Do teacher talk features mediate the effects of shared reading on preschool children's second-language development?

The study investigates whether an intervention on joint reading for multilingual children in kindergarten affects the quality of the kindergarten teacher’s speech. Furthermore, it is investigated whether identified changes in the kindergarten teacher’s speech can explain children’s second language development. The research questions are: 1) Were there differences in the quality of the kindergarten teacher’s speech towards the end of the intervention year between kindergarten teachers who received the reading intervention and kindergarten teachers who did not receive it? 2) Did the quality of the kindergarten teacher’s speech have an indirect effect on children’s second language vocabulary and grammar results?

The results show that kindergarten teachers in the intervention group had significantly higher quality speech at the end of the intervention year compared to kindergarten teachers in the control group. The differences in the kindergarten teachers’ speech also explained variations in children’s second language vocabulary at the end of the intervention year, but did not show any effect on children’s syntactic understanding in the second language.

The researchers used language tests, the Classroom Assessment Scoring System (CLASS), observation forms, as well as audio recordings of reading activities, to analyse quality and changes in kindergarten teachers’ speech and children’s language skills. The sample consists of 464 bilingual children aged three to five years, spread over 60 kindergartens in the Oslo area. Each kindergarten department averaged just over three kindergarten employees, including a pedagogical leader. To study the effect of the intervention, 123 departments in the different kindergartens were randomly divided into two groups where 61 departments were placed in the intervention group and 62 departments in the control group. The researchers then measured and compared effects and variations between the two groups before and after the intervention year.

Grøver, V., Rydland, V., Gustafsson, J.-E., & Snow, C. E. (2022). Do teacher talk features mediate the effects of shared reading on preschool children's second-language development? Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 61, 118–131.