demand
compared with the interactions about these storybooks
without any intervention provided.
Research shows that exposure to language at higher
levels of cognitive demand has a positive effect both on
childrens ability to use language themselves at these
higher levels of cognitive demand and on their later
literacy abilities (Peterson & McCabe, 1994; Taylor,
Pearson, Peterson, & Rodriquez, 2002; van Kleeck et
al., 1997). Teachers who make substantial gains with
low income children in the area of literacy have been
found to use more cognitively challenging language
compared with teachers who are less successful with
these children (Taylor et al., 2002). Similarly, children
whose parents use prompts and scaffolding to elicit in-
formation at higher levels of cognitive demand during
childrens retellings of personal narratives demonstrate
better use of this type of language later compared with
children whose parents did not (Peterson & McCabe,
1994). If exposure to talk at higher levels of cognitive
demand, and practice using it expressively, can result in
gains in childrens language and literacy, then interac-
tions about books that facilitate the use of such language
by parents and children might prove beneficial. Indeed,
one experimental intervention study did find that when
adults embedded questions at both low and high levels
of cognitive demand during book sharing, the children
with language disorders did indeed make gains at both
levels (van Kleeck, Vander Woude, & Hammett, 2006).
Further research using such experimental designs with
larger sample sizes is needed to confirm and extend
those results.
The fourth difference between the two conditions
was the finding that parents used almost two times as
many feedback and acknowledgment utterances and
two times as many Level 1 utterances in the expository
book condition compared with the storybook condition
(see Table 3) and results for the children were similar
(see Table 6). Van Kleeck suggests that parents use of
such utterances may help children feel confident and
successful during the routine and therefore more will-
ing to participate in it (van Kleeck, 2003). Feedback ut-
terances may boost childrens confidence because they
encourage and reinforce the childs participation (Bus
et al., 2000; Crain-Thoreson & Dale, 1999; McNeill
& Fowler, 1999), and Level 1 utterances may increase
confidence because they are well within the childs re-
ceptive and expressive capabilities if they are typically
developing (Blank et al., 1978a; Skarakis-Doyle, Miller,
& Reichheld, 2000). Increasing childrens participa-
tion is often a desirable outcome of book-sharing in-
terventions (e.g., Crain-Thoreson & Dale, 1999). In one
study, increasing parent use of praise simultaneously
increased their use of other facilitative utterances like
expansions and open-ended questions, at least in some
participants (McNeill & Fowler, 1999). In addition to
creating a positive climate and increasing child partici-
pation, van Kleeck (2003) has suggested that utterances
at low levels of cognitive demand might reflect a par-
ents unconscious transmission of the middle class cul-
tural agenda of having children verbally display their
knowledge to adults, and given the prevalence of this
type of interaction in classrooms (Reid, 2000), such ap-
prenticeship in verbal display may serve children well
as they enter school.
In addition to influencing the book-sharing climate,
the use of greater numbers of Level 1 utterances could
also have benefits for childrens vocabulary growth.
Researchers have found that labeling routines are a
prevalent pattern during book sharing (Ninio, 1983)
and that the practice facilitates receptive and expres-
sive vocabulary growth (Hargrave & Snchal, 2000;
Snchal, 1997). Weizman and Snow (2001) and Beals
and Tabors (1995) both found positive associations be-
tween mothers use of rare vocabulary and childrens
later vocabulary abilities. Indeed, although we did not
analyze the labeling and requests for labels that oc-
curred in a systematic fashion in the current study, we
noted that parents often labeled rarer words they did
not think their child knew (e.g., labeling the muzzle of
the dog). Alternatively, when they believed the child
knew the word, they would request a label from the
child and hold the child accountable for knowing the
label by waiting for the childs response (e.g., asking
the child to label the dogs eye and mouth). Given that
parents and children in the current study engaged in
greater amounts of talk at Level 1 during interactions
focused on the expository books compared with during
interactions focused on the storybooks, educators could
consider expository book sharing as a means to increase
vocabulary exposure.
Fifth, parents showed greater vocabulary diversity
and longer utterances during the expository book con-
dition compared with during the storybook condition.
Based on their mean VOCD scores, it is evident that
parents talk matched the level of vocabulary diversity
contained in the books themselves. Further, although
parents MLUs were much lower than the mean length
of sentences in the books, they used significantly longer
utterances during expository book sharing compared
with during storybook sharing. Future research is need-
ed to explore whether such differences in vocabulary
diversity and utterance length during book sharing re-
sult in better child outcomes. One caveat here, though,
is that at some point, longer sentence length and greater
vocabulary diversity will make the book inappropriate
and too challenging for children of this age. It would be
helpful to have evidence for how to best match these
book characteristics to childrens language abilities for
maximal benefit.
Conclusion
The results of the current study reveal robust differ-
ences in the amounts and types of extratextual talk that
occur when parents and preschool-age children share
storybooks and expository books, at least when shar-
ing the books used here. Further research is needed to
confirm that this holds true with other sets of story-
books and expository books. The fact that parents and
children naturally vary their extratextual talk when
sharing the books chosen from these two genres with-
out any instruction to do so reveals that changing the
book genre used during the activity has the potential
to affect the numbers and types of interactions that
occur, at least within middle income families who al-
ready have existing book-sharing routines. Genre also
affected the duration of the interactions, with parents
and children interacting longer when focused on the
expository books compared with when focused on the
storybooks. Consequently, intervention programs that
seek to change these aspects of the interactions during
book sharing in this population could consider varying
the book genre to include expository books. However,
to date, the research does not provide evidence regard-
ing how much talk during book sharing is optimal for
language and literacy development and which children
might benefit from more or less talk, or more of a spe-
cific type of utterance, during the routine. Further re-
search is needed to understand the implications of these
naturally occurring differences in parentchild interac-
tions when sharing these two genres of books.
Given the findings of the current study, there can
be no question that the genre of book is an important
variable to consider when studying the extratextual talk
that occurs between parents and their children dur-
ing book sharing. Indeed, storybooks become less and
less frequently used in classrooms as children progress
through the elementary school years, and expository
texts come to increasingly dominate the curriculum.
Preparing preschoolers for this genre by having adults
support their ability to take information from such texts
may therefore prove to be an important dimension of
their preschool literacy apprenticeship that, to date, has
rarely been considered by researchers or educators.
Acknowledgments
The current study was supported by a Bamford-Lahey Childrens
Foundation Scholarship and a University of Georgia Dissertation
Completion Award, both awarded to Lisa Hammett Price. We wish
to thank Bethany Abbatiello, Ashley Blakely, Julie Cooper, Caroline
Frick, Erin Meade, Vanessa Rakaczky, and Alayna Wade for help
with transcription and coding of data, and Colleen Cook and Betsy
Burmeister for assistance with the expository books. We are indebt-
ed to all the parents and children who welcomed us into their homes
with books and video cameras to allow us to learn from them.
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Submitted January 16, 2008
Final revision received November 13, 2008
Accepted November 25, 2008
Lisa Hammett Price is an associate professor in the
Department of Special Education and Clinical Services at
Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Her research focuses
on book sharing interactions between parents and children.
She can be contacted at Indiana University of Pennsylvania,
Department of Special Education and Clinical Services, 203
Davis Hall, Indiana, PA 15705, USA; e-mail lprice@iup.edu.
Anne van Kleeck is Professor and Callier Research Scholar
in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences at the
University of Texas at Dallas. She teaches and conducts
research on preliteracy development, socialization,
assessment, and intervention, both in children who are
typically developing and those with language disorders.
She can be contacted at the University of Texas at Dallas,
School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences, Callier Center for
Communication Disorders, 1966 Inwood Road, Dallas, TX
75235, USA; e-mail annevk@utdallas.edu.
Carl J. Huberty is Professor Emeritus in the Department
of Educational Psychology and Instructional Technology at
The University of Georgia. He teaches courses in statistical
methods and consults with faculty on various research
grants. He can be contacted at The University of Georgia,
Educational Psychology, 325 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA
30602, USA; e-mail chuberty@uga.edu.

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Reading Research Quarterly 44(2) pp. 171194 dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.44.2.

4 2009 International Reading Association 171

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