Evidence for different parent-child strategies while reading

This study examined the strategies parents use naturally to help early readers at difficult points of text or pronunciation. Fortytwo children were videotaped reading to a parent. Results suggest parents are not likely to provide specific instructional feedback when listening to their children read. When given, parental feedback tends to be well tuned to the childʹs reading ability, with parents of less skilled readers providing richer and more varied feedback than parents of more skilled readers. A tree clustering analysis placed parents in one of three groups: 1) ʹLearner centredʹ parents use a variety of feedback strategies; 2) ʹInactiveʹ parents allow their children to continue uncorrected; 3) ʹDirectʹ parents supply the miscued word. The children of ʹlearner centredʹ parents did not perform as well as children of ʹinactiveʹ parents on measures of reading ability, possibly because parents of better readers no longer need to be ʹlearner centredʹ.