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Feng, Yang (2017) Early parent-child reading: an experimental study for developing Chinese children’s bilingual competence. PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.

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Abstract

Preschool period is critical for developing children’s language and forming their characters. Early reading can cultivate young children’s reading habits and develop their linguistic and cognitive competence. However, many children in China receive appropriate reading education neither at home nor in kindergarten.

Therefore, the present research proposes a new approach to reading education, Early Synchronous Bilingual Reading (ESBR), which encourages early parent-child reading through choosing sufficient Chinese and English bilingual audio picture books and different modes of audiovisual repeat reading and role-play reading to help young children to develop their bilingual competence.

To test the validity of this approach, 40 four- to five-year-old children, who had not learned Chinese and English purposefully, and their parents in Dongguan City, China were chosen as participants through purposive sampling. They were equally divided into four groups for an eight-week comparative experiment of reading. Among them, Groups A, B, and C read three kinds of audio picture books: touch-reading, electronic, and ordinary printed picture books with CDs respectively and carried out parent-child reading in the ESBR approach 30 minutes per day. Group D was a natural comparison group, kept its original mode of reading or none-reading. The experiment results show that all groups did not have a significant difference before the experiment. But Groups A, B, and C cultivated good reading habits and interest and achieved a significant progress in bilingual reading comprehension and expression competence after the experiment. In contrast, Group D did not have significant progress. The reading effects of groups were A>B>C>>D and the difference was significant (p<0.01).

The experiment demonstrates that the approach to ESBR and bilingual touch reading picture books are economical and effective and popular among child and parent participants in experimental groups. The approach to ESBR and this kind of picture books can cultivate Chinese children’s good reading habits and improve their bilingual reading comprehension and story retelling competence. The determinants of the ESBR approach include parents’ awareness of early childhood education and their choice of kinds and number of reading materials and reading modes. The present research hopes this approach can be adopted by more parents and more kindergartens to help more children to benefit from it.

Item Type:	Thesis (University of Nottingham only) (PhD)
Supervisors:	Feng, Anwei McLelland, Nicola
Faculties/Schools:	UNNC Ningbo, China Campus > Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences > School of Education
Item ID:	41288
Depositing User:	FENG, Yang
Date Deposited:	20 Jul 2021 00:52
Last Modified:	18 Jan 2022 08:29
URI:	https://eprints.nottingham.ac.uk/id/eprint/41288

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