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Effects of Storybook Reading Styleon Comprehension: The Role of WordElaboration and Coherence QuestionsKatherine Strasser a , Antonia Larraín b & María Rosa Lissi aa School of Psychology , Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chileb Faculty of Psychology , Universidad Alberto HurtadoPublished online: 28 Jun 2013.

To cite this article: Katherine Strasser , Antonia Larran & Mara Rosa Lissi (2013) Effects of StorybookReading Style on Comprehension: The Role of Word Elaboration and Coherence Questions, EarlyEducation & Development, 24:5, 616-639, DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2012.715570

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Effects of Storybook Reading Style on Comprehension:The Role of Word Elaboration and Coherence Questions

Katherine Strasser

School of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Antonia Larraın

Faculty of Psychology, Universidad Alberto Hurtado

Marıa Rosa Lissi

School of Psychology, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile

Research Findings: Two studies examined the effects of specific reading styles on the comprehen-

sion of stories of at-risk preschool Chilean children. Study 1 examined the effect of word elaboration

on story comprehension with 72 children. Children who were exposed to elaborations of unknown

words during storybook reading achieved better comprehension than those who were not after

vocabulary and narrative comprehension skills were controlled. This effect was mediated by chil-

dren’s learning of the elaborated words and thus provides evidence for the causal role of word

knowledge in story comprehension. Study 2 examined the effect of asking questions about coherence

relations versus other kinds of open-ended questions such as requests for predictions, descriptions,

and real-life connections. Children exposed to coherence questions achieved better story comprehen-

sion than those exposed to other open-ended questions after initial vocabulary, narrative comprehen-

sion skills, and attentiveness were controlled. Practice or Policy: These findings suggest the use ofspecific reading strategies for improving comprehension. Teaching rare words and asking

coherence-related questions during reading leads to better understanding of the story. These are 2

easy methods that could be integrated into daily teaching practices to help improve children’s

narrative comprehension.

Among activities recommended for stimulating language development in the preschool years,

few have received as much interest as storybook reading (SBR). The effects of reading books

to young children have been extensively investigated in different settings and with regard to

a variety of language outcomes. There is evidence supporting the positive effects of shared

reading on both lexical and syntactic development (Hargrave & Senechal, 2000; Justice, Meier,

& Walpole, 2005; Mol, Bus, & De Jong, 2009; Neuman, 1999; Senechal, LeFevre, Thomas, &

Daley, 1998; Whitehurst et al., 1994) both at home and in the classroom as well as across

different populations, including children at risk for language delays (Hockenberger, Goldstein,

Correspondence regarding this article should be addressed to Katherine Strasser, Escuela de Psicologıa, Pontificia

Universidad Catolica de Chile, Vicu~nna Mackenna 4860, Macul, Santiago, Chile 7820436. E-mail: kstrasse@uc.cl

Early Education and Development, 24: 616–639

Copyright # 2013 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC

ISSN: 1040-9289 print/1556-6935 online

DOI: 10.1080/10409289.2012.715570

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&Haas, 1999; Kaderavek & Justice, 2002; van Kleeck, Vander Woude, & Hammett, 2006). Most

studies have focused on vocabulary development (e.g., Dickinson, Cote, & Smith, 1993; Eller,

Pappas, & Brown, 1988; Senechal & Cornell, 1993), showing that storybook sharing is a context

especially suited for the acquisition of new meanings as well as the enrichment of old ones.

Regarding the best ways of reading to children in the preschool years, studies have shown

that defining or explaining new words while reading improves children’s acquisition (Ard &

Beverly, 2004; Biemiller & Boote, 2006; Walsh & Blewitt, 2006), especially for children

who begin with a smaller vocabulary (Blewitt, Rump, Shealy, & Cook, 2009; Coyne, Simmons,

Kame’enui, & Stoolmiller, 2004; Justice et al., 2005) and have difficulty acquiring the meanings

of unknown words merely by being exposed to them in the context of a story (Ewers &

Brownson, 1999; Justice et al., 2005; Penno, Wilkinson, & Moore, 2002; Robbins & Ehri,

1994; Senechal, Thomas, & Monker, 1995; Stanovich, 1986). In addition to the specific strategy

of explaining unknown words, which is tied exclusively to vocabulary growth, more general

indications for reading are offered mainly by proponents of dialogic reading. Dialogic reading

is a method developed by Grover Whitehurst and his colleagues (Lonigan & Whitehurst,

1999; Whitehurst et al., 1994) that involves encouraging the child to actively participate in

the reading through questioning and prompting for explanations and descriptions of the pictures

or story. Experimental evidence shows that this style of reading improves several language mea-

sures in both one-on-one and small-group settings. Dialogic reading has been shown to be

especially effective for improving the expressive vocabulary of low-income children (Lonigan

& Whitehurst, 1999; Valdez-Menchaca & Whitehurst, 1992; Whitehurst et al., 1994).

SHARED BOOK READING AND COMPREHENSION DEVELOPMENT

In addition to reporting the positive effects of SBR on vocabulary acquisition, some scholars also

argue that being exposed to books supports children’s comprehension of connected discourse

and future reading comprehension (Purcell-Gates, 1988; Van Kleeck, 2008). Although only a

few studies have explicitly targeted story comprehension as an outcome measure in SBR studies

(Schickedanz & McGee, 2010), some evidence has accumulated suggesting that reading books

to preschoolers improves their concurrent listening comprehension (Koskinen et al., 2000;

Lonigan, Anthony, Bloomfield, Dyer, & Samwel, 1999) as well as their future reading compre-

hension (Senechal, 2006; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). There is also evidence that SBR posi-

tively influences other language measures that are related to preschoolers’ ability to

comprehend stories, such as their ability to understand inferential language (van Kleeck et al.,

2006) and their general oral language comprehension skills (Gest, Freeman, Domitrovich, &

Welsh, 2004). Taken together, these findings support the idea that reading to children frequently

during the preschool years is likely to improve their ability to comprehend stories presented in

both aural and written form. However, no studies have examined whether different styles of SBR

have different effects on story comprehension. There are at least two mechanisms through which

SBR may exert a positive influence on comprehension and that may account for the effect of

different reading styles. The first mechanism is the known effect of SBR on vocabulary, which

in turn is related to comprehension. The second one is a more general effect through children’s

familiarization with the elements that support the construction of a coherent story representation.

We review both of these mechanisms in the following sections.

EFFECTS OF STORYBOOK READING STYLE ON COMPREHENSION 617

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Effects on Comprehension Through Lexical Development

One way through which SBR may affect comprehension indirectly is through its effect on

vocabulary, because there is a well-known positive relationship between word knowledge and

reading comprehension (Beck & McKeown, 2007; Bos & Anders, 1990; Juel, 2006; Kendeou,

van den Broek, White, & Lynch, 2009; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986; Storch & Whitehurst, 2002;

Vellutino et al., 1996).1 If shared reading strengthens comprehension indirectly through an effect

on vocabulary, then a reading style that explains new words may be more effective for story

comprehension than a style that relies on children’s incidental learning to figure out unknown

words in the book.

However, there are various reasons why a focus on unknown words during book reading may

not have a positive effect on preschoolers’ story comprehension. First, interrupting the flow of

reading with discussions about new words may be detrimental to comprehension, as these dis-

cussions may distract children from other processes that are essential for understanding the story

(Capellini, 2005). Anecdotal data from preschool teachers suggest that many educators worry

that talking about words during book reading may be harmful to children’s attention and motiv-

ation while reading the book and therefore to their comprehension of the story (Strasser, Larraın,

& Lissi, 2009).

A second reason why teaching new words during reading may not have a positive effect on

children’s comprehension is linked to the unequal effects of SBR in children with different lan-

guage abilities. The effect of SBR on word learning tends to be smaller for children who initially

have smaller lexicons (Coyne et al., 2004; Justice et al., 2005; Penno et al., 2002). If the effect of

reading on story comprehension is mediated by children’s learning of new words, then this effect

on comprehension may be small or nonexistent for children who have a limited vocabulary.

However, differential effects of SBR on the comprehension of children with different vocabulary

have not been tested.

In summary, styles that improve vocabulary are hypothesized to impact comprehension posi-

tively, given the known relation between word knowledge and reading comprehension, but there

is no empirical evidence for the claim that supporting vocabulary acquisition during SBR will

improve comprehension.

Effects on Comprehension Through Familiarization With Story Elements

In addition to increasing comprehension through improved vocabulary, SBR may improve pre-

schoolers’ ability to understand stories through repeated exposure to the structures and devices

needed to construct a coherent representation. Knowledge of the words in a story allows children

to understand literal information, an ability essential to story comprehension in school-age chil-

dren and adults (Cain, Oakhill, Barnes, & Bryant, 2001; Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2004;

Kendeou, Rapp, & van den Broek, 2003; Lynch et al., 2008). However, in addition to under-

standing literal information, individuals need to be able to connect the story’s events in relevant

1The association between vocabulary and reading comprehension is not necessarily causal (Anderson & Freebody,

1981; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986), but an instrumental role of vocabulary in comprehension is very probable. If too many

words in a story are unknown, this will disrupt the process of reading for meaning (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007).

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ways in order to construct a meaningful representation. This requires inferences about causal

connections that are often not explicit in the text (van den Broek et al., 2005; Van Kleeck,

2008; van Kleeck et al., 2006). Take for example the following excerpt from the book AreYou My Mother? by P. D. Eastman (1960, pp. 6–9):

Out came the baby bird.

‘‘Where is my mother?’’ he asked.

He looked up. He did not see her.

In this passage, it seems evident that the baby bird looked up in order to look for his mother.

This connection, however, is not explicit in the text; rather, it has to be inferred. This is a coher-

ence inference, one that causally connects events in the story. Without these inferences, the story

becomes a series of unrelated episodes (Lynch et al., 2008; Makdissi & Boisclair, 2006; van den

Broek et al., 2005; van Kleeck et al., 2006). Evidence shows that the ability of school-age

children to make these kinds of inferences is linked to story comprehension after the effects

of previous knowledge and working memory are controlled (Cain et al., 2001, 2004).

Characters’ inner states, such as their thoughts, intentions, desires, and feelings, are especially

beneficial for building coherence, because they help readers make sense of the characters’

actions (Lynch & van den Broek, 2007). Several pieces of evidence link children’s ability to

understand psychological states with story comprehension. For example, Wenner (2004) found

that preschool children show better recall of stories in which the events are connected by a goal

than of those in which the actions are not causally related to an unfulfilled goal. Similarly,

Makdissi and Boisclair (2006) found that characters’ emotions are the first kind of causal

relation to appear in young children’s narratives and that the use of emotions is linked to

children’s ability to construct a coherent narrative.

Given the former finding, it is possible that a reading style that focuses on coherence

relations, such as cause–effect questions and questions about the characters’ psychological

states, may help children understand a story. Also, repeated exposure to such a style may

improve children’s ability to comprehend stories in general. However, most recommendations

about the kinds of questions that should be asked when reading books to young children are

rather unspecific (with the exception of those geared toward vocabulary improvement), and they

rarely mention coherence relations explicitly. For example, when instructing adults in how to

conduct dialogic readings, Lonigan, Whitehurst, and their colleagues (Lonigan & Whitehurst,

1999; Valdez-Menchaca & Whitehurst, 1992; Whitehurst et al., 1994) suggest asking open ques-

tions as well as distancing questions—questions that help children link the material in the book

to their real-life experiences. Sofka, Sutton, Bojczyk, and Curenton (2007) proposed that

a high-quality read-aloud is reflected in behaviors such as ‘‘expanding on concepts, extending

information, clarifying, and questioning to help a child understand and comprehend the story

or vocabulary’’ (p. 232). van Kleeck et al. (2006) encouraged teachers to ‘‘use both literal

and inferential questions’’ (p. 89). Finally, Wasik, Bond, and Hindman (2006) trained teachers

to ask questions ‘‘that promoted discussions’’ (p. 66), offering examples such as ‘‘Tell me more

about what is happening on this page’’ and ‘‘What do you think will happen next?’’ All of these

recommendations represent improvements over the kinds of questions often asked sponta-

neously by untrained adults, which tend to be yes=no and other closed questions. However, thesesuggestions can produce a wide variety of questions, not all of which will be geared toward

EFFECTS OF STORYBOOK READING STYLE ON COMPREHENSION 619

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establishing causal relations and coherence. An inferential question such as ‘‘What do you think

will happen next?’’ may produce an inference relevant to the causal structure of the story or one

about a local event that will not help in constructing a coherent representation. A distancing

question such as ‘‘Has anything like this ever happened to you?’’ does not direct children’s

attention to the causal relations that give coherence to a text. This does not imply that

open-ended questions, distancing questions, and inferential questions are not useful during book

reading; there is actually a lot of empirical evidence that these kinds of questions do benefit

a variety of language abilities. However, our interest here is to identify questions that are effec-

tive for the specific purpose of supporting the construction of a coherent representation of a story.

Given what we discussed earlier in this section, we believe that questions targeting causal and

logical relations between events are good candidates for this purpose.

GOALS AND HYPOTHESES

This article reports results from two independent studies aimed at determining the impact of dif-

ferent aspects of SBR on the story comprehension of at-risk preschool children over and above

the effects of dialogic reading, which is the reading style with the most empirical support with

regard to its effects on children’s language. Study 1 focuses on the impact that the elaboration of

unknown story words has on children’s comprehension of three stories. Study 2 focuses on the

impact of the kinds of questions asked during SBR, comparing the effect of questions about

coherence relations versus other open-ended questions. The effect of previous vocabulary and

narrative comprehension ability are controlled in both studies, and the effect of attention to

the story is also controlled in Study 2.

STUDY 1

Given the known association between vocabulary and comprehension, our hypothesis for this

study was that children who were exposed to definitions and examples of low-frequency words

during the reading of a story would comprehend the story better than those who were not, and

this effect would be mediated by their receptive and expressive knowledge of the target words.

If, however, a focus on words takes children’s attention away from the story, children in the

condition in which words were explained would show no advantage in story comprehension—or even lower story comprehension—than those whose reading was not interrupted by word

elaborations. In addition, we expected this effect to be smaller for low-vocabulary children,

assuming that the well-known differential effects of SBR on the word learning of children with

lower initial vocabulary levels would translate into lesser gains in story comprehension.

Method

Participants

Children were recruited from three public preschool centers in a large municipality from

the Santiago de Chile Metropolitan Area. All children came from families of medium to low

socioeconomic status (SES). The average family income at these preschool centers was the

equivalent of about US $300 per month, which is quite low compared to incomes in similar

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studies conducted in developed countries, although the cost of living is similar to that of those

countries. The average education of the parents was 1 year of high school, similar to the popu-

lation average for this SES segment in the Santiago Metropolitan Area. Parents were invited by

the researchers to allow their children to participate in the study through a letter and a face-to-

face interaction at pickup, at dropoff, or at a parent–teacher meeting. We obtained parental

consent for 84 children between the ages of 42 and 60 months in the three centers. Because

of repeated absences, not all of the children were available for the administration of all the

readings and=or instruments, so the final sample was made up of 72 children (38 female;

M age¼ 4 years, 2 months, SD¼ 5.8 months).

Books and Words

We selected stories with at least one problem and one resolution episode that were appropri-

ate in complexity and length for preschool children. In addition, each book had to contain at least

five words considered rare for children this age, and these words had to be capable of being

graphically illustrated in a test of receptive vocabulary. The three books chosen for the inter-

vention were La Familia Numerozzi (Family Minus) by Fernando Krahn; La Otra Orilla(The Other Shore) by Marta Carrasco; and Los Cocodrilos Copiones, a Spanish translation

of The Copy Crocs by David Bedford and Emily Bolam. Eight low-frequency words from each

book were originally chosen, and receptive vocabulary items were constructed for them. Of

this original pool of 24 words, 15 target words were selected (5 from each book) based on their

difficulty and on the behavior of the items in the pretest assessment (the words with the lowest

percentage of correct responses were chosen, unless there was some reason to suspect that the

item was poorly constructed, such as a systematic preference for one distracter). The five target

words in each book included some words that were central to the macrostructure and some that

related to peripheral details. Each set of five target words included at least two words essential

to macrostructure elements (either the setting, problem, theme or resolution) and two that were

nonessential. For example, in The Copycat Crocs, the words lagoon, crowded, and desertedwere relevant to the setting, the problem, and the resolution, respectively, whereas the words

curve and to sneak away (escabullirse) were less important to the story.

Conditions and Procedures

All children were exposed to four readings of each of the three books in a period of 3–4

weeks, depending on attendance. Books were read by trained research assistants (fourth- and

fifth-year students of education and psychology). To keep the intervention similar to current

standard practices known to be effective, readings were conducted in small groups of 4 to 6 chil-

dren. The small groups were formed before the start of the intervention, but some variations

occurred throughout the course of the study, because children were sometimes absent and had

to be assigned to a new group to complete the intervention. We kept a careful record of the

books each child had been exposed to in order to make sure that each child received the same

number of readings of each book in spite of absences. Readings took place at the school in

empty classrooms. Two books were read at each session, requiring a total of six sessions per

child in order to complete four readings of each book. All readings were conducted using

a dialogic reading style (Whitehurst et al., 1994). A script was developed for each book

EFFECTS OF STORYBOOK READING STYLE ON COMPREHENSION 621

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specifying all comments and questions to be used during the reading, and the research assistants

were trained to follow the script. Video recordings of a sample of the readings showed that all

readers followed the script while at the same time reading in a natural manner. Each reading

session lasted between 15 and 20min, and children were exposed to one or two of these sessions

per week. The minimum separation between sessions was 3 days. Readers were balanced across

conditions to avoid a systematic association between reader and condition.

To avoid confounding condition and center, random assignment occurred within the centers.

Children in each center were randomly assigned to one of two experimental conditions: elabor-

ation or no elaboration. The random assignment did not take into account the classrooms (there

were seven classrooms in total), but a chi-square analysis showed no association between class-

room and condition after assignment. In the elaboration condition, the reader provided an elab-

oration of each target word immediately after the sentence containing that word. Elaborations

consisted of a definition or synonym plus an example. For instance: ‘‘A place is deserted when

there is nobody there. For example, at night, when the playground is deserted, there is nobody

there.’’ Dictionary definitions were the starting point for these elaborations, and adaptations

were made to accommodate them to the children’s age. Two examples were constructed for each

target word and were used alternately in the four readings in order to avoid excessive repetitions.

In the no elaboration condition, the reading contained no elaboration of the target words. Both

conditions included other scripted comments and questions that followed the dialogic reading

guidelines, including requesting predictions and descriptions of illustrations. Comments and

questions that were not related to the words were the same for both conditions. After we eliminated

children who did not have all readings or all measures because of repeated absences, 35 children

were included in the elaboration condition (22 female) and 37 in the no elaboration condition (16

female). A chi-square analysis showed no significant association between gender and condition.

Measures

Children were assessed at two time points: before and after the book reading intervention.

Preintervention measures included receptive knowledge of target words, general receptive

vocabulary, and narrative comprehension. After the intervention we measured knowledge of

target words, both receptive and expressive, and comprehension of the three stories.

Preintervention measures. Target words, receptive. A receptive vocabulary test was con-

structed for the 15 target words. Each item consisted of four illustrations. Children were asked to

point to the illustration that corresponded to the word said by the examiner. The illustrations in the

test were not related to those in the books (e.g., abarrotado [crowded] in the book referred to

a lagoon that was crowded with crocodiles, whereas in the test we used a bus crowded with people).

Cronbach’s alpha was not calculated for this scale, because all of the items were chosen for

their difficulty, so most children knew none or only a few of the 15 target words. Figure 1 shows

a sample item from the Target Words Receptive Test. Children were awarded 1 point for each word

appropriately identified. The minimum score was 0 points, and the maximum score was 15 points.

Receptive vocabulary. Children’s receptive vocabulary before the intervention was measured

with the Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes de Peabody, a Spanish-language version of the

Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test. This test does not have norms for the Chilean population,

so the raw scores were used, and age was entered in the analyses as an additional control.

622 STRASSER, LARRAIN, AND LISSI

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Narrative comprehension. Children’s basal ability to construct a coherent representation of

a story was used as a control. A test was constructed based on a simple wordless book (Strasser,

Larraın, Lopez de Lerida, & Lissi, 2010). The test was based on the book Chiguiro EncuentraAyuda (Capybara Finds Help) by Ivar da Coll, which shows a capybara who tries different stra-

tegies to reach a bunch of bananas in a tree. Children are told to look at all of the pictures and

then are asked 19 literal and inferential questions about different parts of the story. The test

reflects a conception of narrative comprehension as the construction of a coherent representation

of the events in the story through recall of literal information and through inference of local and

global coherence relations. One question asks about the characters in the story (i.e., Who was in

the story?), five questions request a description of events (e.g., What happened here? What is he

doing here?), three more are follow-up inferences about those events (e.g., Why did that happen?

What is he doing that for?), two questions request inferences about the characters’ thoughts (e.g.,

What is he thinking?), four questions require inferences about the characters’ feelings (e.g., How

does he feel? Why does he feel that way?), two questions target dialogue (e.g., What is he

saying?), and two questions deal with the theme of the story (e.g., What should the name of

the story be? What should he do the next time he finds bananas?). The answer to each question

receives a score from 0 to 2, depending on how complete it is and how well it relates to the

macrostructure. Interrater reliability was calculated using the kappa coefficient with 50% of

the cases, and it was above 0.8 for 3 items, between 0.6 and 0.79 for 13 items, and between

0.5 and 0.59 for the remaining 3 items (all statistically significant with p< .05). All of the

coefficients were deemed satisfactory (Banerjee, Capozzoli, McSweeney, & Sinha, 1999). To

award a final score, raters resolved disagreements through discussion. The internal consistency

FIGURE 1 Sample item from the Target Words Receptive Test. The target word is perplejo (perplex). The correct

answer is Illustration 1.

EFFECTS OF STORYBOOK READING STYLE ON COMPREHENSION 623

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(Cronbach’s alpha) of the total scale was .85, and deletion of any of the items would have

lowered the coefficient, so no items were dropped from the scale.

Postintervention measures. Children were tested between 5 and 7 days after the reading

of the books had concluded. The time period between the intervention and the posttest evalu-

ation was very similar for all children and was not associated with the reading condition. Like

in the preintervention evaluation, children were tested individually in a quiet room at the

preschool center.

Story comprehension. A story comprehension test was constructed for each one of the three

stories used in the intervention. Each test consisted of 13 questions about the story, for a total of

39 questions. Each question was scored 0, 1, or 2 points, creating a maximum score of 78. The

questions were asked without reading the book again to the child, and children were not allowed

to manipulate the book during the assessment, only to look at the relevant pages for each

question. The questions addressed the same concept of narrative comprehension measured in

the narrative comprehension test used in the preintervention control measure. Three questions

(one for each story) were about the characters (i.e., Who was in the story?); 12 were about recall,

description, or explanation of physical events (e.g., Why does the car not go? What happened on

this page? What does the river sound like? What did he do after his morning exercises?); 3 more

were about dialogue (e.g., What is he saying here?); 8 were about feelings (e.g., What is she

feeling here? Why did he feel angry? What is she afraid of? Why is she crying?); 3 were about

thoughts (e.g., What is the girl thinking here? What do the crocodiles want to do here?); 7

requested explanations of behavior (e.g., Why did she pour water on them for? Why did he

sneak away?); and 3 asked about the resolution and=or theme of the story (e.g., What did he

learn? What is their dream now? What are they proud of?). The answer to each question received

a score from 0 to 2, depending on how complete it was and how well it related to relevant events

in the story. Interrater reliability was calculated using the kappa coefficient with 50% of the

cases, and it was above 0.8 for 16 items, between 0.6 and 0.79 for 18 items, between 0.5 and

0.59 for 3 items, and between 0.4 and 0.49 for the remaining 2 items (all statistically significant

with p< .05). All of the coefficients were deemed satisfactory (Banerjee et al., 1999). To

award a final score, raters resolved disagreements through discussion. The internal consistency

(Cronbach’s alpha) of the total scale was .89, and deletion of any of the items would have

lowered the coefficient, so no items were dropped from the scale.

Target words, expressive. Children’s use of the 15 target words after the intervention was

tested through an ‘‘emergent’’ (pretend) reading of selected pages of the book. The examiner

would point to a page containing a target word and say, ‘‘Please read this part to me.’’ If the

child did not respond, or replied that he or she could not read, the examiner would say,

‘‘You can read it your own way, it does not have to be the grown-up way’’ (Sulzby, 1985).

If the child still did not read emergently from the page, the examiner would say ‘‘Let me help

you’’ and start reading the page, then say ‘‘Your turn’’ and wait for the child to complete. If the

child remained unresponsive, the examiner would ask a question that could be answered using

the target word, such as ‘‘What did she do here?’’ (Answer: She activated the automatic blanket

lifter). Finally, if the child still did not use the target word, the examiner would describe the page

using a synonym of the target word and then prompt the child to use the target word. For

instance, ‘‘Divina turned on [synonym] her invention. So she . . . ’’ Children received a score

of 1 if they used the target word with any of the prompts and 0 if they did not use it at all.

624 STRASSER, LARRAIN, AND LISSI

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Target words, receptive. The receptive test of target words was administered again after the

intervention to all children.

Both the pre- and posttests were administered individually by three trained research assistants

(fourth- and fifth-year students of education and psychology) in sessions of 30min each.

Research assistants recruited for the evaluation were not the same ones recruited for the readings,

so they did not know the reading condition to which each child had been assigned.

Results

Independent samples t tests by gender revealed no significant differences between boys and girls

on any of the measures, so gender was not included in any of the models. Table 1 shows means

and standard deviations for all measures by condition, and Table 2 shows Pearson correlation

coefficients. No statistically significant differences between the two conditions were found at

the beginning of the study in any of the control measures (narrative ability, receptive vocabulary,

or target words known).

To test whether children exposed to word elaborations achieved a better understanding of the

story, we conducted a multiple regression analysis using story comprehension as the dependent

TABLE 1

Descriptive Statistics for All Measures in Study 1, by Reading Condition

Characteristic

Elaboration (n¼ 35) No Elaboration (n¼ 37) Total

M SD M SD M SD

Age (months) 50.29 5.77 50.22 5.93 50.25 5.81

Receptive vocabulary (raw) 30.00 15.49 33.22 15.40 31.65 15.42

Narrative comprehension 19.63 9.00 20.41 8.34 20.03 8.62

Target words receptive pre 4.00 1.61 3.41 1.76 3.69 1.70

Target words receptive post 6.86 2.50 4.81 1.52 5.81 2.29

Target words expressive post 4.80 4.23 1.68 1.63 3.19 3.52

Story comprehension 46.03 15.29 43.35 11.94 44.65 13.64

TABLE 2

Correlations Between All Measures Included in Study 1

Measure 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. Age (months) — 0.529�� 0.541�� .353�� .331�� .445�� .555��

2. Receptive vocabulary (raw) — 0.617�� .407�� .415�� .570�� .683��

3. Narrative comprehension — .335�� .279� .391�� .642��

4. Target words receptive pre — .282� .464�� .394��

5. Target words receptive post — .695�� .425��

6. Target words expressive post — .669��

7. Story comprehension —

�p< .05. ��p< .01.

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variable. Predictors were the four control variables (age in months, receptive vocabulary, target

words known at the beginning of the intervention, and narrative comprehension ability), the

reading condition (elaboration¼ 1, no elaboration¼ 0), and the interaction between vocabulary

and condition. The interaction was added to test whether the effect of the elaboration condition

was different for children with high and low initial vocabulary, as has been shown in previous

research. The interaction was obtained by multiplying the two variables. The dummy coding of

the elaboration condition does not present a problem for constructing the interaction, as was

explained by Aiken and West (1991). This model is shown in Table 3. The model explains

59% of the variance in the comprehension of the three stories, F(6, 65)¼ 16.36, p¼ .000.

Entry-level receptive vocabulary and narrative comprehension are the strongest predictors.

The effect of the reading condition is not significant, but the interaction between condition

and receptive vocabulary is statistically significant (B¼ 0.417, t¼ 2.168, p¼ .034), revealing

that word elaboration has a positive effect on comprehension, but only for higher vocabulary

children. Children who enter the intervention with a vocabulary above the mean comprehend

the story better when they are exposed to elaboration of low-frequency words.

To examine the mediating effect of word learning, we tested a second model in which we

entered the variables representing children’s learning of story vocabulary. Following Baron

and Kenny (1986), we wanted to detect whether the effect of the elaboration condition decreased

or disappeared when we entered receptive and expressive knowledge of the target words after the

intervention. This would support the hypothesis that the differences in comprehension between

the two groups are due to word learning and not to some other difference associated with the

conditions (e.g., word explanations may have helped focus the children’s attention, indirectly

supporting their story comprehension even if they did not improve their knowledge of the words

in the story). The mediated model is shown in Table 4. This model explains 68.9% of the vari-

ance in story comprehension, F(8, 63)¼ 18.08, p¼ .000. The 9.9% of explained variance added

by the postintervention measures of story word knowledge represents a significant increase

(p¼ .000), showing that children’s knowledge of story words after the intervention has a unique

contribution to their understanding of the story after children’s receptive vocabulary, narrative

comprehension, and knowledge of the target words prior to the readings are controlled. To

calculate the effect size associated with this increase in variance explained, we used Cohen’s

TABLE 3

Multiple Regression Coefficients for Story Comprehension with Control Variables,

Condition, and Condition�Vocabulary Interaction as Predictors

Variable

B

(standardized) T

Age (months) 0.117 1.176

TVIP raw score 0.464 4.284��

Narrative comprehension 0.246 2.316�

Receptive target words known (pre) 0.072 0.807

Elaboration condition �0.213 �1.168

Elaboration�Receptive Vocabulary 0.398 2.168�

Note. TVIP¼ Spanish-language version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test.�p< .05. ��p< .01.

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f 2, defined as the variance explained by the predictors of interest divided by the variance

left unexplained by the first set of predictors. Cohen’s f 2 in this case equals 0.219, which is

considered medium to large (Cohen, 1992).

The coefficients in Table 4 also reveal two additional results. First, only children’s expressive

knowledge of the target words—not their receptive knowledge—has a significant contribution to

comprehension. Second, the effect of the elaboration condition for high-vocabulary children

(represented by a significant effect of the interaction between vocabulary and elaboration in

the previous model) has become nonsignificant, showing that whatever differences there were

in the story comprehension of children in the two conditions were due entirely to their learning

of the target words.

The meaning of the interaction between vocabulary and word elaboration seems clearer in

this light, as the intervention probably had a differential effect on word learning, which in turn

affected comprehension. To illustrate this graphically, we divided the children into two groups

depending on whether their entry-level receptive vocabulary scores were above or below the

median and computed mean words learned and mean comprehension scores for each group.

Figure 2 shows the differential effect of the intervention for both measures depending on the

children’s receptive vocabulary and suggests that the elaboration intervention had little effect

on the story comprehension of children with a low vocabulary, because it had little effect on their

word knowledge.

Discussion

The results from Study 1 provide support for the hypothesis that a focus on rare words during

SBR contributes to preschool children’s story comprehension over and above the effects of

a dialogic style of reading. We found that children who heard definitions and explanations

of words during SBR achieved better story comprehension scores than those who did not hear

definitions and explanations, but this effect was dependent on children’s receptive vocabulary.

This effect was mediated by the children’s learning of story words, specifically their expressive

TABLE 4

Multiple Regression Coefficients for Story Comprehension with Control Variables,

Condition, and Target Word Knowledge After Intervention as Predictors

Variable

B

(standardized) T

Age (months) 0.078 0.874

Narrative comprehension 0.228 2.416�

TVIP raw score 0.215 1.828

Receptive target words known (pre) 0.000 0.001

Elaboration condition �0.133 �0.819

Elaboration�Receptive Vocabulary 0.065 0.354

Receptive knowledge of target words (post) �0.131 �1.291

Expressive knowledge of target words (post) 0.594 4.436��

Note. TVIP¼ Spanish-language version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test.�p< .05. ��p< .01.

EFFECTS OF STORYBOOK READING STYLE ON COMPREHENSION 627

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knowledge of the target story words after the intervention, and was not likely to be due to

a general effect of word elaboration on attention or processing. This effect was evident only

for children who entered the study with a larger receptive vocabulary, as shown by the signifi-

cant interaction effect. These findings provide experimental support for the theory that voca-

bulary has a causal role in the comprehension of stories and that the association between

these two variables is not simply a spurious correlation due to a third variable such as general

verbal ability or working memory. Moreover, the results suggest that different types of lexical

knowledge contribute in different ways to story comprehension. Whereas receptive knowledge

of target words did not have a significant contribution to story comprehension, expressive

knowledge of target words did, even after children’s receptive vocabulary was controlled.

This suggests that in order for story words to effectively make a difference on children’s ability

to comprehend a story, they need to be more than superficially known and known at least to

a degree that allows children to use them expressively. It would be interesting to examine what

kinds of word elaborations during SBR propitiate this kind of knowledge.

With regard to educational practice, the findings have at least two implications. First, they

show that even a small difference in the style of reading can influence children’s comprehension

FIGURE 2 Differential effect of word elaboration on (A) story comprehension and (B) word learning for children above

and below the median receptive vocabulary score. Word elaboration had little effect on the story comprehension of

children with low vocabulary, because it had little effect on their word learning (word learning¼words known post –

words known pre).

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of a story. Both reading styles in our experiment followed the guidelines of dialogic reading; the

only difference between them was the elaboration of five words from each story, yet this small

difference was enough to effect different story comprehension. Second, the results suggest that

explaining words during SBR does not detract from the larger picture of the story and therefore

impair comprehension, as some practitioners have suggested (Capellini, 2005). Quite the

opposite—It is likely that too many unknown words in a story hinder interest in the book and

eventually result in the child’s attention drifting away. Explaining new words during the reading

takes advantage of the contextual cues in the book, which provides a nuanced understanding of

the words and increases the likelihood that they will be used (Jenkins, Matlock, & Slocum, 1989;

Nagy & Scott, 2000; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986).

A problematic finding is the absence of any effects of word elaboration on children with a

low vocabulary and the very low effect on children who have a receptive vocabulary above

the median. These findings apparently contradict those from previous studies that show that

word elaboration is especially beneficial for low-vocabulary children (Justice et al., 2005; Penno

et al., 2002). Children in our sample were on average younger and poorer than children in those

studies, and high-vocabulary children in our sample may have been similar to low-vocabulary

children in other studies. It is possible that the effects of word elaboration typically found in

those studies do not hold true for children who have lower language abilities by virtue of either

their age or their SES. One educational implication is that the methods that are effective for chil-

dren of high language ability and low socioeconomic risk cannot be directly translated for use in

classrooms with higher levels of risk. It is obvious from these findings that we do not yet know

an effective strategy for using SBR to teach new words to very low-income 3- to 5-year-old

Chilean children in a small-group setting. This population may require a more intensive method

to enhance the educational impact of SBR.

STUDY 2

Results from Study 1 show that word elaboration during SBR improves story comprehension in

higher vocabulary children and that word learning during SBR mediates this effect. Study 2 exam-

ined the effect of a different kind of reading strategy on story comprehension: the kinds of questions

asked during SBR. As discussed in ‘‘Effects on Comprehension Through FamiliarizationWith Story

Elements,’’ we hypothesized that questions targeted at coherence relations would be more beneficial

for story comprehension than other types of open-ended questions frequently recommended to

educators, such as general inferential questions, distancing questions, or requests for descriptions.

Method

Participants

Children were recruited from two public preschool centers in a large municipality from the

Santiago de Chile Metropolitan Area. The municipality was not the same as in Study 1, but it

was very similar in terms of average SES, income, and education. The recruitment procedure

was the same as that used in Study 1. We obtained parental consent for 109 children between

the ages of 42 and 60 months in the three centers. Because of repeated absences, 14 children

EFFECTS OF STORYBOOK READING STYLE ON COMPREHENSION 629

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could not attend all of the intervention sessions or did not receive the postintervention measure

and were therefore eliminated. The final sample was made up of 95 children (53 female;

M age¼ 4 years, 3 months, SD¼ 6.9 months).

Books

In Study 2 we used only two of the books used in Study 1. The reason for using three books

in Study 1 was to increase the number of total target words (5 per book, 15 total). In Study 2

we did not evaluate word knowledge, and thus we did not have a required number of words,

permitting us to use fewer books. We chose the two books that had seemed to interest the

children the most in Study 1 (La Familia Numerozzi and Los Cocodrilos Copiones).

Conditions and Procedures

Procedures were similar to those used in Study 1. All children were exposed to four readings of

the two books over a period of 3–4 weeks, depending on attendance. Books were read by four

trained research assistants (only one of them had participated in Study 1) in groups of four to six

children, formed in the same way as in Study 1. Both books were read during each session, alter-

nating their order. Each reading session lasted for approximately 30min. The minimum separation

between sessions was 3 days. To avoid confounding condition and center, we conducted randomi-

zation within each center. Within each center, children were randomly assigned to one of two con-

ditions: coherence questions (CQ) or open-ended questions (OQ). Children were not randomized

within classroom, but a chi-square analysis showed no association between teacher and condition.

The CQ condition included questions about causality (e.g., Why did Crocodile look for a new

lagoon? What made him angry?), goals (e.g., What does Crocodile want to do here?), feelings

(e.g., How does he feel here?), and thoughts (e.g., What are the other crocs thinking here?).

The OQ condition, in contrast, used open-ended questions that did not focus on coherence

relations in the story, such as distancing questions (e.g., Crocodile is bathing in the lagoon; where

else can we bathe?), description requests (Here Crocodile is . . . ), and predictions (What is going

to happen now?). In total, 15 coherence and 15 open-ended questions were scripted for each book.

In addition, both conditions utilized elaboration of low-frequency words (5 per book, for a total

of 10), which were identical in both conditions. Detailed scripts were created for each book

specifying all comments and questions to be used during the reading. Video recordings of

a sample of readings showed that all readers followed the script closely while at the same time

reading in a natural manner. Readings were planned so that there would not be a systematical

association between reader and condition. After we eliminated children who did not receive all

readings and=or measures, 48 children were left in the CQ condition (21 female) and 47 were left

in the OQ condition (32 female). There was a significant association between gender and con-

dition, with a larger proportion of girls in the OQ condition, v2¼ (1, N¼ 95)¼ 5.702, p¼ .014.

Measures

In addition to the pre- and postintervention measures, we assessed children’s attention during

the reading of the book. Preintervention measures included general receptive vocabulary and

narrative comprehension. After the intervention we measured comprehension of the two stories.

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Preintervention measures. The same receptive vocabulary and narrative comprehension

tests used in Study 1 were used as controls, except for the target word test, which was not

relevant to this study.

Online measure of attention. In this experiment we included an additional control

measure: children’s visual attention to the reading. In Study 1 we observed that children varied

widely in their attention during the activity, and therefore we decided to measure this variable

and use it as a control in the regression model, thinking that it might affect children’s compre-

hension. In order to do this, we videotaped all reading sessions and divided the first 10min of

each reading into 30-s intervals. The final 2 s of each interval were scored according to the

direction of the child’s gaze. If the child was looking at the reader or the book at the end of that

interval, a score of 1 was assigned; if the child was looking at anything else, the score was 0. If

the child’s gaze could not be detected, the interval was coded as missing. With 20 intervals per

reading, two books, and four readings per book, the maximum possible number of units per child

was 160. However, the actual number of units varied, as there were occasions when a child’s

gaze could not be detected. Two coders coded 15 readings, and kappa coefficients between both

coders were calculated per interval (from the 1st to the 20th interval). For the 20 intervals, 5

kappa coefficients were above 0.7, 10 were between 0.6 and 0.69, and 5 were between 0.5

and 0.59. To construct the final attention score, we calculated the proportion of attentive

moments over the total number of valid moments (moments when the child’s gaze could be

detected). This was done for each one of the two readings in each of the four sessions. Finally,

proportions of attentiveness were averaged across the eight readings to obtain one average

proportion of attentive moments for each child.

Postintervention assessment of story comprehension. The postintervention measure

was evaluated between 5 and 7 days after the reading of the books had concluded. The time

period between intervention and posttest evaluation was very similar for children and was not

associated with reading condition. Like in the preintervention evaluation, children were tested

individually in a quiet room at the preschool center. Story comprehension was assessed with the

same tests developed for Study 1, but only with questions relevant to the two books read in Study

2. The final instrument had 26 questions (13 per book). Cronbach’s alpha for this scale was .861.

Results

T tests by gender revealed no significant differences between boys and girls in any of the

measures, so gender was not included in any of the models. Table 5 shows descriptive statistics

for all measures in Study 2 by condition, and Table 6 shows correlations between all measures.

There were no significant differences between the two conditions in age, receptive vocabulary,

or narrative comprehension at the beginning of the intervention, but children in the CQ condition

were attentive to the reading significantly less frequently than children in the OQ condition,

t(87)¼ 2.74, p¼ .007.

To test the hypothesis that coherence questions facilitate children’s understanding of a story,

we conducted a regression analysis with story comprehension as the dependent variable and

question condition as a predictor, controlling for age, receptive vocabulary, narrative compre-

hension, and attention during the reading. Results of this regression can be seen in Table 7.

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The model in Table 7 explains 61.1% of the variance in story comprehension, F(5, 89)¼ 30.51,

p¼ .000. The coefficient for the CQ condition is statistically significant, which means that, after

age, receptive vocabulary, narrative comprehension, and attention during reading are controlled,

children who were exposed to coherence questions during the reading of the two stories achieved

significantly better story comprehension scores than those who were asked open-ended questions

not focused on coherence relations (b¼ 0.136, t¼ 2.004, p¼ .048). The effect size associated

with the CQ condition was calculated using Cohen’s f2 and is equal to 0.044, which is considereda small to medium effect (Cohen, 1992).

TABLE 5

Descriptive Statistics for All Measures in Study 2, by Reading Condition

Measure

Coherence questions (N¼ 48) Open questions (N¼ 47) Total (N¼ 95)

M SD M SD M SD

Age (months) 51.29 5.78 50.68 5.91 50.98 5.82

Receptive vocabulary (raw) 28.04 14.02 28.38 14.18 28.21 14.02

Narrative comprehension 20.15 8.05 19.83 8.39 19.98 8.18

Attention 0.71 0.15 0.79 0.12 0.75 0.14

Story comprehension 28.10 8.88 26.32 9.84 27.22 9.36

TABLE 6

Correlations Between All Measures Included in Study 2

Measure 1 2 3 4 5

1. Age (months) — 0.507�� 0.552�� .284�� 0.544��

2. Receptive vocabulary (raw) — 0.619�� .327�� 0.700��

3. Narrative comprehension — .360�� 0.680��

4. Attention — 0.405��

5. Story comprehension —

��p< .01.

TABLE 7

Multiple Regression Coefficients for Story Comprehension With Control Variables and

Coherence Condition as Predictors

Variable

B

(standardized) T

Age (months) 0.120 1.492

TVIP raw score 0.396 4.648��

Narrative comprehension 0.305 3.423��

Attention 0.169 2.301�

Coherence questions condition 0.136 2.004�

Note. TVIP¼ Spanish-language version of the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test.�p< .05. ��p< .01.

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Discussion

Study 2 shows that the types of open questions asked to children during SBR influence their

comprehension of the stories read over and above the general effects of a dialogic style of read-

ing. Children exposed to questions focusing on coherence relations, such as cause–effect rela-

tions or a character’s goals and problems, achieved better comprehension scores. The effect

we found was small but significant, in spite of the fact that both conditions were identical in

terms of the number and placement of the questions and that questions in the OQ condition

were consistent with scholarly suggestions on how to read to young children. Children in the

OQ condition were asked to make predictions, to interpret pictures, and to make connections

to their own lives and experiences, all questions that are highly regarded in the field of SBR

research. In addition, children in both conditions were exposed to the same word elaborations

and general story comments. Still, children in the CQ condition obtained better comprehension

scores than those in the OQ condition after other factors, such as their vocabulary, their narrative

skills, and how attentive they were to the story, were controlled.

A finding we did not expect is that children in the CQ condition were found to be paying

significantly less attention to the story than children in the OQ condition. At the same time,

attention was positively associated with comprehension. According to this, children in the CQ

condition should have exhibited lower comprehension than those in the OQ condition, which

was not the case. Thus, although the raw means were roughly the same for both groups, after

we controlled for the attention measure, the effect of the CQ condition on comprehension scores

was positive and significant. In other words, when attention was kept constant, children in the

CQ condition achieved better comprehension scores than those in the OQ condition. However,

the fact remains that, for unknown reasons, children in the CQ condition were not attentive to the

story more frequently than those in the OQ condition. This may be due entirely to chance, or

perhaps coherence questions are intrinsically less interesting than questions about illustrations

or children’s own lives. Studies with larger samples are needed to determine whether this associ-

ation between the type of question and attention level was due to sampling error or whether

coherence questions actually cause children to become distracted, which would cancel out their

positive effect on comprehension.

GENERAL DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

The two studies presented here provide evidence in support of two specific SBR strategies that

improve young children’s comprehension of a story read to them in a small-group setting:

explaining rare words and asking questions about coherence relations. Although many studies

have examined the effects of different ways of reading on preschoolers’ language, the few

studies that have focused on comprehension have been limited to assessing the effect of reading

versus no reading and have not analyzed the influence of specific SBR strategies on story com-

prehension. For example, the 2008 report of the National Early Literacy Panel only included

three studies that focused on strategies used during reading to support story comprehension,

and Schickedanz and McGee (2010) cited three more. However, none of these six studies

actually evaluated the impact of different reading strategies; they only evaluated the effect of

reading versus no reading on story comprehension.

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Results from Study 1 show that teaching a few unknown words while reading a story

improves comprehension. This supports the idea that there is no contradiction between focusing

on vocabulary and stimulating comprehension during SBR and offers an empirical basis to

address the concerns of the teachers we encounter in our work in a developing country. Teachers

in Chile frequently worry that pausing in the middle of SBR to explain a new word will harm

interest and attention. Our results show that the opposite is likely to be true for at-risk preschoo-

lers: A few unknown words may be enough to make a child tune out during reading, harming not

only comprehension but other potential benefits from the experience as well.

In terms of our understanding of the relations between vocabulary and comprehension, results

from Study 1 provide empirical support for a causal role of vocabulary on story comprehension.

A strong relationship between word knowledge and comprehension has long been established

(Anderson & Freebody, 1981; Cromley & Azevedo, 2007; Stahl & Fairbanks, 1986). One

possible explanation for this relationship is that vocabulary is associated with the ability to make

elaborative inferences based on context—inferences that allow the reader to choose the meaning

of a sentence depending on the surrounding text. In a study that used eye fixation to examine

readers’ use of preceding information to make inferences about sentences, Calvo (2005) found

that readers’ knowledge of words facilitated the selection of linguistic representations for a given

sentence. The process of elaborative inferencing is evidently crucial for story comprehension;

thus, it is not surprising that knowledge of story words in our study is associated with compre-

hension of the story. What this study contributes, however, is experimental evidence for a causal

role of word knowledge—that is to say, evidence that the manipulation of word knowledge

produces differences in comprehension.

Unfortunately, results from Study 1 also show evidence for the existence of a powerful

Matthew effect (Stanovich, 1986), whereby preschool children with lower vocabulary sizes learn

fewer words than those who know more words to begin with. This effect has been documented

by several previous studies in the context of SBR (Justice et al., 2005; Penno et al., 2002;

Senechal et al., 1995), but Justice and her colleagues (2005) found that they could reduce the

differential effect by offering explicit elaborations of unknown words during reading. In her

study, lower vocabulary children were able to learn almost as many words as higher vocabulary

children when words were explicitly defined during the reading. In our sample, however, the

effect was sharper: Our lower vocabulary children learned almost no words in any condition,

and our higher vocabulary children were able to pick up some words only when they were

explicitly defined. This may be because of the demographics of our sample: Children were

on average younger and poorer than those in previous studies of word learning during SBR. This

has implications for the transfer of findings from studies conducted in developed countries

toward new populations, such as preschool children in a developing country like Chile.

Findings from Study 2 also have important implications. The positive effect of coherence

questions on story comprehension highlights the role of coherence relations in the representation

of a story. The importance of causal relations and logical connections for constructing a coherent

macrostructure has long been accepted (Lynch & van den Broek, 2007; Lynch et al., 2008; van

Kleeck et al., 2006), but our results show that this knowledge can be used in instruction by

emphasizing these relations through questions and comments. In highlighting the relevance of

making coherence relations more salient through questions, this finding not only advances

understanding of what it means to comprehend a story but also makes it easier for teachers to

ask effective questions, because it translates into very specific directives as to which questions

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are better. These considerations may be especially relevant for interventions with older preschool

and early elementary children. In their meta-analysis of 16 dialogic reading studies, Mol, Bus, de

Jong, and Smeets (2008) found that the effects of dialogic reading interventions on children’s

oral language declined with age. Reese, Leyva, Sparks, and Grolnick (2010) hypothesized that

this decline may be due to the fact that older children require complex questions that are not

usually asked by parents and teachers. However, dialogic reading guidelines do call for teachers

and parents to ask more complex questions as children become older, so if they are complying

with this recommendation, the effect should at least remain constant with age. We believe

that many parents and teachers find it difficult to put into practice a suggestion such as ‘‘ask

complex, open-ended questions,’’ and the result of such vague recommendations may be a pool

of less than adequate questions for older children. A specific instruction such as ‘‘ask about what

the characters are feeling and what they want to do’’ or ‘‘ask children to explain what something

does or why something happened’’ is, in contrast, quite easy to follow and will produce a very

predictable pool of questions. We do not mean to imply that other kinds of questions do not

have a role in SBR—different comments and questions may be useful for different

purposes—but educators of young children may benefit from specific knowledge about

the effect of different questions in order to make an informed decision depending on their

pedagogical goals. Furthermore, much shared book reading with young children does not

have an explicit pedagogical aim but rather seeks to create a pleasurable experience for

both adults and children. We by no means intend to suggest that books should always be read

the way that we read them in our interventions. It all depends on the setting and on the goal that

the educator has established for the activity.

Our finding about coherence questions is, however, somewhat confounded by the fact that, in

this study, the majority of coherence questions were about psychological states such as inten-

tions and feelings, and very few were about physical causation. The reason for this confound

is that in narratives that deal with the actions of animated characters, coherence is built based

on the characters’ intentions, desires, and thoughts. In the three books we used it was difficult

to find physical cause–effect relations that were relevant for constructing a coherent story

representation. The large proportion of psychological questions in the coherence condition

may suggest that we are in fact looking at a mental state question effect rather than a coherence

question effect. However, we believe the effect to be general to any relations that connect events

logically within a story. Studies that contrast the effect of causal questions in physical versus

mental narratives are necessary to untangle this confound.

The main limitation of these results is that we only examined effects on children’s immediate

comprehension of the stories read as part of the study, not effects on their general story compre-

hension skills. The effects of word elaboration and coherence questions on children’s compre-

hension of specific stories cannot be directly generalized to children’s ability to comprehend

narrative texts in general. However, it is reasonable to assume that experiences that influence

children’s immediate comprehension—if they persist through time and occur frequently—could

eventually influence children’s ability to comprehend stories in general. Studies of maternal

language suggest that children tend to incorporate specific language styles into their retellings

of stories and personal memories (Peterson & McCabe, 1997; Reese et al., 2010; Reese &

Newcombe, 2007). In a similar way, if children are systematically exposed to a style of SBR

that supports comprehension—for example, a style that focuses on cause–effect relations and

characters’ motivations—they may eventually internalize that style and apply it to new stories,

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oral or written. The experimental testing of such an effect on general comprehension abilities

is likely to require a long and intensive intervention with teachers and parents.

In the meantime, these results suggest that parents and teachers can best scaffold children’s

ability to structure coherent representations of stories by systematically calling children’s

attention to the relations that connect the events in narratives. Using simple and clear directives

together with concrete examples of the kinds of comments, questions, and explanations that this

scaffolding entails may be the safest way to ensure that parents and teachers of varying linguistic

abilities and educational backgrounds will engage in those kinds of interactions.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This research was funded through Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Cientıfico y Technologico

(FONDECYT) Grant No. 1080241 by the Chilean National Science and Technology Fund.

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