What happens before book reading starts? An analysis of teacher–child behaviours with print and digital books

The study investigates how kindergarten teachers use pre-reading activities to activate children’s prior knowledge of words to facilitate the development of new knowledge. The study includes the co-reading of both analogue and digital texts. The research questions are: (1) How much time is spent establishing common awareness and activating prior knowledge before reading in printed picture books and picture book apps? (2) How do common awareness and activated prior knowledge manifest themselves in the reading of digital picture books in the two cases where most time was spent on pre-reading activities?

There was considerable variation in how much time the kindergarten teachers spent on pre-reading activities. They spent the least time on pre-reading activities before reading digital picture books. This means that not all children receive the same opportunities regarding language development and text comprehension. In the two cases where the pre-reading activities were filmed, it emerged that the digital medium gave the kindergarten teachers the opportunity to broaden their pre-reading repertoire beyond traditional pre-reading activities. It also emerged that the two kindergarten teachers who spent the most time on pre-reading activities before reading in the picture book app took advantage of these opportunities.

Twelve kindergarten teachers from six different kindergartens in Norway conducted four reading sessions with both analogue and digital picture books for up to six children (a total of 72 children). The kindergarten teachers participated in a workshop on pre-reading activities prior to the study. The reading sessions were filmed by the kindergarten teachers themselves. The video recordings of the reading sessions were then qualitatively encoded and quantitatively analysed by the researchers.

Hoel, T., Stangeland, E. B. & Schulz-Heidorf, K. (2020). “What happens before book reading starts? An analysis of teacher–child behaviours with print and digital books”. Frontiers in Psychology, 11(2020):artikkel 570652.