Video Observation of Kindergarten Teachers’ Use of Questions in Picture-Book Reading with Quiet Multilingual Children: A Pilot Study

The pilot study investigates kindergarten teachers’ use of questions when reading children’s picture books. The goal is to try out a digital picture book that is being developed as part of a vocabulary intervention for multilingual children. The study highlights how different types of questions can get multilingual children, who use few words and short sentences in one-to-one conversations with educators in Norwegian, to answer. The research question is: What types of questions do quiet children respond to, to a greater or lesser extent?

The results showed that quiet children received more questions than expected, but responses varied depending on the type of question. Semi-open-ended questions received answers from 75–97% of the children, closed-ended questions from 60–80%, while open-ended questions only received answers from 14–60%. The verbal response depended not only on the type of question, but also on the children’s initiative, willingness to speak and ability to express themselves. The researchers behind the study conclude that the questions must be adapted to each individual child when planning dialogic interaction with quiet multilingual children.

Researchers observed kindergarten educators reading the same digital book together with children in kindergartens in Oslo and Western Norway. Using video observation, the researchers investigated the communication between the children and the experienced educators during the reading session. The sample consisted of two kindergarten teachers and three children, selected from the pilot data in order to include quiet children. The children were 4-5 years old, learning Norwegian as a second language, and had parents with a non-Scandinavian mother tongue. The dialogue with the picture book, which lasted between 9 and 13 minutes, was conducted individually with each child.

Bredesen, M. M., & Næss, K. A. B. (2023). Video Observation of Kindergarten Teachers’ Use of Questions in Picture-Book Reading with Quiet Multilingual Children: A Pilot Study. Education Sciences, 13(10), 1066.