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Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 (2015) 754 – 758

7th World Conference on Educational Sciences, (WCES-2015), 05-07 February 2015, Novotel
Athens Convention Center, Athens, Greece

Effects of the Dialogic and Traditional Reading Techniques on

Children’s Language Development
Zeynep Ceren Simseka*, Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogana
a
Pamukkale University, Faculty of Education, Denizli,20200, Turkey

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention on the receptive and expressive
language skills of 4-5 year old children from low-income families. Control group with pretest – posttest model in experimental
design was used. Forty-six children attending a public kindergarten in Denizli were randomly placed in an experiment and a
control group. Data were collected through “TEDİL-3” and “Personal Information Form.” In the experimental group, 8 picture
books were read by the researcher two times a week for four weeks through dialogic reading techniques. In the control group,
the same 8 picture books were read by the classroom teacher through traditional reading. The results showed advances in
children’s language development in favor of the experimental group. Suggestions related to literature were discussed.
© 2015
© 2015TheTheAuthors.
Authors. Published
Published by Elsevier
by Elsevier Ltd. Ltd.
This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.
Keywords:Dialogic reading; traditional reading, language development

1. Introduction

Language as a vital part of children’s development provides opportunities for learning, for communicating and
building relationships with others as well as for enabling children to make sense of the world around them (Brock &
Rankin, 2008). It is well recognized that interaction with more skilled speakers, provide literacy rich home and
school environment and engage in interactive book reading are important activities to support preschool age
children’s language development (Berk, 2013). Mainly, studies show that parent- child reading is related to outcome
measures such as language growth, emergent literacy, and reading achievement (Bus, IJzendoorn &Pellegrini, 1995).

* Zeynep Ceren Simsek. Tel.+4-345-543-345.

E-mail address: cyesilyurt@pau.edu.tr

1877-0428 © 2015 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Peer-review under responsibility of Academic World Education and Research Center.
doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2015.07.172
 Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 (2015) 754 – 758 755

Reading books to children at early age has been found very useful for gaining vocabulary, communication and
memory skills. (Powell, Diamond, Burchinal & Koehler, 2010; Sim & Berthelsen, 2014).
Research studies indicate that there is a relationship exists between the regularity of children’s book reading
experiences and their receptive vocabulary and early literacy skills. (Sutton, Sofka, Bojczyk, and Curenton, 2007). A
long with regularity of book reading, a child’s interaction level also linked to his or her learning. Researchers find
that dialogical reading that requires higher level of children’s interaction has a positive impact on the language skills
of children from low-income families (Zevenbergen, Whitehurst & Zevenbergen, 2003).
Both at home and in school, shared book reading involves an adult reading aloud to a child or group of children
(Hindman, Skibbe, & Foster, 2014; Gormley & Ruhl, 2005). Two main types of shared book reading “monologic
(traditional)” and “dialogic” are evident in the literature. Gormley & Ruhl (2005) defined monologic reading as; “a
verbatim reading of the text with no pausing for questions or verbal interaction between adult and child.” On the
contrary, dialogic reading involves shifting roles of adult and children while reading.
The concept of dialogic reading has emerged from the works of Whitehurst and his colleagues (Whitehurst et al.,
1988). The main principle of dialogic reading is to teach children become a storyteller instead of passively listening
to the story. In the process of dialogic reading the adult assumes the role of an active listener, asking questions,
adding information, and prompting the child to increase the sophistication of her or his descriptions of the material in
the picture book (Lonigan, & Whitehurst, 1998). To ensure interaction the PEER and CROWD sequences are used
in dialogic reading (Whitehurst et al.,1994). PEER refers to the following: (a) Prompt the child to talk about the
book, (b) Evaluate the child’s responses, (c) Expand the child's response by rephrasing and adding information to it
and (d) Repeat the prompt to make sure the child has learned from the expansion. CROWD refers to the five types of
prompts (a) Completion prompts: fill-in-the blank questions, (b) Recall prompts: questions that require the child to
remember aspects of the book, (c) Open-ended prompts: statements that encourage the child to respond to the book
in his or her own words, (d) Wh-prompts: what, where, and why questions, and (e) Distancing prompts : questions
that require the child to relate the content of the book to aspects of life outside the book (Zevenbergen et al., 2003).
The effects of dialogic reading have compared by several experimental studies. Arnold, Lonigan, Whitehurst, &
Epstein, (1994) implemented a one month, home-based dialogic reading intervention. The results indicated larger
effects on the language skills of children than a similar amount of typical picture book reading. Similarly, dialogic
reading intervention both at home and school have produced positive gains for children from low income families
(Whitehurst et al., 1994). In a recent study, Lonigan, Purpura, Wilson, Walker and Clancy-Menchetti (2013) have
found that children who received the small group dialogic reading, phonological awareness, or letter knowledge
interventions experienced more growth than the children who received only their classroom curriculum. The effects
of dialogic reading intervention on other cultures and languages were also examined. Opel, Ameer and Aboud
(2009) conducted a 4-week dialogic reading intervention with rural Bangladeshi preschoolers and found that dialogic
program increased from 26% to 54% children’s expressive vocabulary. In another dialogic reading intervention
conducted in Egypt resulted in a higher level of phonological awareness (Elmonayer, 2013). In Turkey, Akoglu,
Ergul & Duman (2013) conducted an experimental study with nine children living in an orphanage. After the four
week dialogic reading intervention, they found that children’s both receptive and expressive language skills were
improved.
The present study attempted to contribute to this line of work on reading and language development by examining
the benefits of dialogic reading in a Turkish preschool program. The purpose of this study is to examine the efficacy
of a 4-week dialogic reading intervention on the receptive and expressive language skills of 4-5 year old children
from low-income families. For this purpose this study also aimed to understand the following questions:
1) Is there a difference between the pre and posttest expressive and receptive language scores in the experiment
group?
2) Is there a difference between the pre and posttest expressive and receptive language scores in the control
group?
3) Is there a difference between the experiment and control groups’ expressive and receptive language scores?
756 Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 (2015) 754 – 758

2. Method

2.1. Design and procedure

An experimental study was designed to examine the effects of dialogic reading on children’s language
development. The design was a pre–post assessment of an experiment and control group. This design was intended
to examine and to compare reading techniques on children’s language development. For this purpose the present
study included two groups. One is experimental group in which the dialogic reading (DR) was implemented and
second is the control group in whish dialogic traditional reading was implemented (TR).
The pre-tests were administered before implementing DR and TR activities. All the children in the two groups
were tested individually and the assessment was administered in a quiet room at the school. Eight picture story books
were selected for the reading activities and the same books were read both in the experiment and the control group.
Books were 11–14 pages in length and had a quarter page of text with full page illustrations in the background.
For the experimental group, the dialogic reading activities were developed using PEER and CROWD techniques
and the researcher visited to the classroom two times a week and implemented DR activities. DR activities lasted
approximately 20 minutes and conducted in a small group of 7-9 children. For the control group, the classroom
teacher received and used the same 8 books over the 4-week period during the regular language activities. The
classroom teacher was asked to conduct her regular language activities with the children. After the 4 weeks of
implementation, the post-tests were administered in both groups.

2.2. Participants

Children recruited for this study were from low-income families and attended a public kindergarten in central
Denizli. The consent was obtained from MEB officials and the parents to assess children’s language development
and demographic information. The participants were 46 five-year-olds, enrolled in two different classrooms.
Participant classrooms were randomly placed in the experiment and control group. The control group of this study
included 23 children (% 44 female and %56 male). On average, the children were 65.69 months of age (SD= 3.03),
with an age range from 60.00 to 71.00 months. The experimental group of this study included 22 children (%
41Female and &59 male). On average, the children were 66.75 months of age (SD = 3.29), with an age range from
60.00 to 73.00 months.

2.3. Measures

In order to determine the language development levels of the children “Test of Early Language Development-
Third Edition” (TELD-3), developed by Hresko, Reid ve Hammill (1999) has been used. This test is a normative,
valid and credible measure tool, developed in the United States of America in order to measure the receptive and
expressive oral language skills of the children whose ages ranging from 2 years 0 month and 7 years 11 months. It is
commonly used with the aim of diagnosing children who have language disorders in the early ages, showing weak
and strong sides of their language developments, giving information about development process and researching.
TELD-3, has been identified as Test of Early Language Development-Third Edition: TurkishVersion (TELD-3:T) in
the international literature with the contributions of PRO-ED publishing (Topbas, 2010). TELD has been used twice
as pre-tests and post tests.

2.4. Results

The aim of this study was to identify the effect of dialogic reading upon the receptive and expressive language
developments of the preschool children in a group of 4-5 years. The results of pre-test and posttest about their
receptive language were shown in the Table 1.
 Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 (2015) 754 – 758 757

Table1. Comparisons of pre and posttest of children’s receptive language scores

Group N X SS t p
Pretest 23 102,26 15,09
Control (TR) 23 105,04 13,24 -1,10 ,282
Posttest
Pretest 22 98,77 14,82
Experiment (DR) -5,15 ,000
Posttest 22 111,40 9,60

Table 1 showed that there was no significant difference between the pre-test and the post test receptive
language scores on children’s in the control group (t23 = .02, p<0.05). This meant that there were no significant
change children’s language scores in traditional reading group. On the other hand; there was a significant difference
between the pre-test and the posttest receptive scores of the children in the experiment group. (t23 = .000, p<0.05).
This result showed that the children’s receptive language sores were significantly increased on the posttest. In order
to compare pre and posttest expressive language scores of children, independent samples t-tests were performed.
Table 2 shows the means, standard deviations, t statistics and significant levels for the control and experiment
groups.
Table2. Comparisons of pre and post test of children’s expressive language scores
Group N X SS t p
Pretest 23 107,73 14,07
Control (TR) ,018 ,985
Posttest 23 107,67 8,08
Experiment Pretest 22 106,04 10,41
-5,75 ,000
(DR) Posttest 22 116,31 7.31

Table 2 indicated that, the expressive language scores of children in the control group did not reflect a statistically
significant differences between the pre-test and the post test scores (t23= .098; p<0.05). In other words, the receptive
language scores of the children did not change in the traditional reading group. On the contrary, the expressive
language scores of children in the experiment group reflected a statistically significant increase in the posttest (t 23=
.000; p<0.05). This result indicated that children in the dialogical reading group increased their expressive language
scores after 4 week intervention. The comparisons of the pre and posttest of children’s total language scores are
presented in the Table 3.
Table3. Comparisons of the pre and post test of children’s total language scores
Group N X SS t p
Pretest 23 106,43 15,67 -
Control (TR) ,520
Posttest 23 108,04 11,01 ,654
Pretest 22 103,59 13,56 -
Experiment (DR) ,000
Posttest 22 117,13 8,13 5,65

The traditional reading group’s total language scores indicated that the means of pre- and posttest scores were
nonsignificant (t23= .520, p<0.05). On the other hand, the dialogical reading group’s total language scores indicated
that pre- and posttest scores produces a statistically significant difference (t23= .000, p<0.05). This result showed that
total language scores of children increased after four week dialogic reading intervention.

3. Results and Implications

This study has reported the results of a four week reading intervention on children’s language development. The
quantitative analyses indicated that participation in the dialogic reading intervention had significantly changed
children’s’ receptive, expressive and total language scores. First, the findings suggested that the dialogic reading
facilitated a change in participant children’ both expressive and receptive language. This result was supported by
several researches. According to these researches, dialogic reading intervention had positive contributions to
children’s vocabulary and early literacy skills (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst, et al. 1988). Dialogic
reading supports all fields of language development as well as developing especially the expressive language
development in comparison to traditional reading. This may be due to the interactive nature of the dialogic reading.
In the traditional reading, a child just listens to the story and has limited opportunity to express himself/herself. On
758 Zeynep Ceren Simsek and Nesrin Isıkoglu Erdogan / Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 (2015) 754 – 758

the other hand, dialogic reading gives many opportunities to the child to make much more sentences than the adult
reading the book, to involve in and to freely express his/her opinions. Such interactions may result in improvements
in expressive and receptive language development. In a similar experimental research, the effects of traditional
reading and interactive reading have been compared and concluded that children in the interactive reading groups
have more language and early literacy skills (Hargrave & Senechal, 2000). Similar studies have found that
interactive reading interventions both at home (LeRoux, 2013) and in schools (Lever & Senechal, 2011) contributed
to the narrative and expressive language skills of the 4-5 year old children.
Mainly, this study suggests that the dialogical reading is an important factor in supporting language development
of children. The dialogic reading is a highly effective reading technique in order to enhance the language
development of preschool age children. Therefore, both parents and early childhood teachers are urgently needed to
inform about the dialogic reading techniques. These techniques could be disseminated through the interactive
seminars or the Internet for both parents and teachers.
Even though this research pointed out many important findings and implications, it has some limitations. Our
study had a limited number of participants that did not allow us to generalize across all children at various ages.
Future research needs to be conducted with a bigger sample from various age groups and should attempt to replicate
the findings of this study in other samples to guarantee the generalisability of the findings.

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