Preschoolers Benefit Equally From Video Chat, Pseudo-Contingent Video, and Live Book Reading: Implications for Storytime During the Coronavirus Pandemic and Beyond

During the unprecedented coronavirus disease (COVID-19) crisis, virtual education activities have become more prevalent than ever. One activity that many families have incorporated into their routines while at home is virtual storytime, with teachers, grandparents, and other remote adults reading books to children over video chat. The current study asks how dialogic reading over video chat compares to more traditional forms of book reading in promoting story comprehension and vocabulary learning. Fifty-eight 4-year-olds (M age = 52.7, SD = 4.04, 31 girls) were randomly assigned to one of three conditions (Video chat, Live, and Prerecorded). Across conditions, children were read the same narrative storybook by a female experimenter who used the same 10 scripted dialogic reading prompts during book reading. In the Video chat (n = 21) and Live conditions (n = 18), the experimenter gave the scripted prompts and interacted naturally and contingently, responding in a timely, relevant manner to children's behaviors. In the Prerecorded condition (n = 19), children viewed a video of an experimenter reading the book. The Prerecorded condition was pseudo-contingent; the reader posed questions and paused for a set period of time as if to wait for a child's response. After reading, children completed measures of vocabulary and comprehension. Results revealed no differences between conditions across six different outcome measures, suggesting that children comprehended and learned from the story similarly across book formats. Further, children in the three experimental conditions scored significantly higher on measures than children in a fourth condition (control) who had never read the book, confirming that children learned from the three different book formats. However, children were more responsive to the prompts in the Live and Video chat conditions than the Prerecorded condition, suggesting that children recognized that these interactions were contingent with their responses, a feature that was lacking in the Prerecorded condition. Results indicate that children can comprehend books over video chat, suggesting that this technology is a viable option for reading to children, especially during the current pandemic.

Construct-Specific and Timing-Specific Aspects of the Home Environment for Children's School Readiness

Prior evidence supports that the home environment is related to children’s development of school readiness skills. However, it remains unclear how construct- and timing-specific aspects of the home environment are related to children’s school readiness skills, unique from overall, stable aspects of home quality. Unpacking associations due to specific constructs and timing of the home environment may provide insights on the theoretical processes that connect the home environment to school readiness. Using data from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care and Youth Development (N = 1,364), the current study examines how timing (36 and 54 months) and constructs (educational stimulation and socio-emotional responsivity) of the home environment, relative to overall levels across time, relate to children’s language skills, math skills, and externalizing behaviors. The overall, stable aspects of the home environment were significantly associated with children’s language skills and externalizing problems. Additionally, there were significant paths from the stimulation construct at 54 months to math skills, language skills, and externalizing problems. These findings provide evidence that although the overall home environment is predictive of school readiness, the stimulation construct of the home environment at 54 months has additional concurrent relations to children’s school readiness. Implications for the role of the home environment and children’s school readiness are discussed.

Examining the Factor Structure of the Home Mathematics Environment to Delineate Its Role in Predicting Preschool Numeracy, Mathematical Language, and Spatial Skills

A growing body of evidence suggests that the ways in which parents and preschool children interact in terms of home-based mathematics activities (i.e., the home mathematics environment; HME) is related to children's mathematics development (e.g., primarily numeracy skills and spatial skills); however, this body of evidence is mixed with some research supporting the relation and others finding null effects. Importantly, few studies have explicitly examined the factor structure of the HME and contrasted multiple hypothesized models. To develop more precise models of how the HME supports children's mathematics development, the structure of the HME needs to be examined and linked to mathematics performance. The purpose of this study was to extend prior work by replicating the factor structure of the HME (as one general HME factor and three specific factors of direct numeracy, indirect numeracy, and spatial) and using those factors to predict direct assessments of children's numeracy, mathematical language, and spatial skills. It was hypothesized that the general HME factor would be related to each direct assessment, the direct numeracy factor would be related to both numeracy and mathematical language, and the spatial factor would be related to spatial skills. Using a sample of 129 preschool children (M age = 4.71 years, SD = 0.55; 46.5% female), a series of confirmatory factor analyses were conducted. Results diverged somewhat from prior work as the best fitting model was a bifactor model with a general HME factor and two specific factors (one that combined direct and indirect numeracy activities and another of spatial activities) rather than three specific factors as had previously been found. Further, structural equation modeling analyses suggested that, in contrast to expectations, only the direct + indirect numeracy factor was a significant predictor of direct child assessments when accounting for age, sex, and parental education. These findings provide evidence that a bifactor model is important in understanding the structure of the HME, but only one specific factor is related to children's outcomes. Delineating the structure of the HME, and how specific facets of the HME relate to children's mathematics skills, provides a strong foundation for understanding and enhancing the mechanisms that support mathematics development.