Abstract of

Children's Emergent Reading of Favorite Storybooks: A Developmental Study

Elizabeth Sulzby, Northwestern University

Children in literate societies have been found to have knowledge about written language long before reading conventionally from print. It is suggested that they are sorting out oral and written language relationships in activities like storybook reading with parents and that what they are learning can be detected by asking them to “read” to an adult from familiar, or “favorite” books. In Study I, the emergent reading attempts of 24 children at the beginning and end of their kindergarten year (during which there was no formal instruction in reading or writing) were content-analyzed in light of theoretical considerations about general and language development. The reading attempts appeared to fall into a classification scheme with developmental properties. This scheme documented significant improvement in children's emergent reading over the kindergarten year. Study II examined reading attempts of two-, three-, and four-year-olds; each child read two books per session for four sessions spaced over a year. Children's storybook reading attempts were stable over different storybooks read in the same session. A comparison with data from Study I revealed a developmental progression across age-levels. Results are discussed in light of the need for future research in emergent literacy and of implications for parents, schools, and instructional/assessment design.

Abstract from Sulzby, E. (1985, Summer). Children's Emergent Reading of Favorite Storybooks: A Developmental Study. Reading Research Quarterly, 20(4), 458–481. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.20.4.4