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SIGNS OF EMERGENTLITERACY AMONG INNER‐CITYKINDERGARTNERS IN ASTORYBOOK READINGPROGRAMBeverly White Otto aa Northeastern Illinois UniversityPublished online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Beverly White Otto (1993) SIGNS OF EMERGENT LITERACYAMONG INNER‐CITY KINDERGARTNERS IN A STORYBOOK READING PROGRAM,Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 9:2, 151-162, DOI:10.1080/1057356930090203

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MINI-THEME

SIGNS OF EMERGENT LITERACY AMONGINNER-CITY KINDERGARTNERS IN A STORYBOOK

READING PROGRAM

Beverly White OttoNortheastern Illinois University

The purpose of the present project was (a) to increase children's opportunities tointeract with storybooks in their classroom and at home and (b) to use holisticassessment measures to describe inner-city kindergartners' emergent literacybehaviors. Specific storybooks were first used in the classroom and then eachchild was given a personal copy of the storybook to take home.

Analysis of pre- and poststudy scores on the Emergent Reading Abilities Judg-ments Scale (Sulzby, 1981, 1985) scores indicated that 75% of the children inter-acted with the storybooks at a higher level of emergent reading at the end of theproject. Whereas no children focused on print during the preassessment, 10 ofthe 28 children were attempting to track print at postassessment. Text complex-ity appeared to influence the emergent reading ability of some children. Byencouraging kindergartners to interact with storybooks and using holistic as-sessment measures to examine their emergent literacy behaviors, teachers canbecome aware of children's current and developing literacy-related knowledge.

The goals of the present project were to increase children's opportunities tointeract with storybooks in their classroom and at home and to use holisticassessment measures to describe children's emergent literacy behaviors.Wells (1981, 1982) described storybook experiences as being "probably thebest way" of encouraging the development of literacy skills. In a review ofresearch on emergent literacy, Morrow (1989) summarized the value of story-book reading for young children: Children's interest in reading increases,they become familiar with written language and its function, their vocabu-lary development increases, and they learn a sense of story structure. Chil-dren who arrive in kindergarten with limited storybook experiences may beless able to make sense of more formal literacy instruction in the classroom(Fields, Spangler, & Lee, 1991).

Storybook experiences have been a long-established early literacy experi-ence in middle-class homes (Doake, 1981; Taylor, 1980) and in homes wherechildren acquired reading ability prior to formal schooling (Clark, 1976;

This project was supported by a grant from the Northeastern Illinois UniversityFoundation.

Reading & Writing Quarterly: Overcoming Learning Difficulties, 9:151-162, 1993 1 5 1Copyright © 1993 Taylor & Francis

1057-3569/93 $10.00 + .00

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Durkin, 1966; Price, 1976). Differences have been noted among familiesfrom different economic backgrounds. Heath (1982) and Teale (1986) docu-mented the lack of storybook reading among low-income families. McCor-mick and Mason (1986) found that low-socioeconomic-status (SES) parentsprovided less support for reading at home than did middle-SES parents, espe-cially with regard to children's book ownership.

Although one might conclude from the preceding research that low-SESparents place little value on reading, such an assumption is unfounded andmay lead teachers to fail to encourage any parental involvement. Parentalsupport is important in any reading program because it increases the likeli-hood that children will continue their literacy-related experiences at home.Rather than simply giving up on getting parents involved, teachers may findways to encourage parental involvement if they understand their particularsituation.

Factors that may be associated with infrequent use of storybooks in low-SES inner-city homes include the parents' limited literacy skills ("I don'twant my kids to know I can't read"), inconvenient access to public libraries("The library is two bus routes away"), limited income ("I can't buy enoughfood for my kids. How can I buy books, too?"), and restrictive book-lendingpolicies in inner-city schools ("The school library won't let kids check outbooks and take them home. They say kids don't return books").

With these factors in mind, a storybook reading project was designed toincrease exposure to storybooks and to encourage parental support.

Another aspect of this project was the introduction of holistic methods ofassessment of literacy-related knowledge (Teale, 1988). Because the focuswas on increasing children's storybook experiences, their behaviors duringindependent storybook interactions before and after the project were care-fully observed for signs of emergent literacy (Sulzby, 1981, 1985). In additionto their independent storybook interactions, assisted storybook interactions(Otto, 1984) were also examined.

An additional focus of the project was the nature of storybook texts. Isone type of storybook text better than another with respect to encouragingstorybook interactions and assessing emergent literacy knowledge? The twotypes of text explored were traditional storybooks and commercially pre-pared beginning-reader texts. The language used in trade books is richer indescription and more varied in structure than the language of preprimertype materials. Trade books provide high-interest text that communicates afully developed story and rich illustrations. Such a text may be more inter-esting to both child and adult. Being exposed to more complex texts may alsoinfluence children's acquisition of written language structures.

Thus the objectives of the present project were to

1. Encourage children's daily interactions with literature at school and athome,

2. Encourage parental involvement and support,3. Examine children's storybook interactions before and after the project for

evidence of emergent literacy, and

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STORYBOOK READING 153

4. Examine the role of text complexity in children's interactions with story-books.

METHOD

The Children

The project was conducted in two kindergarten classes at an inner-city pub-lic school in a large mid western city over a 4-month period. Both classes hadthe same teacher. A total of 46 children were enrolled in the two classes as ofOctober. By February, 7 children had moved out of the school's area, and 7children were moved to different kindergarten rooms in the same school.Four children were dropped from the analysis because of absences duringthe pre- and/or postassessment periods. This left 28 children (12 boys and 16girls) in the study.

The children represented a variety of cultural and ethnic backgrounds.Six children had limited English-speaking abilities. Both classes had the sametraditional reading readiness curriculum. Enrollment in both classes was de-termined by the school, on the basis of prekindergarten standardized testscores. Both classes were designated as above average.

Procedure

Children were introduced to a new storybook every 2 weeks for 14 weeks.Each storybook was read at group story time several times during the firstweek. The teacher focused on comprehension of the story, asking questionsand clarifying vocabulary or concepts. Children were not encouraged to re-cite story lines or to attempt to read the text. The focus remained on enjoy-ing and comprehending the story. Two copies of the storybook were placed inthe classroom storybook corner. At the beginning of the second week, chil-dren were given their personal copy of the storybook (with their name writ-ten on the cover) to take home.

In this way, children became familiar with each storybook before theyreceived their copy and took it home. Because each book was moderatelyfamiliar when they took it home, children did not need to rely on parents tointroduce it to them. This allowed children to interact with the storybookmore independently and encouraged more frequent storybook interaction.

Throughout the 14 weeks, the teacher occasionally reread the previouslyintroduced books at group story time and the children interacted with themduring self-directed activity times.

Book Selection

Seven books were selected for each class. The morning class received tradi-tional storybooks; the afternoon class received books commercially devel-oped for beginning readers (see Appendix). The criteria for choosing tradi-tional storybooks were the known popularity of the book withkindergartners, the familiarity of the topic to urban children, and the clarity

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of the sequence of events or narrative. Commercially developed books forbeginning readers were selected on the basis of the same criteria. For themost part, the two groups of books had similar topics; for example, Peter'sChair (Keats, 1967) and Little Brother (Crowley, 1986) both dealt with ayoung boy's learning to accept a new baby in the family.

Parental Involvement

Before the project began, a parent meeting was held to acquaint parentswith the storybook reading program. Children whose parents did not attendthe meeting took program information home to their parents. Although par-ents were encouraged to read with their child and to encourage their child touse the storybooks, no specific requirements were established.

A second parent meeting was held at the end of the project, at which timeparents described their children's literacy-related behaviors and use of thestorybooks at home on a questionnaire. Children whose parents did not at-tend the meeting took the questionnaire home to their parents.

Signs of Emergent Literacy

When young children attempt to read (or make sense of) storybooks beforethey have acquired conventional reading skills, they appear to use severalstrategies (or sources of information): memory for text, illustrations in thestorybook, general linguistic knowledge, the printed text, and appeals to anadult for assistance (Otto, 1991). Through careful observation of children'sbehaviors during storybook interactions, educators can better recognizetheir emergent literacy knowledge and use it as the basis for planning spe-cific classroom activities.

Assessment of emergent reading ability. Assessment of emergent readingability was conducted at the beginning and at the end of the study, usingSulzby's (1985) Emergent Reading Ability Judgments (ERAJ) Scale. For thisassessment, children were asked to "read" a storybook "anyway you wantto." If the child initially refused to read, subsequent prompts asked the childto "do your best, give it a try" and "pretend." Final prompting involvedasking the child what help he or she needed in order to read. For continuedrefusals, the examiner initiated a shared reading with opportunities for thechild to participate (Otto, 1984).

The ERAJ Scale (Sulzby, 1985) has five main categories: holistic reading;print-governed, aspectual reading; picture-governed reading that is like writ-ten language; picture-governed reading that is like oral language; and read-ing in which story fragments are described with labels or action sequences.Assisted reading categories (Otto, 1984) include nonverbal responses, con-versational responses, echo responses, semantic responses, and verbatim-like responses.

In the prestudy assessment, children were asked individually to read atraditional storybook (Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car) and a beginning reader (Mrs.Wishy Washy) to the examiner (see Appendix). Both books had been read toeach class by their teacher for 1 week. In addition to audiotaping the chil-dren's reading, the examiner took brief notes after each taping session. Pro-

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STORYBOOK READING 155

cedures for the poststudy assessment were the same as for the prestudyassessment, except a third book was added. Harry the Dirty Dog was thetraditional storybook used for poststudy assessment and Stop! was the begin-ning reader used. In addition, children were also asked to read Mrs. WishyWashy, which was used during the prestudy assessment. Neither the childrennor their teacher were aware of the specific books to be used in the post-study assessment. Copies of the books used in the pre- and poststudy assess-ments were removed from the classroom when the interviews began.

Judgments of emergent reading ability were made after a review of eachtranscript, audiotape, and session notes. Judgments were made by the au-thor and a trained scorer. Scoring differences were reconciled and categoriesfurther clarified.

RESULTS

Parent Responses

Thirty-three parents returned questionnaires. In addition to the parents ofthe 28 children in the project, this included the parents of 4 children whowere dropped from the pre-post analysis because of frequent absences andthe parent of 1 child who enrolled in school in December.

Eighty-eight percent (29 of 33) of the parents reported their children usedthe storybooks every day or several times a week. When asked what changesthey had observed in the children during the course of the storybook readingprogram, parents reported increased interest in several literacy-related ac-tivities (see Table 1).

Increases in children's interest in trying to read and in printing were re-ported by nearly 75% of the parents. Although interest in drawing was re-ported to have increased the least of all the literacy-related behaviors, morethan half the parents reported an increase in this activity.

Despite the fact that these parent responses are self-reports and thus maynot be as valid as data obtained through home visits or other ethnographicmethods, the parents' differential responses to the target behaviors listed onthe questionnaire indicated they were responding to the specific question

TABLE 1 Changes in At-Home Literacy-Related Behaviors Reportedby Parents

No. ofBehavior children %

More interest in having stories read to him or herMore interest in telling stories to other peopleMore interest in drawingMore interest in printing or trying to printMore interest in trying to readMore interest in environmental print

23/3322/3319/3324/3324/3320/33

676758737360

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rather than responding without reflecting on their child's behavior. It is alsopossible that the parents' positive perceptions of their child's responses tostorybooks may have lead to increased interaction and encouragement.

Pre-Post Comparisons of Emergent Reading Ability

As a group, the kindergartners showed marked differences between pre- andpoststudy measures of emergent reading ability (see Table 2).

On the basis of these data, several pre-post comparisons were made.First, the whole group's ERAJ Scale behaviors reading the same text (Mrs.Wishy Washy) were compared; then within-child comparisons were exam-ined. Pre-post comparisons were also made for children's interactions withthe more complex, traditional storybooks.

Pre- and Poststudy Group Comparisons

Two specific categories of response were examined for the group's reading ofMrs. Wishy Washy at the beginning and end of the study. First, the numberof children who gave refusals that resulted in assisted readings was exam-ined. When a child refused to read the book independently, assisted readingstook the form of the examiner reading the text a portion at a time and paus-ing to create a linguistic gap, thus encouraging the child to participate ver-bally.

In October, 7 out of 28 (25%) readings (of Mrs. Wishy Washy) were as-sisted compared to only 1 out of 28 readings of the same storybook in Janu-ary (end of the project).

The second comparison involved the number of children who read in theaspectual category. Children who read aspectually attempt to track printwhile reading. The aspectual level represents an important change in chil-dren's interactions with storybooks because it is at this level children beginto focus on one or more specific reading strategies, that is, letter-sound rela-tionships, known words, and comprehension (Sulzby, 1985). The aspectuallevel also represents a change from picture- to print-governed story recon-struction (Sulzby, 1985).

In October, no readings were at the aspectual level; in January, 8 of the 28(25%) readings of Mrs. Wishy Washy were aspectual. Similar results werealso found with the more complex text. There were fewer assisted readingsand more aspectual readings in January than there were at the beginning ofthe study in October.

Intrachild ComparisonsIn order to examine changes in emergent literacy, individual children's pre-and poststudy readings of Mrs. Wishy Washy were compared. Of the 28 chil-dren in the study, 21 children's readings in January were at a higher level ofemergent reading ability than they were in October. Six children's pre- andpostreadings were at the same level. One child's postreading was at a lowerlevel than her prestudy reading.

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TABLE 2 Summary of Pre- and Poststudy Judgments of Emergent Reading Ability in Kindergartners' Storybook Readings

Book/class

OctoberMrs. Wishy Washy

MorningAfternoon

Mr. Gumpy's Motor CarMorningAfternoon

JanuaryStop!

MorningAfternoon

Mrs. Wishy WashyMorningAfternoon

Harry the Dirty DogMorningAfternoon

Refusal

——

1(5%)-

——

_—

——

Assistedreading

7 (39%)—

8 (44%)4 (40%)

3(17%)1 (10%)

1(5%)—

5 (28%)1 (10%)

Category of emergent

Story notformed

—1 (10%)

—— '

2(11%)1 (10%)

_—

—1 (10%)

reading ability

Orallanguage

—1 (10%)

—3 (30%)

2(11%)2 (20%)

—1 (10%)

2(11%)4 (40%)

Writtenlanguage

11(61%)8 (80%)

9 (50%)3 (30%)

3 (17%)3 (30%)

9 (50%)5 (50%)

6 (33%)4 (40%)

Aspectual

——

—-

8 (44%)2 (20%)

4 (44%)4 (40%)

5 (28%)—

Note, n — 18 in the morning class and 10 in the afternoon class. The same children were in both the October and January collections.

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The next analysis examined the readings of only those children who werereading Mrs. Wishy Washy aspectually in January.

Sulzby (1985) reported that although the ERAJ Scale has developmentalproperties, children do not appear to follow a common sequence from onelevel to the next. Similar results were found in the present study. Althoughthis subgroup of children were reading aspectually in January, their October(prestudy) readings were represented by a range of emergent reading behav-iors: assisted reading with semantic responses, story fragments/action-governed reading, mixed oral and written language, written-language-like(not verbatim) reading, and verbatim-like attempts.

Children who read the more complex text (Harry the Dirty Dog) aspec-tually in January also had a range of prestudy reading categories for complextext: assisted-echo, semantic, verbatim, oral-written mix, and verbatim-likeattempts.

Two conclusions are suggested by these data. It may be that some chil-dren's emergent reading ability increased more than others', or it may bethat some levels or categories were entirely skipped by certain children.Data are insufficient to support either conclusion strongly. Clearly, there is aneed to study more closely how children make the transition to attemptingto track print. More frequent measures are needed of a group of children'sinteractions with storybooks over an extended time.

Role of Text Complexity

Storybooks with different text characteristics were used to see if children'semergent reading abilities would be related to text complexity.

Text complexity was examined in two ways: between-class and within-child comparisons. Although the children were asked to read both types oftext in the pre- and poststudy assessments, each class received only one typeof storybook to take home. The morning class received traditional story-books, whereas the afternoon class received beginning-reader books.

Examination of postemergent reading behaviors indicated that the classthat took home the beginning-reader books (the afternoon class) had fewerreadings categorized as print-governed/aspectual than did the class who re-ceived the traditional storybooks (see Table 2). When the two classes' pre-and poststudy readings of complex text (Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car and Harrythe Dirty Dog) were compared, only the traditional storybook class (themorning class) had children who read aspectually in January at the end ofthe study.

There were also differences in the level at which beginning-reader textwas read by the two classes. In October, none of the children in either classread the simple text (Mrs. Wishy Washy) aspectually; however, in January, 8children from the traditional storybook group read simple text (Stop!) aspec-tually, whereas only 2 children from the beginning-reader text group read atthe aspectual level. These differences between classes disappeared whenchildren read a more familiar book (Mrs. Wishy Washy) that had been usedfor prestudy assessment.

The differences between classes suggests that children whose reading ex-

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STORYBOOK READING 159

periences involve only the simple text found in beginning readers are lessable to interact with the more complex text found in traditional storybooks.It may also be that by having more exposure to traditional storybooks, thechildren in the morning class were more confident of how to interact withstorybooks.

Intrachild Influence of Text Complexity

For some individual children, text complexity did appear to influence emer-gent reading ability, because their reading of the more complex text was at alower level of emergent reading ability than their reading of beginning-reader texts. In the prestudy test, 46% of the children read Mr. Gumpy'sMotor Car at a lower level of emergent reading than they read Mrs. WishyWashy.

For example, Jackie's reading of Mrs. Wishy Washy was written-language-like (although not verbatim):

Mrs Wishy Washy. Lovely mud, said the pig, so he jumped in it. . . .There goes Mrs Wishy Washy going back in the house.

When Jackie read the more complex text of Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car, herreading was at a lower level, that of disconnected story:

The sheep got in, in the truck. They all fitted in the truck, right?Someone needs to push, right? Who, who's gonna go and push? Whois? This one, or this one, or there's one, there's one. See? Finally,let's take the track. They wanted to take the track. All fit in. Therain comes. It's starting to get rainy. They push this little up thereand put the hood on it.

Differences in emergent reading ability between different levels of textcomplexity indicate that educators should consider the characteristics of astorybook text when assessing children's emergent reading ability, becausesome children's level of emergent reading ability can be influenced by textcomplexity.

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS

The storybook reading program proved to increase children's involvementwith storybooks. Parents reported increases in their children's interest inreading and reading-related activities. Many parents reported that their chil-dren used the storybooks daily or several times a week. Clearly, these inner-city parents were interested in their children's literacy development. One ofthe parents even participated in a local radio program that focused on thestorybook project, describing the project's outcomes from a parent's view-point.

The classroom teacher was very supportive of the storybook reading pro-gram. The program fit into her established curriculum easily. She was excited

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about the changes she saw occurring in the children, specifically their enthu-siasm for reading. Upon receiving his personal copy, one child exclaimed toanother, "Guess what! I get to take this book home!"

Informal, holistic examination of children's storybook interactions wasuseful in tracking children's emergent literacy. As a group, children's emer-gent reading ability increased from October to January. There were fewerassisted readings in January. Whereas none of the children focused on printwhen reading in October, 32% of them focused on print in January. Of the 28children in the study, 21 (75%) children's poststudy readings were at a higherlevel of emergent reading ability than their prestudy readings had been. Thisamount of increase is slightly higher than that (16 of 24, 67%) reported bySulzby (1985) in her study of kindergartners. In Sulzby's study, however, thelength of the time between measures was longer, from the beginning to theend of the school term (October to May). Compared with Sulzby's study, chil-dren in the present study appeared to increase in emergent reading ability ata faster rate; however, because end-of-the-year data were not collected inthe present study, this conclusion remains tentative. It is clear that the emer-gent reading ability of the children in the storybook reading program didincrease during the 14-week period.

Emergent reading ability appeared to be related to text complexity forsome children. For these children, books that had more complex text wereread at a lower level of emergent reading ability. The class that had moreexperience with the complex text showed slightly higher levels of emergentreading ability when reading traditional storybooks than did the class whohad more experience with the beginning-reader storybooks.

The present results suggest that teachers should make storybooks avail-able to children throughout the day and allow them to take books home on along-term basis. For children who may not have storybooks at home, it isessential that they have the opportunity to read at their leisure at home andshare their readings with family members. By introducing children to thebooks in the classroom and focusing on story comprehension, teachers pro-vide a basis for children's subsequent independent interactions with thebook during self-directed play in the classroom and in their homes.

Beginning-reader texts that contain simpler syntactic structure and vo-cabulary may encourage decoding skills, but they do not appear to help chil-dren become familiar with more linguistically complex language. Thus, it isalso important for children to have experiences with traditional storybooksthat have more complex text.

Teachers are also encouraged to explore the holistic assessment of emer-gent reading ability as a way of becoming aware of children's current anddeveloping knowledge. Once teachers are aware of the emergent literacy oftheir students, appropriate informal and formal literacy-related learning ac-tivities can be implemented.

Many inner-city parents are interested in their children's acquisition ofreading skills. Educators who attempt to elicit parental support need to un-derstand the limitations and challenges inner-city parents may face.

The present storybook reading program was designed to blend into exist-

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STORYBOOK READING 161

ing reading curricula and promote involvement by inner-city parents. Al-though the current emphasis on whole-language literacy instruction in theprofessional literature appears to encourage immediate curricular change,researchers as well as teachers and administrators have found that the tran-sition to a new instructional approach takes time (Otto & Iacono, 1991; Ra-sala, 1989; Varnon, 1990). One approach to making this transition is to beginto implement holistic literacy activities and informal methods of assessmentwhile still observing existing curriculum. By increasing kindergartners' expe-riences with storybooks and evaluating their storybook interaction behaviorsinformally, teachers are able to make the transition to more holistic literacyinstruction.

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Wells, G. (1981, October). Preschool literacy-related activities and success in school.Paper presented at the Cognitive Consequences of Literacy Conference, OntarioInstitute for Studies in Education, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Wells, B. (1982). Story reading and the development of symbolic skills. AustralianJournal of Reading, 5, 142-152.

Address correspondence to Dr. Beverly White Otto, Department of Curriculumand Instruction, College of Education, Northeastern Illinois State University,5500 N. St. Louis Avenue, Chicago, IL 60625-4699.

APPENDIX: BOOKS USED IN STORYBOOKREADING PROGRAM

Morning Class: Traditional Storybooks

Burningham, J. (1973). Mr. Gumpy's Motor Car. London: Penguin.Eastman, P. D. (1960). Are you my mother? New York: Random House.Freeman, D. (1968). Corduroy. New York: Puffin Books.Keats, E. J. (1967). Peter's chair. New York: Harper & Row.Nodset, J. L. (1963). Who took the farmer's hat? New York: Harper & Row.Slobodkina, E. (1940). Caps for sale. New York: Harper & Row.Zion, G. (1956). Harry the dirty dog. New York: Harper & Row.

Afternoon Class: Beginning-Reader Books

Crowley, J. (1980). Mrs. Wishy Washy. Auckland, New Zealand: Shortland Publica-tions.

Crowley, J. (1982). Stop! Auckland, New Zealand: Shortland Publications.Crowley, J. (1983). Feet. Auckland, New Zealand: Shortland Publications.Crowley, J. (1986). A hug is warm. San Diego, CA: Wright Group.Crowley, J. (1986). Little brother. San Diego, CA: Wright Group.Cutting, J. (1988). Getting dressed. San Diego, CA: Wright Group.Cutting, J. (1988). Shopping. San Diego, CA: Wright Group.

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