Effects of an Animated Book Reading Intervention on Emergent Literacy Skill Development

Abstract

Early language and reading experiences are known to predict later reading success. Interactive shared reading activities particularly benefit children’s emergent literacy development. Converging research has begun to show that certain educational television programs can significantly influence early literacy skill acquisition. There is a need, however, to combine interactive shared reading with the educational television production techniques known to purposefully facilitate emergent literacy. This research begins to address that need by pilot testing a research-based animated book reading intervention developed specifically to promote the vocabulary, alphabet knowledge, print concept, and rhyme knowledge of preschoolers in child care between the ages of 3 and 5 years. Employing a quasi-experimental pre- and posttest research design, results indicate that children in the experimental group made greater gains on standardized emergent literacy measures compared with children in a control group. Early findings suggest that the animated book reading intervention may be a feasible and effective way for child care educators to teach early reading skills.