a rt i c l e

Social contexts of development: Parentchild interactions during reading and play

Journal of Early Childhood Literacy The Author(s), 2009. Reprints and permissions: http://www.sagepub.co.uk/ journalsPermissions.nav vol 9(3) 295317 DOI: 10.1177/1468798409345112

Elon University, USA

C H A R I T Y B U M PA S S BIANCA SASSINE

Abstract The study purpose was to describe parentchild engagement and parental guidance of childrens participation in literacy-related activities at home. Of the 37 families who participated in a home-based multimethod assessment of storybook reading and play activities, 13 were considered low income. The childrens mean age was 60 months. Parents read two storybooks with their child and engaged in a 15-minute play session with toys related to the stories. Results indicated that the overall amount of guidance provided did not differ due to income level of the families. Certain ndings indicated that middle income parents provided greater support for early literacy learning, in that they engaged in more teaching during reading, made more connections between the book and the play episode, and reported reading to their children daily. However, regardless of income or education, parents provided high levels of support to sustain the childrens interest and engagement in both activities, using social connections such as humor and personal references. The extent to which both teaching-oriented guidance and socio-emotional involvement in early home-based literacy activities may be linked to enjoyment, motivation and success in subsequent school-based literacy experiences warrants further investigation among economically diverse families. Keywords low income families; parentchild interaction; parent teaching; play; social context; storybook reading

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The sociocultural perspective provides a framework for examining parentchild interactions with a particular emphasis on the social contexts of development (Kermani and Brenner, 2000; Vygotsky, 1978). Childhood is seen as a period of apprenticeship, during which children learn and practice the skills that will enable them to develop into competent adults within their own cultural communities (Rogoff, 1990, 2003). During their interactions with young children, parents and teachers often provide assistance and support for learning that allows and encourages children to practice and to extend their skills beyond their current developmental level (e.g. Farver, 1993; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2002; Wood et al., 1976). In some cultures, parental guidance is focused on the acquisition of skills that will contribute to the economic gain of the family and includes responsibilities such as childcare or physical work such as farming. However, in many western countries such as the USA, the focus is on preparing children for formal schooling through the attainment of relevant cognitive and social skills (Rogoff, 2003; Rogoff et al., 1993). The present study examined parental guidance provided during storybook reading and play, two social contexts for development seen by many western parents and educators as important foundations for childrens language use and early literacy behaviors in school (e.g. Bergen and Mauer, 2000; Christie, 1991, 1994; Pellegrini and Galda, 1993, 2000; Sonnenschein et al., 2000). The emergent literacy perspective views the social context as important for childrens early literacy experiences, and emphasizes the particular importance of the preschool childs active participation with others in multiple activities that incorporate language and literacy (Britto and Brooks-Gunn, 2001a; Roskos and Christie, 2001). Research on emergent literacy has shown that reading storybooks with young children exposes them to advanced language and concepts that they might not otherwise encounter (Sulzby and Teale, 1991; Torr, 2004). Reading aloud promotes talk about the story involving open ended questioning, which is related to vocabulary and literacy gains, and may have positive effects on childrens interest and motivation for literacy and play activities (DeBaryshe and Binder, 1994). In their longitudinal research, Senechal and LeFevre (2001) found that parent teaching during home literacy activities such as during storybook reading was important not only for vocabulary development but also for subsequent reading acquisition. It is not surprising then that within the emergent perspective, parentchild storybook reading has become one of the most important and frequently studied contexts for literacy development (Aram and Biron, 2004; Neuman, 1997; Pellegrini and Galda, 1998; Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002), and is strongly encouraged by educators (Anderson et al., 2004; Senechal and LeFevre, 296

va n d e r m a a s - pe e l e r e t a l . : s o c i a l d ev e lo p m e n t 2001). However, recent research has also suggested that studying only book reading may present too limited a view of the family literacy environment (Britto and Brooks-Gunn, 2001a). Another activity context that has frequently been linked to literacy activities is social pretend play. In a meta-analysis of literacy and play research, Roskos and Christie (2001) found that in addition to providing a physical context in which many skills are learned and practiced, play also supports literacy by providing a linguistic context in which children can forge connections between written and spoken language. From an emergent perspective, play is one important social context for active, handson learning, and these early experiences with literacy lead to internalized cognitive processes (Roskos and Christie, 2001). Thus, the connections between literacy and play have been of interest to researchers for some time. In particular, dramatic or pretend play has been studied frequently due to its cognitive complexity and frequency with which preschoolers (for whom early literacy-play connections are of most interest developmentally) engage in it (Christie, 1991). In order to assess parental support of their preschool childrens emergent literacy in the present study, parentchild exchanges during storybook reading and a subsequent thematically related play session, and any connections between the two contexts, were observed. The conceptualization of early, home-based literacy activities as complex social practices implies that there is variability in families with regard to the ways literacy is practiced and encouraged, such as what activities are chosen and how they are taught and learned (Anderson et al., 2004). The cultural practices of dominant groups have often been regarded as the norm and variations from these parenting practices seen as decient. The sociocultural perspective avoids this decit model by emphasizing that literacy practices are culturally dened and related to parental beliefs and goals for their children (Hammer et al., 2005), and that differences in achievement are due in part to a mismatch between home and school practices (Heath, 1983). Hammer et al. (2005) noted that research on children from non-mainstream cultures and backgrounds is needed, so that interventions for children at risk of school failure can augment familial cultural practices rather than replacing them with mainstream cultural practices. The nding that approximately one-third of children in the USA entered public schools at risk of early academic difculties makes research on families of diverse economic and ethnic backgrounds of particular concern (Storch and Whitehurst, 2001). Family income is one variable that has been strongly linked to early school success and readiness (Dodici et al., 2003; Storch and Whitehurst, 2001; White, 1982). Social class differences have 297

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been found with regard to numerous aspects of preparedness for reading, including exposure to words through conversations and number of books owned, library visits, parents reading for pleasure, amount and type of storybook reading, and much more (Dodici et al., 2003; Storch and Whitehurst, 2001). Though some research has shown that both reading frequency and quality of reading discussions are lower in low income as compared to middle income families, other researchers caution it is important to identify and observe specic processes of interaction contributing to childrens literacy skills in order to understand the differences (Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). In one study of African American mothers reading to their infants, for example, Hammer (2000) found that the low and middle income mothers were very similar, but low income mothers included more directives and fewer modiers than middle income mothers. Dodici et al. (2003) noted past research indicating that directive statements limit childrens choices for action and can inhibit vocabulary as well. In their longitudinal study of Caucasian low income families, Dodici et al. (2003) assessed the relationships of a large number of parentchild interaction behaviors with infants over the rst three years of life to subsequent literacy skills. They found that behaviors such as child and parent language, parental guidance, emotional tone, and joint attention were strongly related to early literacy skills, and concluded that observed parentchild interactions were better predictors of early literacy skills than were parent reports of home literacy experiences (Dodici et al., 2003). More research identifying parenting practices in families from diverse income levels is certainly warranted in order for sensitive interventions to be developed. Play researchers have also found that the occurrence and nature of parental interactions during play with a young child differ widely by culture and depend in part on the parents belief systems concerning the importance of play for development (Roopnarine et al., 2003; VandermaasPeeler, 2002). Many researchers have found that European American parents view play as important for childrens social and cognitive development, and engage frequently in pretend-play activities with their young children (Farver and Howes, 1993; Haight et al., 1997). Research with middle income parents has shown that they tend to be highly didactic in their play interactions with young children, and often use play as a context for teaching (e.g. Farver, 1993; Rogoff, 2003; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2002). One study of low income mothers and fathers during play with their twoand three-year-olds found more positive and sensitive parenting behaviors than negative, controlling ones (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2004). According to Tamis-LeMonda et al. (2004), this nding challenged extant assumptions of authoritarianism in low income parentchild interactions. There is little 298

va n d e r m a a s - pe e l e r e t a l . : s o c i a l d ev e lo p m e n t observational research investigating low income parents interactions during play (Tamis-LeMonda et al., 2004), and no known study comparing low and middle income parents use of guidance during social pretend play in the USA. There is also little research examining the inuence of child gender on the ways in which parents provide guidance during informal literacyrelated interactions at home. Research on storybook reading has not emphasized the sex of the child, which is surprising given the emphasis on differences in academic achievement in girls and boys (Anderson et al., 2004). Anderson et al. (2004) studied differences in the ways mothers and fathers read to their sons or daughters with different genre stories (narrative and non-narrative), and found that the average number of interactions was similar but mothers elaborated more with boys than with girls when reading narrative texts. Studies of parentchild interactions during play have tended to focus on the type of play, with both mothers and fathers engaging in more physical play with sons (Lewis, 1997). The present study is focused on social pretend play, and we examined the sex of the child in secondary analyses in order to provide preliminary, descriptive data about parental guidance to girls and boys in reading and pretendplay activities. No predictions were made, given the paucity of data on child gender differences in storybook reading, and no examination of parent gender differences was possible given the predominance of mothers in the sample. The present study builds on prior research in several important ways. First, detailed observations of parentchild interactions in low and middle income families were conducted in two related activity contexts that have been established as important for emergent literacy, storybook reading and play. Second, a wide range of parental guidance behaviors was included, in order to assess not only academic but also social and emotional elements of the home literacy environment that have seldom been studied (Britto and Brooks-Gunn, 2001b). Parental guidance was conceptualized broadly and included teaching behaviors (asking questions, labeling), as well as behavioral controls (commands), use of positive reinforcement, and social connections (such as laughing and joking). Parentchild engagement in home literacy activities has been linked to language development in prior studies, and is an important and understudied dimension of parentchild interactions in literacy activities (Dodici et al., 2003). Thus, we also assessed engagement of each individual and the dyad in each activity, through direct observations and parent ratings. Due to the paucity of research comparing low and middle income families in these contexts, few specic predictions were generated. We expected that parents in middle income families would engage in more teaching behaviors in both contexts, and would make more 299

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links between the storybook and play, but that there would be no differences in social connections and engagement in the activities between low and middle income families.

Method
Participants Participating families were recruited from a variety of day care centers in a small city in southeastern USA. The 13 families that qualied for federal assistance through the Head Start program constituted the low income group. These families were ethnically diverse, and included nine African American, one Hispanic, two mixed race and one Caucasian family. Twentyfour middle income families were recruited through other day care programs and the university community. Of these, ve self-identied as African American, one as mixed race and 18 as Caucasian. There were no signicant differences in parent or child age between the low and middle income samples. The childrens mean age was 58.95 months (SD = 5.91), and the mean age of the parents was 33.57 years (SD = 6.00). In most cases, the mother participated with her child, with the exception of one grandmother in the low income sample and one father in the middle income sample. The majority of middle income mothers worked outside the home either full time or part time (42% full time; 33% part time), with only 25% identied as full-time homemakers. All the mothers were married and all of the fathers in the middle income sample worked outside the home on a fulltime basis. However, mothers in the low income sample were more evenly divided between working outside and inside the home (46% worked outside the home and 46% were full-time homemakers, with 8% working part time). Fifty-four per cent of the low income mothers were the only adults living in the home. There was an average of 2.92 children living in the home in low income families, compared to 2.29 in middle income families. The mothers in the low income families had a high school education on average (12.46 years of education, SD = 1.90) compared to a college education in middle income families (16.38 years of education on average, SD = 2.18). Materials There were two stories for the reading activity by Rosemary Wells: Bunny Cakes (2000) and Bunny Money (2000). Both books featured an older bunny sister Ruby and her younger bunny brother Max. The play materials were related to the themes of the books, and included a grocery store with
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va n d e r m a a s - pe e l e r e t a l . : s o c i a l d ev e lo p m e n t pretend food and pretend money (similar to that seen in Bunny Money) and cooking materials similar to the theme of Bunny Cakes (mixing bowl, ingredients for making a cake). A Sony video-camera and tripod were used to record the parentchild interactions during storybook reading and play. A brief demographic survey provided basic information about those living in the home (age, education, occupation, ethnicity). Parents also rated the familiarity and enjoyment of the reading and play activities, both today and typically, for themselves and for their child, on a 4-point scale ranging from does/did not enjoy to enjoyed a lot. In addition, parents were asked how familiar the books and toys were to their children, and if they owned the books or similar toys. Finally, parents completed questions related to the frequency with which they typically read and played with their child (1 = never, 2 = monthly, 3 = weekly, 4 = daily). Children also rated their enjoyment of the books and play activities, by selecting the face that matched how they felt about each story and the play, on a scale of ve faces on a continuum from did not like at all with a frowning face to liked very much with a smiling face.

Procedure Researchers contacted the participating parent to schedule a home-based interview lasting approximately one hour. Parentchild dyads were videotaped at home as they read two stories (order counterbalanced) and then completed 15 minutes of free play with the toys provided by the researchers. For the reading, parents were handed the rst book and asked to read like they normally would with their child. Upon completion of the rst story, the second book was given to the parent and the same instructions were repeated. After the storybook reading activities were completed, the parents were asked to play with their child with the toys provided for 15 minutes. Researchers noted that, some of these toys are like the ones you saw in the stories you just read, to prompt connections between the stories and play. After the play activity was completed, the parent was asked to complete the surveys. Children were asked to select the face that matched how they felt about each story and the play. Coding Guidance All interviews were video-taped and later transcribed verbatim. Coding was done from the video-tape and the transcript simultaneously. A coding scheme to evaluate parental guidance during the reading and play activities was developed based on theories related to guided participation (Rogoff, 1990, 2003) and prior research (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2003, 2009), but modied to incorporate these particular activities. The guidance
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behaviors included teaching, or behaviors performed in order to further the childs understanding of the specic activity or general knowledge, including asking questions and sharing information; giving commands; praise; making a social connection in which the parent and child share a joke or laugh, or make a personal connection to the story or play; building bridges, or linking events from the past to the present activity; making a book or play connection, in which parents or children link events or characters from the story to the play, or across the books. Two additional guidance behaviors were coded during play, suggest and suggest-instruct. The distinction between the two types of suggestions is whether they are presented as open-ended (suggest) or as a directive (suggest-instruct). For example, parents might say, do you want to buy some groceries?, to facilitate pretend play (suggest), or they might say, go buy some eggs and milk from the store (suggest-instruct). Examples of each of the codes are provided in Table 1. In order to incorporate the childs input during the interactions, teaching was coded as either parent-initiated or child-initiated. For example, the parent might have spontaneously explained a picture in the story (parent-initiated), or she might have been responding to a question or comment made by the child (child-initiated). Inter-rater reliability for the parental guidance coding was established at 76% agreement. Engagement The dyadic interactions were also coded for engagement in the reading and play activities. Engagement was dened as active participation and interest in the on-going activity (Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2003), through direct action (e.g. verbal interest expressed) or indirectly (e.g. attentive listening). Level of engagement was measured on a scale of 1 (low engagement) to 3 (high engagement). Each member of the dyad was rated
Table 1 Guidance categories and examples Type of guidance Teacha Commands Praise Social connections Building bridges Bookplay connections Suggestb Suggest-instructb Example What is Max doing? That sign means he cant come in there. Sit down and listen. Good job! Would you like to eat an earthworm cake? Remember when we made a birthday cake? Do you want to make a cake like Max and Ruby did? Do you remember Max from the other story? Do you want to buy some eggs? Go get some eggs and milk.

Notes: acoded as parent- or child-initiated; bonly coded during play.

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va n d e r m a a s - pe e l e r e t a l . : s o c i a l d ev e lo p m e n t separately during the reading and the play activities, and jointly as a dyad during each activity. Reliability of the engagement coding scheme was established by dual coding of 20% of the sample, at an overall rate of 80% agreement.

Results
In order to investigate the primary research questions concerning the nature and types of interactions that occurred during each activity in low and middle income families, analyses of variance (ANOVAs) were conducted on the parentchild interactions in reading and play. Secondary analyses related to the childrens gender and survey measures of enjoyment and familiarity of the activities are also presented below.

Reading and play The means and standard deviations for the parental guidance variables are presented for low and middle income families during the reading activity in Table 2, and for play in Table 3. As indicated in the Table 2, teaching was the most frequent form of guidance during reading, followed by social connections, praise and book connections. In play, suggestions and teaching were the most common by far, with social connections and book-play connections next most frequent. The standard deviations for most of the guidance variables in both activities were very high, indicating signicant variability in the parentchild interactions. There was a very large range within the total guidance provided in both reading and play. The average
Table 2 Parental guidance provided during reading two storybooks Parental guidance measure Low income M (SD) 37.62 (34.49) 18.39 (18.93) 0.85 (1.52) 19.31 (18.52)* 1.54 (1.56)*** 0.85 (1.68)* 7.46 (10.01) 0.77 (1.79) 1.15 (1.34) Middle income M (SD) 52.65 (31.83) 27.36 (20.42) 5.73 (10.88) 35.13 (22.32)* 0.26 (0.45)*** 3.54 (4.58)* 10.83 (8.84) 0.67 (1.55) 1.79 (2.36)

Total guidance in reading Teaching Parent-initiated Child-initiated Total Commands Praise Social connections Building bridges Book connections
Notes: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

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total reading guidance was 47.22 (SD = 33.15), and the range was 117 (minimum 4, maximum 121). For play, the total guidance mean was 106.78 (SD = 37.23), with a range of 140 (minimum 39, maximum 179). Reading Guidance provided during reading was analyzed through a series of one-way ANOVAs, with income level as the independent variable and the separate guidance codes as the dependent variables. The results yielded signicant differences in parental behaviors in teaching, commands, and praise across income groups. Middle income families engaged in signicantly more teaching during reading, F(1,36) = 4.74, p < .05. (It should be noted that only the total teaching guidance variable reached signicance, though means for both parent- and child-initiated teaching during reading were in the same direction.) In addition, middle income parents praised their children signicantly more than did low income parents, F(1,36) = 4.16, p < .05. Finally, low income parents issued more commands during reading, F(1,35) = 13.69, p < .001. Transcript examples illustrate some of the differences in the parentchild interactions during reading. The guidance codes are in brackets. The following example is from the transcript of a low income dyad at the end of reading Bunny Money. In her questions and comments to the child, the mother employed repetition extensively as was more characteristic of the low income dyads. She also engaged the child in the story by asking if he had ever heard of earrings that sing.
Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: So what did they buy Grandma? [parent-initiated teach] Earrings. Earrings. What kind of earrings? [parent-initiated teach] (mumbles) Bluebirds. Bluebirds. Bluebird earrings and they sing. [parent-initiated teach] They sing. Have you seen earrings that sing? [social connection]

The following transcript provides an example of the more extensive and elaborated teaching sequences that tended to occur in middle income families, with parental questions about what happened and predictions about what might occur next. This parent also paused frequently during reading for the child to ll in a word or a letter sound, building a bridge between the childs preschool experience (word of the week) and the story.
Mother: (reading the story), The grocer could not read Maxs writing ___ (mother pauses for child to ll in the next word) [parent-initiated teach]

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Child: Mother: Child: Eggs! Whats that word right there? [parent-initiated teach] The word for the week? [building bridge] The.

Mother continues reading from the story and occasionally pauses for child to ll in the words. Mother: Child: Mother: (reading) Over went the our. Look. What happened? [parentinitiated teach] A big mess. Big mess (laughs) [social connection] (reading the story) Ruby got out her pencil. Flour. Now shes gonna need some new our, isnt she? [parent-initiated teach]

The next example shows a low income parents use of social connections during reading. The mothers often used personal references in their reading.
Mother: (nishing the story) Grandma was so thrilled, she didnt know which cake to eat rst. Which cake would you eat rst? [social connection] (points to the page) You wouldnt eat Maxs cake? (an earthworm cake) [social connection] (shaking head no) You dont think Maxs cake looks so good? [social connection]

Child: Mother: Child: Mother:

Mother and child laugh together.

Play Results of a series of ANOVAs on the effects of income on parental guidance during play yielded signicant differences of child-initiated teaching during reading, F(1,35) = 8.74, p < .01, with middle income children initiating more teaching than children in low income families, at a rate of approximately 6 to 1. As depicted in Table 3, there were no signicant differences in total amount of teaching during play. Middle income dyads made signicantly more book-play connections, F(1,36) = 4.40, p < .05. Low income parents made signicantly more suggest-instructs during play, F(1,36) = 10.55, p < .01, and middle income parents made more suggestions of an open-ended nature, F(1,36) = 2.94, p < .10. The transcript examples below illustrate several of the different patterns from the quantitative analyses. The rst transcript example shows the greater tendency of low income mothers to employ directive suggestions in play. This mother also engaged in a high level of teaching, which generally consisted of asking the child 305

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Table 3 Parental guidance provided during 15 minutes of play Parental guidance measure Low income M (SD) 109.67 (44.43) 27.00 (20.73) 1.38 (1.56)*** 28.39 (21.00) 2.33 (1.72) 1.54 (2.37) 8.85 (8.65) 0.92 (1.32) 2.15 (2.23)** 30.00 (21.98)* 22.92 (11.67)*** Middle income M (SD) 105.33 (34.04) 29.22 (16.90) 6.35 (5.91)*** 34.83 (17.53) 1.58 (2.22) 2.71 (2.87) 7.54 (6.12) 1.13 (1.30) 7.29 (8.63)** 41.13 (16.95)* 9.13 (12.67)***

Total guidance in play Teaching Parent-initiated Child-initiated Total Commands Praise Social connections Building bridges Book connections Suggest Suggest-instruct
Notes: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

to label the food items. In the following excerpt, they have just pretended to go shopping for the food items to make a cake.
Mother: Child: Take all your stuff out and set it down on the oor. [suggest-instruct] Okay. All my stuff out. (child places items on oor) Uh, and then, and then this. Okay which one, I got these on (child puts on oven mittens). Not until you put it in the oven. [parent-initiated teach] (picks up egg) Can I? Crack your egg in the bowl. [suggest-instruct] (pretends to crack egg) Scchcch. I want to, where? (picks up smaller basket) Heres your trash can. Okay, then you got to measure your milk. [suggest-instruct] So you need the spoon or this. [parent-initiated teach]

Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother:

In the second example, the middle income parent and child are also pretending to make a cake. Like many of the middle income mothers, this mother made many open-ended suggestions and seemed to follow the childs lead throughout the play.
Child: Mother: I can pretend its our because it doesnt say anything. Sure. Alright, so eggs, milk and our. And thats all you really need for the cake. [parent-initiated teach] What do you wanna do rst? Pour or stir or crack? [suggest] I need to do the cracking then the ingredients. (cracks egg) Okay.

Child: Mother:

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Child: Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: Put an egg in there, then we need milk. Okay. Now what do we need to do Mommy? Well, usually you mix up the wet ingredients. [child-initiated teach] Which one should I use? (considering the utensils) Which one do we usually use with eggs? [building bridge] Use that one? Okay (nods). We got milk and eggs (stirring). Whoopsie, we forgot to do this. Okay. So what do you wanna do next? [suggest]

Finally, the third example illustrates a book connection made by the mother in a middle income family, and a focus on letters that is initiated by the child. The mother follows the childs lead and continues the letter-sound questions.
Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: Child: Mother: What did Max tip over from the table? [Book connection] Do you remember? Milk. Milk, lets get some milk. Should we get some milk? [suggest] What does cookies start with? C, Co, cookies (mom sounding out cookies for child) [childinitiated teach] Alright, milk. Milk. What does milk start with? [parent-initiated teach] M. Very good. [Praise]

Gender When the effects of gender were investigated, with sex of child as the independent variable and the reading and play interaction codes employed as dependent variables in a series of ANOVAs, few signicant differences emerged in the various types of guidance provided. There was no overall difference in guidance provided during reading, but parents offered more praise to girls, F(1,36) = 4.12, p < .05 (M girls = 3.84, SD = 5.20; M boys = 1.23, SD = 1.32) while reading. There was a trend for both reading and play interactions, that parents and boys engaged in more building bridges, p < .10, but the means were very low (slightly over 1 for boys and less than 1 for girls). There was a signicant difference in total amount of guidance provided during play, F(1,35) = 5.32, p < .05. The mean total guidance provided to boys (M = 120.28, SD = 35.73) exceeded that provided to girls (M = 93.28, SD = 34.52). Parents of boys made signicantly more suggestions during play, F(1,36) = 7.02, p < .05, with a mean of 45.22 (SD = 19.15) compared
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to 29.63 for girls (SD = 16.61), but there were no other signicant differences.

Engagement Parent, child and dyadic ratings of engagement in low and middle income families during the reading and play activities are reported in Table 4. A series of independent samples t-tests was conducted to examine effects of income group on engagement. For engagement during reading, there were signicant differences in rated child, t(32) = 2.48, p < .02) and dyadic engagement, t(32) = 3.40, p < .01), with middle income children and dyads rated higher than low income. There were no differences in the parent engagement ratings. For play, there were differences only in the dyadic engagement, t(32) = 2.68, p < .02, rated higher in middle income families. Independent samples t-tests examining the differences in rated engagement for boys and girls indicated only one signicant difference. Parents were rated as more engaged when reading to their sons (M = 3.0, SD = .00) than daughters (M = 2.81, SD = .40), t(32) = 1.98, p < .06. Though this was a marginally signicant nding, the difference is small and the mean ratings are high overall. Rated enjoyment and familiarity of the activities In the self-report measure, children reported that they enjoyed the books and the play activities (means ranging from 4.5 to 4.9 on a 5-point scale), and analyses yielded no signicant differences due to gender or income level (p > .05). The mean responses to survey questions concerning how much parents and children enjoyed reading and playing together, both typically and during the interview, are presented in Table 5. In general, the
Table 4 Mean engagement ratings during reading and play, on a scale from 1 (low) to 3 (high) Engagement Low income M (SD) 2.85 (0.38) 2.15 (0.90)* 2.23 (0.83)** 2.77 (0.60) 2.77 (0.60) 2.46 (0.66)** Middle income M (SD) 2.95 (0.22) 2.76 (0.54)* 2.91 (0.30)** 2.95 (0.22) 2.81 (0.51) 2.91 (0.30)**

Parent engagement during reading Child engagement during reading Dyadic engagement during reading Parent engagement during play Child engagement during play Dyadic engagement during play
Notes: *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

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Table 5 Mean parent ratings of enjoyment and frequency of reading and playing together, on a scale from 1 (low) to 4 (high) Question Low income M (SD) 3.77 (0.44) 3.62 (0.51) 3.46 (0.66) 3.31 (0.75)* 3.69 (0.48)+ 3.08 (0.49)*** 3.85 (0.38) 3.67 (0.49) 3.62 (0.51) 3.85 (0.38) 3.50 (0.52) 3.46 (0.88) Middle income M (SD) 3.88 (0.34) 3.83 (0.39) 3.70 (0.56) 3.75 (0.44)* 3.91 (0.29)+ 3.88 (0.34)*** 3.75 (0.44) 3.63 (0.48) 3.75 (0.44) 3.91 (0.29) 3.67 (0.47) 3.71 (0.46)

Parents enjoyment of reading together today Parents typical enjoyment of reading with child Parents enjoyment of reading alone Childs enjoyment of reading together today Childs typical enjoyment of reading with parent How often typically read together Parents enjoyment of play today Parents typical enjoyment of playing with child Childs enjoyment of play today Childs typical enjoyment of playing with parent Childs typical enjoyment of playing with siblings How often typically play together
Notes: +p < .10; *p < .05; **p < .01; ***p < .001.

means for these questions ranged from 3.5 to 4.0 on a 4-point scale, indicating high levels of parent-rated enjoyment of both activities. There were signicant differences in low and middle income parents ratings of the childs enjoyment of being read the stories today, t(35) = 2.26, p < .05, and a trend for typical enjoyment of being read to, t(34) = 1.73, p < .10. As indicated in Table 5, parent reports were higher in the middle income families for these questions. Given that the ratings for childrens enjoyment of the story today were lower than the ratings for typical enjoyment, a paired samples t-test was performed and the difference in mean ratings was found to be statistically signicant, t(35) = 2.49, p < .02. There were no signicant differences for reported frequency or enjoyment of play due to income level. The mean ratings for frequency of reading and playing together were also on a four-point scale, with 1 being never and 4 daily. As indicated in Table 5, the mean ratings ranged between weekly and daily. Parent reports of how often they read to their child differed signicantly due to income, t(35) = 5.82, p < .0001, with low income parents reporting lower frequencies. Middle income parents also reported playing with their child more often, though this was not statistically signicant. It is also important to note that familiarity with the toys and books did not appear to differ in the low and middle income groups. All participating parents but one reported that their children were familiar with the types 309

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of toys employed in the play context. None of the families owned Bunny Money, and only two families owned Bunny Cakes (one low income, one middle income). Parents were also asked if their children were familiar with the stories even if they did not own them, and very few indicated that they were.

Discussion
The primary purpose of the study was to describe the parentchild interactions observed in low and middle income parents and their four-year-olds during reading and play activities in their homes. Specically, we examined the nature of parental guidance, including both teaching-oriented and socio-emotional connections, as well as the observed and self-rated engagement of parents and their children in the activities. Parents in this study provided high levels of guidance during reading and play activities, and both individuals and dyads were generally rated as highly engaged in both contexts, which supported the sociocultural perspective suggesting that parents view these social contexts as important for childrens development (Rogoff, 2003; Vandermaas-Peeler et al., 2002, 2009). Although there was high variability in the frequency and type of guidance provided by parents in this study, there was no difference in amount of total guidance provided in low and middle income families. There were signicant differences in the provision of the various types of guidance in each activity, however. Certain ndings indicated that middle income parents provided greater support for early literacy learning. There was nearly twice as much teaching guidance observed during reading in middle income families, with both parents and children asking more questions about the story. In their teaching, middle income parents invited children to make predictions about the stories, and during the play they were more likely than low income parents to make connections between the storybooks and the play. Children in middle income families were rated as more engaged in the reading activity, and dyadic engagement was also rated more highly. Middle income parents also reported reading more frequently to their children than did low income parents, with an average approximating daily reading. Prior research has established that reading frequency is a strong correlate of childrens literacy skills (Sonnenschein and Munsterman, 2002). Consistent with prior research, middle income parents in this study provided high levels of support for language and literacy socialization (Heath, 1983; Rogoff, 2003). In play, children from a higher income bracket were much more likely to initiate parental teaching during play episodes than were lower income children. This may be a reection of cultural patterns in 310

va n d e r m a a s - pe e l e r e t a l . : s o c i a l d ev e lo p m e n t which the middle income families are highly verbal and children are encouraged to participate in frequent discussions and narratives of their experiences (Heath, 1983; Martini, 1995; Moschovaki, 1999; Rogoff, 2003). Kohn (1963) suggested that parents socialize their children based in part on their economic circumstances, in order to prepare them for educational and occupational environments likely to be in their future. Thus, relatively afuent, highly educated parents like those in the higher income sample in this study may consider storybook reading and play to be important activities in their childs development and may privilege them accordingly. However, regardless of income and education, parents provided high levels of support to sustain the childrens interest and engagement in the activities. Sonnenschein and Munsterman (2002) emphasized the importance of social interactions during reading for childrens interest in literacy. In their research, childrens motivations for reading were best predicted by the affective quality of the reading interaction with their family. Parents in this study made many social connections during both reading and play activities (using humor, and making personal references to the childs experiences and preferences), thus furthering the childs interest and engagement in the activities. Future research should employ a larger sample of families of different income levels, to explore the relationship between the use of warmth and connectedness during literacy-related activities at home to childrens subsequent literacy skills and enjoyment. Some of the ndings suggest that the low income mothers were more directive in their interactions with their preschoolers. During reading, they issued more commands to direct the childrens behavior, and in play they engaged in nearly twice as many directive suggestions that left children little room to choose an alternate behavior. Prior research has suggested that directive statements may be associated with lower vocabulary and less freedom to explore (Dodici et al., 2003). However, others have suggested that directive scaffolding is often assumed to be negative due to a middle class bias, without consideration of the social context, or the parents cultural beliefs and practices, and that little is known about the possible benets of directive maternal scaffolding (Kermani and Brenner, 2000). In their study, Kermani and Brenner (2000) found that maternal directive scaffolding strategies did contribute to childrens independent problemsolving in their study of cultural patterns of scaffolding. The notion of maternal sensitivity to individual differences in the child is central to the concept of scaffolding (Wood et al., 1976), and differences in the childs competencies and interest in the activities may also be driving the interactions. In the present study, children from the higher income group were 311

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rated as more engaged during the reading activity, and low income parents rated their childrens interest in reading lower compared with middle income parents reports, which suggests a possible need for the greater frequency of commands observed in the low income mothers, to keep their child in the chair to hear the story. The ndings that low income mothers also used many positive strategies, such as making social connections in both reading and play, and equal amounts of teaching as compared with middle income parents during play, should be highlighted. We concur with Kermani and Brenners (2000) suggestion that educators should examine a wide range of guidance techniques and strategies, and that no single strategy is effective for every child regardless of social context. The large majority of parents and children rated their enjoyment of the activities both today and typically very highly. There were few differences in rated enjoyment and frequency of the activities. The notable exception was the nding that low income mothers rated their childrens enjoyment of the stories signicantly lower than middle income mothers reports of their childrens enjoyment of reading. In addition, children were rated as enjoying the story less today than their typical enjoyment of reading, and this may have been due to the experimenters presence, or the presence of the toys and childrens desire to begin playing rather than reading the two stories. There were no differences in estimations of how often parents reported playing with their preschoolers, or in their rated enjoyment of playing together. This provides support for the cultural relevance of the activities for families of all income levels. One challenge for researchers examining parentchild interactions in economically and ethnically diverse families is identifying materials that are equally familiar or unfamiliar to all. Pellegrini and Galda (1998) noted that in many analogue studies, where research materials are brought into the home, low income families may be at a disadvantage since the materials are usually middle class and increased familiarity with toys and props leads to more complex play. Based on parental reports, this does not seem to be a concern in the present study. Regardless of income, most of the families were familiar with the play materials, and unfamiliar with the stories. It should be noted that we did not ask about owning the toys, since there were dozens of them. A more sensitive measure may have indicated differences in ownership of or frequency of play with related materials. In the present study we examined possible differences in interaction patterns in the provision of parental guidance to girls and boys in literacyrelated activities. There were a few interesting differences, though the ndings are characterized more by similarities than differences. Mothers praised girls more during reading but were rated as more engaged when 312

va n d e r m a a s - pe e l e r e t a l . : s o c i a l d ev e lo p m e n t reading to sons. Parents provided more guidance to boys during play, and specically, made more suggestions with boys. The differences in parent behaviors may have been elicited by unobserved differences in the childrens behaviors during the activities, though ratings of boys and girls engagement during each activity did not differ. It should also be noted that although the stories were chosen to be gender neutral (a boy and girl bunny are featured in each), the toys were related to the grocery shopping/ cooking contexts from each story, and may be seen as more consistent with female gender-typed activities. Though there were no differences in the childrens rated or observed enjoyment of interacting with these toys, parents may have compensated for any perceived gender-typing by making more suggestions for play with boys. No examination of parent gender differences was possible given the predominance of mothers in the sample. However, a study in progress is examining mothers and fathers interacting with their three-year-old child during storybook reading and play in order to examine gender differences systematically. The present study employed a multimethod assessment including both parent reports and structured observations of parentchild interactions. As noted by Zaslow et al. (2006), choice of parent assessment methodology inuences the sample characteristics and the nature of the ndings and conclusions. Structured observations of parentchild interactions are more difcult and limit sample size, given the demands of time, effort and money. Zaslow et al. (2006) compared the predictive value of several types of assessments in their study of low income parents and their preschoolers, and found that the structured observation methodology was the strongest predictor of subsequent child outcomes, as compared to self-reports and observer ratings of the home environment. Thus, our use of intensive observation in the present study can be considered as both a methodological strength and a limitation. Our sample size was very small and therefore limited in terms of analytical complexity and generalizability, but the observational methods employed led to a rich description of parentchild interactions during storybook reading and play activities. In summary, ndings from the present study indicate that storybook reading and play are social contexts in which parents of different economic backgrounds provide high levels of guidance and in which parentchild dyads are highly engaged. Although low income parents reported reading less often to their children than did middle income parents, with an average closer to weekly than daily, and did not engage in as much teaching during reading as did middle income parents, they rated their own enjoyment of reading to their child highly, and made many social connections during storybook reading. Parents of all income levels used play as a time to provide 313

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teaching, suggestions and social connections with their child, and parental reports of frequency and enjoyment of playing with their preschool child were equivalent in low and middle income families. Interventions with children at high risk of academic difculties should focus on ways to support and extend cultural and familial literacy practices (Hammer et al., 2005), and the results of this study suggest that both storybook reading and play are important contexts for childrens learning. The extent to which both teaching-oriented guidance and socio-emotional involvement in early home-based literacy activities may be linked to enjoyment, motivation and success in subsequent school-based literacy experiences warrants further investigation among economically diverse families.
Acknowledgement

We are deeply grateful to the families who agreed to participate in the study. We thank the Undergraduate Research Program of Elon University, for funds in support of this research provided to the undergraduate co-authors, and the Research and Development Committee at Elon University, for sabbatical support for the rst author.
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Correspondence to:

maureen vandermaas-peeler, 2337 Campus Box, Elon, NC, 27244, USA. [email: vanderma@elon.edu]

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