Maternal Involvement and Children’s Language Skills

Introduction

Nowadays, many researchers suggest that children who are introduced to literacy in the early age are more likely to develop better language skills, broader vocabulary, and a higher level of abstract thinking in the future. For example, the verbal interaction during reading could be a great way for parents to improve children's vocabulary and four levels of abstraction through yes/no and wh-questions. Focusing on the interaction between the preschool children and their mothers, as their convenient role models, the hypotheses proposed in this study has an aim to examine whether the verbal interaction between mother and child, for instance, reading, asking and answering, might lead to the progress of children's literacy level. Moreover, the purpose of this research is to identify whether the extratextual talk during reading could improve the vocabulary, understanding of the story, and comprehension of the chronological order during the sixth month period. Also, among the mentioned hypotheses, this research aims to show whether a parent’s utterance`s function could improve children's language skills during the six month period.

So far, many of the previous and current studies related to children’s literacy suggest that parent’s usage of extratextual language and utterances such as yes/no and wh questions could be important for children’s vocabulary improvement (Tompkins et al. , 2017). Focusing on the previous findings which point to mother’s influence on preschooler's vocabulary (Hoff, 2006) and development of children’s language skills (Zucker et al. , 2013), Tompkins et al. (2017) has conducted a study which examines the influence of interactive reading on language development of the preschoolers. Methods For the purpose of the study, 49 (25 female and 24 male) mostly Caucasian preschool children participated in the experiment. The gender of the children was not taken into consideration.

Furthermore, mothers were asked to read Waldron’s, a brand new and unfamiliar book, to their children who were located in a quiet and comfortable place (Tomkins et al. , 2017). Previously, children’s mothers reported their income and level of education. Most of them were highly educated women who belonged to the middle or upper middle class. They were supposed to preview the book before the reading interaction. The testing of children’s vocabulary and it’s improvement also occurred before and after reading of the same book in a laboratory or home environment. Additionally, the testing was conducted six months apart (Tompkins et al. , 2017). The testing models involved the following procedures: transcription of the utterances (yes/no or wh questions), usage of the coding scheme in order to examine the influence of utterance function through wh-questions (why, what, when, who, how) and simple yes/no questions, and fulfillment of parent surveys which included personal question linked to level of education, income, children’s interest in books and educative TV shows, etc (Tompkins et al. , 2017). The mothers were also supposed to answer the survey related to children’s interest in reading by using the 4-point scale.

Results

In relation to the research, the hypotheses were supposed to show whether preschooler's vocabulary could grow in a six month period under the influence of their mother`s extratextual talk, inferential responses, statements and utterance (Tompkins et al. , 2017). According to the results of the study, the inferential statements and yes/no questions could improve preschooler's vocabulary contrary to inferential wh-questions and literal utterance that could not predict preschooler's vocabulary growth (Tompkins et al. , 2017). Since the research aimed to predict children's receptive vocabulary, Tompkins et al. (2017), indicated that preschool children have a low response rate when it comes to the wh-questions, but a high response rate to the yes/no questions. Figuratively, if children’s vocabulary is the dependent variable, then, there was also a positive correlation between the children`s response to mother’s usage of inferential statements with no level of abstraction which means that inferential statements could improve children's vocabulary during six months period. Considering the yes/no question, there was also a positive response rate, which was not a case with the link between the usage of literal utterances and the growth of the children’s vocabulary (Tompkins et al. 2017).

Conclusion

Considering the fact that the study has many limitations maybe the results would be different if some of the variables were changed. For example, there might be a chance that the inferential wh-questions and the statement with the level of abstraction would help the growth of preschooler’s vocabulary if the duration of the study was longer than six months. Tompkins et al. (2017) implies that the results might be different if the sample were different, for example, if the status of the mothers were different.

As we know, low-income mothers do not have much time to read books and participate in interactive sessions. Additionally, the age of the children also plays a significant role in the prediction of the results because the growth of the vocabulary is determined by their psychological and cognitive development. Lastly, Tompkins et al. (2017) suggest that the results could be different if the book that was used for the study was more familiar to mother-children dynamic (p. 411). My overall impression related to the study is positive because the prediction of children's literacy promotes the validity of vocabulary growth and reading. Since the results suggest that there is a significant relationship between the development of children's language and parental interaction, further researchers could work on the improvement of the techniques which would give better and more accurate results.