Davies, C orcid.org/0000-0001-9347-7905, McGillion, M, Rowland, C et al. (1 more author) (2020) Can inferencing be trained in preschoolers using shared book-reading? A randomised controlled trial of parents’ inference-eliciting questions on oral inferencing ability. Journal of Child Language, 47 (3). pp. 655-679. ISSN 0305-0009
Abstract
The ability to make inferences is essential for effective language comprehension. While inferencing training benefits reading comprehension in school-aged children (see Elleman, 2017, for a review), we do not yet know whether it is beneficial to support the development of these skills prior to school entry. In a pre-registered randomised controlled trial, we evaluated the efficacy of a parent-delivered intervention intended to promote four-year-olds’ oral inferencing skills during shared book-reading. One hundred children from socioeconomically diverse backgrounds were randomly assigned to inferencing training or an active control condition of daily maths activities. The training was found to have no effect on inferencing. However, inferencing measures were highly correlated with children's baseline language ability. This suggests that a more effective approach to scaffolding inferencing in the preschool years might be to focus on promoting vocabulary to develop richer and stronger semantic networks.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © Cambridge University Press 2019. This article has been published in a revised form in Journal of Child Language [https://doi.org/10.1017/S0305000919000801]. This version is free to view and download for private research and study only. Not for re-distribution, re-sale or use in derivative works. Uploaded in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | randomised controlled trial; inferencing; language intervention; oral language; shared book-reading |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Cultures (Leeds) > School of Languages Cultures & Societies (Leeds) > Linguistics & Phonetics (Leeds) |
Funding Information: | Funder Grant number ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) ES/M003752/1 |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 04 Oct 2019 10:21 |
Last Modified: | 05 Oct 2020 14:14 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Cambridge University Press |
Identification Number: | 10.1017/S0305000919000801 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:151764 |