Shared‐reading versus oral storytelling: associations with preschoolers’ prosocial skills and problem behaviours

Abstract

Dyadic shared‐reading and oral storytelling practices and their association to American preschoolers’ (N = 33) prosocial and problem behaviour was examined. The frequency (how often dyads read) and history (the child’s age at first reading) were examined within shared‐reading; emotion state talk and evaluative judgments were examined in both shared‐reading and oral storytelling. Results revealed mothers used more positive emotion talk during shared‐reading, but more negative emotion talk during oral storytelling. Mother–son dyads used more evaluative judgments during oral storytelling compared to shared‐reading and compared to mother–daughter pairs in both contexts. Shared‐reading practices were associated with prosocial skills, but this result was nonsignificant after including covariates. On the contrary, even after covarying literacy and language skills, there was a significant negative correlation between positive emotion state talk during oral storytelling and problem behaviour. Qualitative examples are included. Theoretical implications for differences between shared‐reading versus storytelling and practical implications for the design of narrative interventions are discussed.

Keywords:

• narrative
• social skills
• storytelling
• shared‐reading
• preschool
• African American

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the families who participated in this study and to Nadia Flanigan, Marion Johnson and Katie Roberson who helped with data collection and coding.

Notes

1. Our initial coding included volition and cognitive internal state terms as well, but these terms were not associated with the outcomes in the study. Given that a large body of prior research has examined the relationship between emotion state terms and children’s social development, we decided to only include emotion terms to follow the current line of evidence in the field.

2. These examples have been edited for clarity by taking out redundant utterances, unintelligible comments and irrelevant remarks that are not related to the story.