Doctoral Dissertations

Hae Won Kim

Date of Award

5-1997

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

Human Ecology

Major Professor

Sandra Twardosz

Abstract

One of the important goals of early childhood day care programs is to nurture a positive attitude toward reading. However, it is a well known problem that many children in day care classrooms do not use the book area frequently during freeplay, and that some children may rarely or never use books at this time. Participation in a daily group storytime, when a teacher reads a book to the entire group, may be the only exposure to books experienced by some children in their classrooms. Thus, a scheduled independent reading time is important for young children's literacy development because it provides an opportunity for all of the children to use books. Interest in books might then generalize to other times of the day. The purpose of this study was to investigate how young children and their teachers would use books during Independent Reading Time (IRT) and whether IRT would affect children's book use during freeplay and nap transition time.

Participants were 29 children from 2 classrooms of a university operated day care center, whose age range was 3 to 5 years old. IRT occurred for about 10-15 minutes three times per week on alternate days. During IRT children read a book alone, with others in a small group, or to a teacher. They could also become involved in dramatic play or conversations about books. As the children engaged in book reading, teachers sat with the children, read a book themselves, listened to, or prompted children to participate.

A multiple baseline design was used. IRT was implemented for 10 weeks in Classroom 1 (younger children), and then for 7 weeks in Classroom 2 (older children) after baseline. Children were observed 3 times a week during each IRT, freeplay, and nap transition time. In addition to observation, parent questionnaires were distributed and teacher interviews were conducted.

Results showed that children as young as three years of age were able to function in IRT with teachers' assistance and that the classroom teachers were generally pleased with the children's participation. Children used books in a wide variety of ways during IRT, including reading to themselves, peers, and teachers; acting out stories, and dramatic play. Children also showed increases in voluntary book use during freeplay and nap transition time after the implementation of IRT, although it was not clear that IRT caused these increases. There were gender differences in voluntary reading, with girls appearing to increase after IRT began, while boys remained the same. Children's use of books during freeplay was highly correlated with the presence of a teacher in the book area. Because it provides a time for all children in a day care classroom to be actively involved with books, and its potential for increasing children's voluntary reading, IRT merits further empirical investigations.

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