![\"MotherwithBaby\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/MotherwithBaby-300x199.jpg\")
<\/a>Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book<\/strong>. The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal First Language.<\/p>\n\u201cToo often, parents dismiss picture storybooks, especially when they are wordless, as not real reading or just for fun,\u201d said the study\u2019s author, Professor Daniela O\u2019Neill. \u201cBut these findings show that reading picture storybooks with kids exposes them to the kind of talk that is really important for children to hear, especially as they transition to school<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\nThe study, by Professor O\u2019Neill of the Department of Psychology at Waterloo, and Angela Nyhout, a graduate student, recorded 25 mothers while they read to their toddlers both a wordless picture storybook and a vocabulary book with pictures.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat we found was that moms in our study significantly more frequently used forms of complex talk when reading the picture storybook to their child than the picture vocabulary book<\/strong>,\u201d said Professor O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\nThe researchers were especially interested in looking at the language mothers use when reading both wordless picture storybooks and picture vocabulary books to see if parents provided extra information to children like relating the events of the story to the child\u2019s own experiences or asking their child to make predictions.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo, when reading the picture story, we would hear moms say things such as \u2019where do you think the squirrel is going to go?<\/strong>\u2019 or \u2019we saw a squirrel this morning in the backyard.’ But we didn\u2019t hear this kind of complex talk as often with vocabulary books, where mentioning just the name of the animal, for example, was more common, \u201c said Professor O\u2019Neill.<\/p>\nThe results of the study are significant for both parents and educators because vocabulary books are often marketed as being more educational. “Books of all kinds can build children\u2019s language and literacy skills, but they do so perhaps in different ways,” said Professor O’Neill.\u00a0 “It\u2019s exciting to find that even short wordless picture books provide children with exposure to the kinds of sophisticated language that they will encounter at school and that lay the foundation for later reading development.<\/strong>\u201d<\/p>\nA Research Development Initiative grant, which the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada awarded to Professor O’Neill, supported this research.<\/p>\n
<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
From the University of Waterloo press release via EurekAlert!: Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book. The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal First Language. \u201cToo often, parents dismiss picture… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[319,9],"tags":[45,160,74,73,25,12],"class_list":["post-12607","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-learning-2","category-parenting","tag-children","tag-developmental","tag-developmental-psychology","tag-kids","tag-language","tag-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12607"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12813,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12607\/revisions\/12813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"MotherwithBaby\"](\"http:\/\/therapytoronto.ca\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/12\/MotherwithBaby.jpg\")
<\/a>Researchers at the University of Waterloo have found that children hear more complex language from parents when they read a storybook with only pictures compared to a picture-vocabulary book<\/strong>. The findings appear in the latest issue of the journal First Language.<\/p>\n