Improving Parent–child Interactions Through Interactive Reading Workshops

A B S T R A C T Introduction. - Many authors agree on the importance of training parents in early literacy strategies. Objective. - This study analyses the effects of an intervention to improve parent-child interactions during reading sessions, using interactive reading techniques. Method. - The design is exploratory and includes a treatment group (n = 22), which benefited from four interactive reading workshops, and a control group (n = 18), which did not benefit from specific training. Both groups read the same books, three times a week, for 10 weeks. The children come from middle socioeconomic backgrounds and attend preschool or kindergarten (grades 1-3). Results. - The analyses were conducted on the basis of pre-and post-intervention video observations, coded using the Adult-Child Interactive Reading Inventory (ACIRI). Results from an ANCOVA show that parental behavior, and in turn child behavior, improves in post-intervention: parents improve their children's attention to the text and implement literacy strategies, while the children become more involved in the interactions. Conclusion. - Interactive reading workshops for parents improve the quantity and quality of parent-child interactions when reading books in a natural and playful context. (c) 2021 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.