• Early reading can be difficult, so young readers appreciate parents and teachers continuing to read aloud with them, as in the preschool years.  

• Young readers report that hearing stories read aloud is enjoyable and a way to spend special time with their parents.  

• For early readers as well as young children who are not yet reading, shared book reading enhances motivation to read on their own. 

• Shared book reading with older children continues to foster vocabulary learning, just as occurs with younger children, which in turn helps children’s early reading skills.  

• The type of books to read aloud range from picture books to chapter books to graphic novels – whatever caregivers and children enjoy the most. 

• Reading with children of all ages is especially important in today’s world of heavy screen use. 

“I like it when my mom reads to me. I enjoy the time together and we get to read harder chapter books. I can’t wait to see how the story ends.” 

–Rosie, age eight (Scholastic Books, 2019) 

Why do some parents stop reading to their children once children can read on their own?  

Even parents who read books with their children frequently during their first five years sometimes cross this task off their parenting to-do list after their child starts elementary school. Parenting surveys in the United States and other English-speaking countries consistently show a decline in shared book reading with children beginning at age six and especially after age eight. 

The surveys also indicate that nearly all parents want their children to become successful readers, but some parents believe that children no longer need to hear stories read aloud to them once they can read independently. Evidence shows that this belief is simply wrong. 

Young readers’ enjoyment of books is at risk 

Learning to read can be tedious. Young children must first grasp the concept that printed words on the page contain meaning and that each individual letter corresponds to a sound. Then they need to understand that these sounds form words and sentences. 

Photo by Lina Kivaka on Pexels

To make matters even more difficult, for speakers and readers of English, many letter groupings have different sounds in different words (e.g., through, thought) or different letters that create the same sounds (e.g., team, teem). Most children require several years of reading instruction and practice to read fluently and with understanding. 

It is no wonder that many children dislike their reading homework. Children who loved stories and books as preschoolers may balk when it comes time to read aloud to their parents each night. Even children who can read independently may not choose to do so in their free time. 

The unfortunate result is that many children are at risk of losing their enjoyment of books and of reading in those first few years of learning to read. If books and stories are no longer fun, children will not read in their spare time. 

How to foster a love of books and reading 

Research consistently shows that one of the best ways to foster children’s love of books and their enjoyment of reading is to share books interactively with them in early childhood. Interactive reading occurs when the adult discusses each page with the child and asks questions about the story. 

A review of 46 experimental studies from multiple countries and continents (though mostly conducted in the United States) concluded that interactive reading during children’s first five years boosts language, literacy, reading enjoyment, and motivation to read. Both reading skills and motivation are critical: The 28-year Fullerton Longitudinal Study showed that shared book reading with toddlers predicted children’s and adolescents’ later reading achievement and motivation to read, which ultimately predicted higher levels of education as adults. 

Fewer studies have been conducted on the long-term benefits of reading aloud at home with older children. However, older children tell researchers that hearing stories read aloud increases their enjoyment of books and stories. 

Interactive reading occurs when the adult discusses each page with the child and asks questions about the story. 

In a study of over 200 Australian children (ages 6-10 years), more than 75% said they enjoyed being read to at home and at school, reporting that it made them feel “happy,” “relaxed,” and “good inside.” Hearing a story aloud increased their sense of immersion (“When I listen, I feel as if I’m in the story”) and visual imagery (“I get to sit back, relax and picture the story in my head”). 

Young readers need to expand their vocabularies 

Another risk of discontinuing shared book reading during the early school years is that children’s vocabulary development will stall if they are not hearing longer and more complex stories. The stories most children can read on their own typically contain simple vocabulary and story lines that do not expand their word knowledge or understanding of the story. Vocabulary development at this age depends on other sources, such as being read to aloud. 

A potential plateau in young children’s reading skills

At the extreme, the constrained content of independently read books could lead to a plateau in children’s reading skills in later elementary grades, when children with adequate decoding skills (sounding out words) have poor comprehension skills (understanding text) because of their limited vocabulary. 

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

In other words, some children can pronounce words correctly but have difficulty understanding the meaning of what they read. Successful reading is the product of decoding words and understanding those words. If either decoding skills or comprehension is poor, children will not become good readers. As a bonus, a larger vocabulary boosts early decoding skills, perhaps because familiar words are easier for children to sound out. 

How to continue to expand children’s vocabularies 

A significant amount of research shows that interactive shared book reading is one of the best ways to expand young children’s vocabularies. Picture books contain many new words that young children are unlikely to encounter in their everyday conversations. For instance, the ever-popular book Where the Wild Things Are repeatedly uses the word rumpus, which most children have not heard before. By reading even one picture book with their young children each day, parents expose their child to an estimated 78,000 words over a year through shared book reading alone. 

Reading aloud with older children is also a very effective way to continue to expand children’s vocabularies. In a study of German 8 and 10-year-olds, children who heard an adult read a story aloud learned more new words than children who read the same story silently on their own. Perhaps the effort required to silently pronounce new words distracts even proficient young readers from figuring out their meaning. 

By reading even one picture book with their young children each day, parents expose their child to an estimated 78,000 words over a year through shared book reading alone. 

In the study with Australian 6 to 10-year-olds, the children’s responses indicated that word learning was one of the perceived benefits of hearing stories read aloud at home and at school. Children reported: “It makes me learn new words” and “If there are hard words (the adult) can pronounce it and tell me what it is.” 

Who, what, and how to read to older children 

Although mothers tend to be the primary reader in many households, children also enjoy reading aloud with their fathers, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and older siblings. Caregivers can read anything both parties enjoy, including chapter books, favorite picture books from younger ages, and graphic novels. 

The importance of reading non-fiction books to young children

Caregivers should also read non-fiction books to their children. In a study of primary-reader mothers and fathers in New Zealand, parents enjoyed sharing both fiction and non-fiction books with their offspring, and children sometimes enjoyed non-fiction even more than fiction books.

Yet the question of how to read with school-age children is still largely unanswered. Research on interactive reading with older children does not show the same benefits as occurs with younger children. 

Photo by Julia M Cameron on Pexels

Instead, it is more effective for vocabulary learning when adults use a reading style with fewer interruptions, preview the book with children, read in a dramatic style, and engage in a brief discussion afterwards. Adults should be sure that children can see the text of the book while reading so that they can follow along if they wish. 

The differences in attention span play a part

Older children have longer attention spans than younger children, so they can usually wait until the end of the story to discuss new words and concepts and their emotional reactions. However, parents and other caregivers should make sure their children know they can stop them to ask questions along the way. 

Conclusion 

Continuing to read aloud to school-age children can increase their motivation to read and expand their vocabularies. Shared book reading is also a way to reduce children’s heavy use of low-quality screen time, which is consistently linked to slower language development in children up to age 12.

Young children enjoy being read to

However, perhaps the most compelling reason for caregivers to read to children for as long as possible is that most children want them to do so. The Scholastic survey of U.S. 6- to 14-year-olds from a range of family incomes, ethnicities, and household types found that 83% loved it when their parents read aloud to them at home. Most of the children told researchers they wished their parents read aloud to them more often. 

Their top reason? Like Rosie from the opening quote, it was having special time with their parents. So parents and other caregivers should feel free to cuddle up with their young readers and read aloud to them a story of their choice. 

For more tips, see my books Tell Me a Story: Sharing Stories to Enrich Your Child’s World and How Stories Change Us. 

The post The importance of reading aloud to young children appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Parents sometimes avoid talking about science with their children, fearing they might provide inaccurate or misleading information.
• Watching science television can help families engage in interactions that more effectively help children learn about science.
• In our research, parents who watched educational science television programs demonstrated more science knowledge, formulated more accurate scientific explanations, and engaged in higher-quality science conversations than parents who did not watch the programs.
• However, parents do not need to be experts to talk to their children about science.
• Science is a process of discovery, and modeling that process is just as important as teaching science information.

“Mom, why is it cold outside?”

Questions like this might catch parents by surprise. They might feel unprepared to answer and struggle to clarify what their child is asking or have trouble recalling the correct explanation. Putting a response in age-appropriate terms can add to the challenge.

Science is not just about knowing the right answer – it is also a process of learning and discovery.

These difficulties often lead parents and other caregivers to avoid talking about science with their children. However, science is not just about knowing the right answer – it is also a process of learning and discovery.

As researchers, we wanted to find ways to support parents in these moments. To do so, we turned to one of the most popular educational resources that families use together: science television.

What is children’s science television?

In recent years, the number of science television programs available for young children to watch has skyrocketed.

These programs cover a wide range of topics, including biology (e.g., Dinosaur Train), physics (e.g., Blaze and the Monster Machines), and outer space (e.g., Ready Jet Go). They also cater to different age groups, ranging from preschool (e.g., Octonauts) to late elementary school (e.g., Sci Girls).

Often, episodes of these programs begin with a provocative science question (e.g., “Why is the sky blue?”), which characters answer by engaging in a series of trial-and-error investigations. Along the way, the characters befriend vibrant and imaginative creatures, including familiar figures that many children know and love (e.g., the Cat in the Hat).

How do science television programs support parents?

We hypothesized that science television can support parents and other caregivers in several ways:

1. By refreshing knowledge: These programs are rich in factual science content, which may refresh caregivers’ knowledge and can also teach them new science concepts.
2. By building confidence: Presenting complex ideas in an age-appropriate narrative may help parents feel more confident when answering their children’s science questions and improve the science explanations they provide.
3. By encouraging collaboration: Science programs may remind caregivers that they do not need to always have all the answers, and that it is okay to learn with their children.

To examine these possibilities, we conducted three studies with different groups of families, settings, and research methods.

Science television improved parents’ science explanations

We conducted our first proof-of-concept study online. We recruited 141 U.S. parents of three- to six-year-olds. About half of parents and children were female and half male. Most parents were between 25 and 40 years old, most self-identified as White, and almost half reported having at least a college degree. We randomly selected some parents to watch two four-minute videos from the science program Earth to Luna. One video featured science information about the day/night cycle and one featured science information about butterflies. Other parents did not watch the videos.

Photo by Vitaly Gariev on Pexels

After each video, we asked parents a series of science questions (e.g., “Why does day turn into night?”), and we invited them to respond as if they were talking to their child. Parents who were randomly selected to not watch the videos skipped straight to responding to the science questions as if they were talking to their child.

Parents who watched the videos before responding formulated explanations with more science facts (e.g., the earth rotates) and fewer scientific misconceptions (e.g., the sun goes to sleep) than parents who did not view the videos. These findings offered preliminary support for our assertion that parents extract useful information from children’s educational television.

However, this initial study had clear limitations – it was conducted online and relied on hypothetical questions from children. To better assess the impact of science television, we needed to observe families as they engaged in actual science conversations.

Science television imparted knowledge to mothers and boosted their confidence

In our second study, 46 U.S. mothers and their four- to five-year-olds visited our lab at Ohio State University in a large urban part of the United States. Most mothers were 30 to 40 years old and most self-identified as White. Most mothers also described their children as White, and just under half of the children were female. We focused on mothers because they are generally more likely than fathers to watch educational television with children.

Mothers who watched the conceptual video demonstrated more knowledge about rocks than mothers who watched the video emphasizing science inquiry skills.

Mother-child pairs were randomly assigned to watch one of two 10-minute videos from the science program Sid the Science Kid, which focused on the concept of rock identification. One video emphasized conceptual information about rocks (i.e., distinguishing igneous from metamorphic rocks), and the other video emphasized science inquiry skills (i.e., observing and describing rocks).

We then examined whether these videos affected mothers’ relevant conceptual knowledge, confidence about teaching their children related content, and engagement during a hands-on rock identification activity with their children.

Mothers who watched the conceptual video demonstrated more knowledge about rocks than mothers who watched the video emphasizing science inquiry skills. In contrast, mothers who watched the inquiry video felt more confident teaching their children about rocks than mothers who watched the conceptual video. Despite these improvements, neither video affected what mothers said to their children during the activity.

These findings suggest that science television can provide some content and confidence support for parents. However, this study had too few participants to draw stronger conclusions. Additionally, our audio recordings of parent-child conversations were somewhat low in quality, which made it difficult to assess children’s contributions (e.g., they were often quieter).

Science television supported parent-child science conversations

In our final study, we addressed the limitations of our previous work by recruiting 116 U.S. parents (about 30% were fathers) and their four- to seven-year-olds. Just over half of the children were female and most of the parents and children were White.

The study took place in a quiet space at a children’s museum in Columbus, Ohio. We invited families to watch a five-minute video from the science program Hero Elementary and to complete a five-minute science activity. Both the video and the activity involved an early engineering concept (i.e., tower stability).

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

We randomly assigned half of the parent-children pairs to watch the video before the activity and half to watch the video afterward. We also used a higher-quality audio recorder to allow us to analyze parent-child conversations in greater depth.

Watching the video before (rather than after) the activity motivated parents to ask more science questions during the activity. Using an advanced form of dialog analysis, we also examined the patterns in conversational turn-taking that unfolded after parents’ questions.

Children who watched the video before (rather than after) the activity were more likely to formulate science explanations in response to parents’ questions. Without the video, they usually responded by revealing their lack of knowledge (e.g., by saying “I don’t know”).

Recommendations for caregivers

Collectively, our research suggests that science television can support parents by increasing their science knowledge, improving their scientific explanations, and facilitating higher-quality science conversations. These improvements have downstream benefits for children, such as improved learning from joint science activities.

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

Our studies focused on U.S. families who were predominately White and high-income. Additional research is needed to examine whether similar patterns emerge among other populations.

However, given the benefits we found, we encourage parents and other caregivers to watch science television with their children when possible and to seek out activities that reinforce lessons from these programs. These experiences can provide a shared language for discussing and exploring science in ways that are both tangible and fun.

Parents should not feel pressure to be science experts. Instead, they should emphasize the value of asking questions and seeking answers. Science television is just one platform through which shared learning can occur; families should explore other options in their community, such as zoos, museums, and public gardens.

Science is a process of discovery. Encouraging children to participate in that process is just as important as teaching them science information.

The post Children’s science television: Not just for children appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

Key takeaways for caregivers

• The messages caregivers convey in their conversations with preschool-aged children about science can affect children’s understanding of the roles of intelligence and effort in scientific learning.
• Experimental evidence shows that children persist longer on a challenging task after reading scientific storybooks that emphasize the role of effort and hard work in science rather than books that focus only on success and achievements.
• Children who read a storybook with their caregiver about a famous scientist who experienced many challenges along the path to success were more likely to believe that people can become smarter over time and to view hard work as the key to success in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields.

Emphasizing hard work and effort in everyday activities at home

“I want to build a really big tower,” says four-year-old Marlee as she stands beside a pile of blocks on the floor at home.

“Let’s try a few blocks and see what happens,” suggests her mother.

“One, two, three, four, five. This is hard!” says Marlee as she starts building her tower. After adding the fourth and fifth blocks, the entire tower collapses and Marlee flops down on the floor.

“Sometimes things don’t quite work at first, but we shouldn’t give up,” says Marlee’s mother. “When I first learned how to cook, I tried to make chicken. Do you know what happened? I left it in the oven too long and the entire chicken burned. Did I let that stop me from learning how to cook? No. I kept trying. Even when something is hard at first, we still have to keep trying to learn something new. Now, let’s try again.”

This vignette of a mother and daughter highlights the opportunities for young children to learn how hard work, failure, and persistence play a critical role when engaging in a challenging task, especially in the science domain.

Simple activities such as building a tower, cooking, or reading scientific storybooks together engage children in meaningful STEM experiences during early childhood years (ages three to six years).

Interactions with adults during these activities can also influence children’s beliefs about themselves as learners, their interest in science throughout their schooling, and their later sense of belonging in STEM careers.

Caregiver-child talk during daily STEM-related activities

During daily interactions, caregivers and teachers often talk with young children about scientific and mathematical concepts. Adults’ language can influence children’s beliefs about themselves as learners and their beliefs about who can be engaged in science.

However, adult language in such conversations may differ by gender. For example, during the toddler years, caregivers talk more to boys than to girls about math concepts, and during early and middle childhood, caregivers are more likely to provide scientific explanations to boys than to girls.

Adults’ language can influence children’s beliefs about themselves as learners and their beliefs about who can be engaged in science.

These different patterns in parents’ talk with boys and girls can result in differences in how children respond to opportunities to engage in STEM activities. For instance, when children engaged in a science activity are told they are “doing science” versus “being scientists,” only four-year-old girls (not boys) persisted longer at the task. In addition, six-year-old girls (not boys) preferred a game for children who “work really hard” (highlighting effort) over a game for children who are “really smart”.

Reading stories about scientists

In addition to adult-child conversations, research suggests that hearing a story about a famous scientist’s challenges on the path to achieving success (rather than focusing on success with no mention of failure) can lead to higher levels of persistence and achievement in science tasks for young students as well as high schoolers.

For example, in one of our studies, four- and five-year-olds read a book with an experimenter about a scientist (Albert Einstein or Marie Curie) who achieved success. The stories either described the challenges the scientist struggled with along the way or told only of their ultimate success.

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels

After the reading, we gave children an impossible task: to try to find differences between two identical pictures. Children who heard about a scientist who faced challenges on the path to success persisted longer on the task than did children who heard only about a scientist’s success.

Exploring the impact of caregiver-child talk during a storybook reading about scientists

In our recent follow-up study, we combined this investigation of the effects of storybook content with an exploration of caregiver-child talk, given the potential for these influences to jointly affect children during a storybook reading session.

We were particularly interested in how caregiver-child talk while reading a scientific storybook might affect children’s mindset beliefs—that is, their beliefs about whether intelligence is something that can change over time (endorsing more of a growth mindset) or something that remains relatively the same (endorsing more of a fixed mindset).

Curie and Johnson are from groups that are often underrepresented in STEM fields and in drawing on their stories, we aimed to diversify for young children the image of who can be a scientist.

Findings from past work suggests that who endorse more of a growth mindset perform better in science and math classes than those who do not endorse this mindset, but we know little about how the growth mindset relates to STEM performance in younger children.

Similarly, past research has focused on stories of White male scientists. In our study, we focused on the personal narratives of White and Black female role models in STEM: Marie Curie and Katherine Johnson. Curie and Johnson are from groups that are often underrepresented in STEM fields and in drawing on their stories, we aimed to diversify for young children the image of who can be a scientist.

Our research

My colleagues (Sona Kumar, Kathryn Leech, and Kathleen Corriveau) and I sought to determine how caregiver-child talk while reading a scientific storybook on the achievements or struggles of White or Black female scientists might affect preschoolers’ beliefs about themselves as learners (mindset beliefs). We also sought to learn how such talk affected children’s understanding of the relation between effort and success in STEM endeavors and their persistence during a challenging task.

Our study, conducted in the United States, included 202 children (ages four to five years), nearly half of whom were girls. Each student completed the study with their caregiver, most of whom were female. Approximately 60% of families were White, 17% were of mixed race, 11% were Asian, and 11.5% or fewer identified as Hispanic, Black, Southern Asian or Indian or did not report their ethnicity. Roughly 92% of caregivers had at least a four-year-college degree and almost 65% of families had an annual income greater than $100,000.

The four parts of our research

Children and their caregivers participated in one online Zoom session that included four parts:

1. Scientific storybook reading (caregivers and children): Families were randomly assigned to read a researcher-developed, eight-page book about a female scientist (Marie Curie or Katherine Johnson) who either achieved success without any failure (achievement book) or struggled along the path to achieving success (effort book).
2. Question about children’s beliefs about intelligence (children only): After the reading, an experimenter asked the children a question aimed at understanding their beliefs about intelligence as something that remains the same (fixed mindset) or something that can change (growth mindset).
3. Persistence task (children only): Children were presented with a challenging task that included two identical pictures of electronic circuits built from modular pieces from a children’s science kit. They were then asked to find the difference between the pictures. We measured persistence as the number of seconds children spent looking for differences between the pictures before declaring they were done.
4. Question about the role of brilliance versus effort in STEM success (children only): The experimenter asked each child a question to see whether they viewed effort or brilliance as the key to success in STEM: “The scientist won an award for a new invention. Do you think the scientist is smart or hard-working?” Children were invited to choose as their answer “smart” or “hard-working.”

 Our research questions

By randomly assigning families to one of two experimental storybook conditions (achievement, effort), we were able to answer the following research questions:

1. What type of talk do families engage in while reading a storybook and how does this differ based on the content they are assigned to read (assigned storybook condition)?
2. How does the storybook condition affect children’s beliefs about intelligence, persistence on a challenging task, and understanding of the role of effort in people’s success in STEM?

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels

We were particularly interested in understanding what type of storybook language most frequently fostered effort talk, growth mindset, beliefs in the role of effort in success, and persistence during a challenging task.

Exploring research question 1: Caregiver-child talk during scientific storybook reading reflects the topics emphasized in the storybook’s text

Did all the families produce every type of talk? In short, no. Families in the achievement storybook condition talked more about brilliance, while families in the effort storybook condition talked more about effort, connections, and emotion.

Our findings suggest that caregivers built on the language in their assigned storybook when talking with their children. For example, the language in the effort storybook condition encouraged families to talk more about the process of doing science and created more opportunities for children to make connections to the scientist in the story.

Exploring research question 2: Caregiver-child storybook reading focusing on effort supports children’s adoption of beliefs and behavior that also emphasize effort

Photo by Photo By: Kaboompics.com on Pexels

 Compared to children in the achievement storybook condition, children in the effort storybook condition:

• Were more likely to indicate that intelligence can grow (i.e., a growth mindset),
• Persisted longer on the challenging STEM task, and
• Were more likely to attribute the scientist’s success to effort than to intelligence.

Conclusion

Overall, our findings indicate that during the preschool years, the messages emphasized during shared scientific storybook reading may affect young children’s beliefs about themselves as learners and their understanding of the process of doing science.

Storybook content and caregiver-child conversation during readings can be designed to emphasize messages of learning, effort, and persistence on scientific tasks. Such interventions can facilitate children’s sense of belonging in STEM fields before they start K-12 schooling.

The post How reading scientific storybooks and related conversations with children affect children’s persistence appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• When parents talk with their children about experiences they shared – from new encounters to routine events – they support children’s autobiographical and deliberate memory skills.
• Autobiographical memory is a person’s ability to recall and discuss their own experiences.
• Deliberate memory is a person’s ability to use strategies to store information in their memory and to later recall and report this information. This is an important skill to develop during the transition to formal school, when children are expected to quickly learn new information.
• Parents can support children’s autobiographical memory skills by making time for parent-child reminiscing conversations as they engage with daily routines.
• Parents can support children’s deliberate memory skills during conversations about shared past events; they can do so by:
  • Asking open-ended and yes-no questions
  • Reinforcing information provided by the child
  • Relating the event to other experiences
  • Referring to children’s thinking or remembering (metamemory talk)

In this guide to parent-child reminiscing and memory, we will be exploring:

1. What are parent-child reminiscing and elaborative style?
2. Parents’ elaborative style might also help support other aspects of children’s memory
3. Studying parents’ elaborative style and children’s deliberate memory
4. How can parents support children’s autobiographical and deliberate memory skills?
5. Recommendations for early childhood educators

What are parent-child reminiscing and elaborative style?

Consider the following conversation, in which a mother and a child are discussing a shared experience:

Mother: Remember when we went to visit Grandma and Grandpa at the cabin?
Child: Yeah
Mother: Who came with us?
Child: Auntie Chrissy, Uncle Kurt, Joey, and Ellie.
Mother: I forgot about that! I forgot Ellie came, too – great memory! Ellie’s a good dog, right? What did we do when we were at the cabin?
Child: Um….we….we fished!
Mother: That’s right – Who caught a fish?
Child: Joey and Grandpa. They caught a trout.
Mother: Yes, and then what did we do with the trout?
Child: (No response)
Mother: Did we do something special with it?
Child: Oh! People ate it! (yuck noise)
Mother: Did the fish taste good? No? Yeah… maybe we won’t fish anymore since people didn’t really eat it (laughing). Maybe next time we go to the lake, we’ll go swimming.

These conversations, referred to as parent-child reminiscing conversations, have been observed in multiple cultures across the globe. The topics of these conversations can range from mundane routines, like visiting the local park or grocery store, to emotionally salient events, like traveling somewhere new or experiencing something traumatic.

Parents can support children’s autobiographical and deliberate memory skills when reminiscing about shared past events. Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.

How parents reminisce with their children varies, especially in terms of their elaborative style, or the way they guide their children through these conversations. Parents’ elaborative style may vary by the type of event being discussed or the broader cultural context.

For example, in Māori culture, mothers use a highly elaborative style when discussing their children’s birth stories, whereas Chinese mothers use this type of style when talking about their children’s appropriate (or inappropriate) behavior in social interactions.

Regardless of the topic under discussion, a highly elaborative style is characterized by frequently asking open-ended questions (e.g., “What did we do when we were at the cabin?”), confirming or correcting information provided by the child (e.g., “That’s right”), commenting on the child’s thinking or remembering (e.g., “I forgot about that – great memory!”), and relating the event to other experiences (e.g., “Maybe next time we go to the lake, we’ll go swimming.”). These elaboration techniques are important for supporting children’s memory skills from an early age.

Parents’ elaborative style might also help support other aspects of children’s memory

Parents’ elaborative style has been frequently associated with children’s autobiographical memory skills – or the ability to recall and describe one’s experiences to others. Experimental studies have confirmed that when parents are taught how to reminisce with their children using a highly elaborative style, their children provide more accurate, detailed autobiographical memories and deliver higher-quality narratives about their own and others’ experiences.

Because young children’s exposure to a highly elaborative reminiscing style can positively affect other cognitive outcomes – such as early emotion understanding and theory of mind – we were interested in exploring if parents’ elaborative style was also associated with another specific component of children’s memory: deliberate memory skills – or the ability to work to remember new information with the intention to recall it later.

We hypothesized that the development of each type of memory might be supported in similar ways, such as through adult-child talk, because they share the same general cognitive processes – identifying information (encoding), holding this information in one’s mind (storage), working to recall this information (retrieval), and verbalizing this information to another individual (reporting).

Studying parents’ elaborative style and children’s deliberate memory

Our study included 51 children entering kindergarten and their primary caregivers in the southeastern United States. We focused on the transition to elementary school because this developmental period can be characterized by great variability in children’s memory skills. Most primary caregivers were mothers (92%), 4% were fathers, 2% were grandparents, and 2% were other types of caretakers.

We use the word parents in this post to refer to all primary caregivers in the study. In terms of the ethnic-racial composition of the children in our study, 65% were White, 19% multiracial, 8% Asian/Pacific Islander, and 4% African American; 4% declined to report. In terms of the educational background of caregivers, 96% had completed a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Young children’s exposure to a highly elaborative reminiscing style during parent-child conversations can positively affect other cognitive outcomes. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels.

At the beginning of the kindergarten year, we instructed parents to think of two specific past events to discuss with their children that (1) were new, (2) were shared between parent and child, and (3) occurred over the past summer. Then we sent home audio recorders and instructions for primary caregivers and their children to reminisce about the selected events and record their conversations. The conversations lasted 5 to 30 minutes.

Next, we transcribed and coded these conversations for specific components of parents’ conversational style:

• Elaborations: The parent supplied or requested additional information about the event (e.g., “Remember, Dad was there.” or “Who went with us?”)
• Associations: The parent connected the event to the child’s other experiences (e.g., “Remember, we went last summer, too?”) or related knowledge (e.g., “Fireflies are only around in the summer.”)
• Confirmations: The parent reinforced information about the event provided by the child (e.g., “Oh yeah, it was raining so hard!”)
• Metamemory talk: The parent commented about the child’s thinking or remembering (e.g., “Wow, I can’t believe you remembered that!”)

Research suggests that these components support children’s deeper understanding and recall of personally relevant (autobiographical) memories. We wanted to see if they also supported children’s ability to work to remember new information (deliberate memory).

To understand how parents’ elaborative reminiscing style related to their children’s deliberate memory skills, we assessed children’s use of sorting strategies to remember new information during a card-sort task.

Measuring deliberate memory through a card-sorting activity

At the start of kindergarten, we gave children 16 drawings on notecards from four unique categories (e.g., types of fruit, sports, seasons) and told them to “work to remember” the object pictured on each card as best they could (Round 1). While children were “working to remember,” we observed them to see if they used any sorting strategies – such as grouping the cards by category. Then, a research assistant taught the children how to do just this: group the cards by category to remember them better.

After about 15 minutes, we gave children a new set of cards and once again observed their strategy use – but this time, our goal was to see how well they applied the strategy training by the research assistant (Round 2). We followed up with children at the end of the school year to see if they still applied the strategy they had been taught during the sorting task (Round 3).

Strategy use sets the stage for later recall ability

We focused on children’s strategy use more than their accuracy in recalling the objects because strategy use and recall performance are not closely related to one another in early childhood. Some children act very strategically when working to remember, but do not benefit from these strategies until their later elementary school years. Thus, children’s ability to learn new strategies and understand when to use them appropriately sets the stage for their ability to master more complex strategies in the future.

Children with highly elaborative parents – or parents who used the four conversational components listed above more frequently – did not initially demonstrate more sorting strategies for remembering new information (Round 1). But they were more successful than their peers in learning how to strategically sort the cards and applying this new strategy themselves (Round 2).

By the end of the school year (Round 3), parents’ elaborative style was unrelated to children’s memory performance on the card-sort activity. This suggests that other factors (e.g., the classroom environment) may play a role in maintaining these techniques as children progress through the school year.

Making time for parent-child reminiscing conversations during children’s daily routines can give them frequent practice retrieving information from their memory and reporting it in narrative form to others.

These findings are important for understanding how parents can prepare their children to enter formal school, where they are expected to quickly learn strategies for solving problems and remembering new information. The adjustment to kindergarten can be challenging, so practical ways to support children’s learning during parent-child conversations before or during this transition can be useful.

How can parents support children’s autobiographical and deliberate memory skills?

Parents are children’s first teachers. By frequently engaging in conversations about the past, parents can model how to structure narratives, foster identity, and demonstrate how memory works. In the United States, children attending formal school are expected to independently answer questions about their experiences (e.g., “What did you do over the summer?”) in narrative form.

Making time for reminiscing conversations during children’s daily routines can give them frequent practice retrieving information from their memory and reporting it in narrative form to others.

Reminiscing with your child helps ensure they are frequently practicing retrieving information from their memory. Photo by Mikhail Nilov on Pexels.

Additionally, the occurrence of metamemory talk – while infrequent – is important for children’s growing understanding of their own cognition. In addition to asking children “Who was there?” “What did we do?” and “Then what happened?” – all of which are elaborations – parents can try sprinkling in references to the memory process, such as, “Wow, I forgot about that!” “You have a great memory!” or “How did you remember that?”

Recommendations for early childhood educators

Early childhood educators may also enjoy engaging in adult-child reminiscing conversations. An emerging area of research focuses on reminiscing conversations in early childhood settings; this is another context in which children may have opportunities to recall and report information about their own experiences to others.

Early childhood educators can support families from different cultural backgrounds by collaborating with members of these communities to support children in culturally relevant ways.

With deliberate memory development in mind, we encourage early childhood professionals to make time for adult-child reminiscing conversations as part of existing curricula and use the same elaborative style that we recommend caregivers use.

Not only can reminiscing conversations in this context be important for children’s readiness for formal school, but early childhood educators can also help promote parent-child reminiscing as an accessible way for parents to bolster children’s school readiness.

This may be particularly relevant for families from certain cultural backgrounds – such as Indigenous communities in the United States and Central America – in which it is uncommon for adults to “quiz” children (i.e., ask children to provide an answer to a question the adult already knows).

These adult-to-child questions become increasingly common during the transition to formal school, and early childhood educators can support families from different cultural backgrounds by collaborating with members of these communities to support children in culturally relevant ways.

The post Parent-child reminiscing: Supporting children’s memory skills appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Children learn a lot about themselves through daily conversations with caregivers.
• When caregivers talk to toddlers about their own bodies, thoughts, and feelings, they give them opportunities to attend to themselves.
• Mothers from Canada and Vanuatu differ in how they talk to their toddlers about these matters.
• These cultural differences may affect how early in life young children think of themselves as separate individuals.

Humans are cultural beings. Everyday interactions with other people gradually shape the way they experience the world and engage with others. Societies have their own ways of guiding children into these ways of being – we call this socialization. Language is one of the most important tools of socialization.

Babies are not born with a sense of self that allows them to reflect on their experiences. Children take two to three years to develop a rudimentary sense of self – that is, to demonstrate an awareness that they are separate from others and that others see them as separate beings.

Children take two to three years to develop a rudimentary sense of self.

Even this early sense of self develops at different rates in different cultures (e.g., we see evidence for it earlier in urban and Western societies and later in rural, small, closely knit communities), highlighting the importance of socialization. In this article, we show that the way parents and caregivers talk to toddlers in everyday conversations is important in shaping their development.

This article covers:

1. Socialization with toddlers through language
2. Cross-cultural differences in adult-toddler conversations
3. A cross-cultural study with toddlers
4. Potential effects of conversation on a toddler’s development
5. Joint attention to children’s selves
6. What caregivers talk about with toddlers matters

1. Socialization with toddlers through language

In studies with children who are talking, caregivers from English-speaking, urban, middle-class backgrounds encouraged children’s personal narratives during conversations. They did this by:

• asking questions about a particular experience the child had;
• commenting on the child’s emotions, thoughts, and preferences, and
• helping the child build a personal story that is culturally suitable – perhaps one that reflects self-confidence, curiosity, and creativity.

Imagine a mother and her five-year-old in an urban or Western setting reminiscing about an experience at the playground. The mother says, “You have always been adventurous. Remember how you ran off to explore the giant slides when you were only three?” In this example, the mother is not only inviting the child to remember this past event but also setting the stage for interpreting it as an illustration of positive fearlessness.

2. Cross-cultural differences in adult-toddler conversations

The encouraging style adopted by the mother in the above example is a culturally unique one. In studies, caregivers in some cultures (e.g., China, India, Korea, Turkey) were less likely to focus the conversation on their child and instead tended to use a more instructive style, such as telling the child to do something.

Photo by Barbara Olsen

These differences can affect children’s social and emotional development. For example, the ways in which children remember events about themselves are shaped by parent-child conversations. Preschool-aged children whose parents encouraged detailed conversations about their child’s experiences provided longer and more elaborate memories about their past than did children whose parents did not encourage these conversations.

3. A cross-cultural study with toddlers

Most studies of parent-child conversations have been conducted with children of preschool age and older. It is difficult to study this topic with younger children, but doing so could help researchers understand what drives the faster-paced self-development of children in urban and Western societies. In our study, we examined how mothers living in an urban Canadian city and a rural island village in Vanuatu conversed with their toddlers, who were old enough to understand language but too young to speak.

Why choose families from Canada and Vanuatu?

Our Canadian participants were from an urban center with a population that is well-educated, affluent, and ethnically diverse. As is the case in most North American countries, the culture is primarily individualistic – that is, the culture values individuals’ independence and people strive to express their uniqueness through both lifestyle and achievements.

In contrast, Vanuatu is a small-scale society in the South Pacific made up of several small islands. People live in small villages surrounded by relatives and practice horticulture. Western-style formal schooling exists on the island and is optional, with most youth attending part-time and until middle school.

Many families in Vanuatu opt for informal education instead of formalized learning. Caregivers care deeply about teaching their children traditional subsistence skills and local customs. Vanuatu is a classless society without occupational specialization where individuals shy away from standing out and value interpersonal harmony.

Unsurprisingly, these two contexts are associated with very different socialization goals. Whereas residents in urban Canada prioritize emotional independence, residents in Vanuatu (especially in rural Vanuatu) support emotional union among family members. Therefore, studying mothers and children from Canada and Vanuatu offers the opportunity to understand how socialization priorities are reflected in language use. This is the first step in figuring out how language may guide children’s early self-development.

How do Canadian and ni-Vanuatu mothers talk with their toddlers?

We met with 35 families either in the lab or in their homes (16 in Canada, 19 in Vanuatu; all families included mothers and approximately half of the children were girls). We asked mothers to play with their 21-month-olds in typical ways for 10 minutes. Next, we analyzed the content of what the mothers said to their children during play. The differences were remarkable.

Canadian mothers were much more talkative than ni-Vanuatu mothers. In proportion to their talkativeness, Canadian mothers referred significantly more to toddlers’ body parts (e.g., “Is that your tummy?”) and internal states than ni-Vanuatu mothers did.

When we divided internal states further – into mental states (e.g., thoughts, emotions, abilities, desires) and bodily states (e.g., perceptions, sensations) – we identified additional cultural patterns.

When referring to internal states, Canadian mothers referred significantly more frequently to mental states (e.g., “Do you remember that song?”). The few references ni-Vanuatu mothers made to internal states involved bodily states (e.g., “Are you thirsty?”) rather than mental states. Instead, ni-Vanuatu mothers referred much more frequently to actions (“Get up and dance!”) than did Canadian mothers.

Canadian mothers referred significantly more frequently to mental states (e.g., “Do you remember that song?”). Ni-Vanuatu mothers referred much more frequently to actions (“Get up and dance!”).

4. Potential effects of conversation on a toddler’s development

Our results highlighted substantial differences in the ways Canadian and ni-Vanuatu mothers talked to their preverbal toddlers. Specifically, Canadian mothers referred significantly more to their toddlers’ body parts and mental states, whereas ni-Vanuatu mothers focused more on their children’s actions.

What difference does this make? Our study did not investigate the effects of these differences on the children. But we expect that what caregivers say to their toddlers might affect the pace of the children’s development. Our reasoning revolves mostly around the concept of joint attention, specifically, the opportunities that arise during joint attention to the self.

5. Joint attention to children’s selves

What are caregivers doing when they talk to their toddlers about their own bodies, thoughts, feelings, and preferences? Interacting through language involves participating in a joint attention triangle: The words refer to whatever the conversation partners are jointly attending to.

For example, imagine a mother talking to her toddler about a puppy. “She’s so tiny,” the mother might say. Or: “Look at that cute wet nose.” In this example, both the mother and the child are attending to the puppy. Now, instead, imagine this mother asking her child, “Is this your tummy?” and the toddler nodding with a smile. Here, the duo is attending to the toddler’s stomach.

Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko

We refer to these interactions as joint attention to the self and argue that they give children opportunities to attend to themselves. Such opportunities may benefit children in understanding if a stomach is his or hers, as well as what it is to be himself or herself, and eventually, support an early development of self in toddlerhood.

This emphasis on the self is consistent with Canadian parents’ socialization goals – to prepare their children to survive and thrive in a context in which individuality is key to economic, social, and emotional well-being.

6. What caregivers talk about with toddlers matters

In different parts of the world, how early a child learns a variety of skills, such as walking and talking, varies. Similarly, how early a child learns that they are a separate person who has a body, thoughts, and feelings of their own also varies.

When studying cross-cultural differences, it is important to keep in mind that differences do not mean deficits. We are not arguing that using language that focuses on the child is inherently better for their development. The value of different approaches and outcomes depends on the culture.

Photo by Polina Tankilevitch

Therefore, we cannot make the universal recommendation that caregivers talk to their children in a certain way. But we do suggest that what they talk about matters. When parents ask their children to talk about their day, they create an opportunity for children to develop a sense of self, identity, and world view. That is the power of language, discourse, and dialogue. Therefore, we suggest that caregivers use language to support the skills and values that are important in the context of each child’s community.

The post The Power of Words: Benefits of Conversations with Toddlers for Self-Development appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Math skills at kindergarten entry predict children’s academic success in school.
• Young children usually enjoy learning math and can develop understanding about math in all the content areas they will encounter in school: number, patterns, shapes, spatial relations, and data.
• Parents can grow their young children’s math knowledge through playful activities embedded in daily routines.

Language and literacy learning in early childhood is important; so is math. Most parents and caregivers know that it is important to read to their young children as a way to promote language and literacy skills. But recent research has shown that opportunities to develop math skills at home are just as important.

For example, studies have found that young children’s math skills when they enter school significantly predict their future success in school.

What math should young children learn?

There are three areas of math that young children should learn:

1. Counting objects using number words in the right order
2. Making comparisons
3. Identifying patterns

Preschool-aged children can learn math related to all the math content standards deemed important by the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics in the United States. These are areas children will likely encounter in elementary school and beyond.

1. The order of number words

In preschool and the early elementary grades, children need to learn the order of number words (rote counting), but just as important is an understanding of number (e.g., if you add one object to a set of six, there are seven objects all together).

2. Making comparisons

Understanding of number also involves:

• Making comparisons (more versus less)
• Ordering (first, second …)
• Grouping to make a larger unit (adding two bears to three bears to make five),
• Partitioning equally (e.g., “My brother and I have the same number of jellybeans”)
• Composing and decomposing (e.g., five objects can be divided into groups of one and four or two and three)
• Doing operations (addition and subtraction)

Typically, preschool-aged children develop a sense of numbers by working with numbers 10 and under, which they will expand upon when they attend kindergarten.

3. Identifying patterns

Preschool-aged children are also ready to learn about:

• Patterns which are a foundation of algebra (two blue bears, one red bear, two blue bears, one red bear…)
• Measurement (length, weight, volume)
• Shapes (not just recognizing them but articulating their defining characteristics)
• Spatial relations (e.g., the tree is behind the house, the ball is under the table)
• Data (e.g., sorting objects by color, size, type, weight; making simple charts to show data)

A child uses wooden blocks to form patterns and structures. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

High-quality math learning opportunities can be embedded in daily home routines

Parents and caregivers can help children develop math skills before they enter kindergarten, even if the adults are uncomfortable with or anxious about math. How can adults help their children develop these skills, despite already overloaded schedules?

It is not necessary to set aside time for math learning. In fact, it is better to weave math into what caregivers and children are already doing. One study found that the amount of math talk parents engaged in with their preschool-aged children was positively associated with children’s math skills a year later: Children whose parents used more words related to math had stronger math skills than their peers whose parents used fewer math words.

It is not necessary to set aside time for math learning. In fact, it is better to weave math into what caregivers and children are already doing.

The Development and Research on Early Math Education (DREME) Network of early childhood education researchers designed and studied many activities parents and caregivers can engage in to support their young children’s math learning. DREME provides free resources that describe a variety of fun activities that are easy to fit into everyday routines.

Ironically, engaging in fun math activities with young children can increase parents’ own comfort with math while providing their children with a solid math foundation at home on which to build on in school.

Strategies to incorporate math support into everyday home activities

Cooking is an activity that provides caregivers the opportunity to teach their children math concepts. While cooking, adults can teach children how to count (e.g., the number of grapes that go into the fruit salad), measure volume (e.g., “We need two cups of flour”), and measure size (e.g., “Let’s make sure the pan is 11 inches on one side and 8 inches on the other”).

Children can also be asked to count the number of forks needed to set the table, along with questions like, “How many more forks would you need if Grandma and Grandpa came to dinner? How many all together?”

In fact, from morning to bedtime, family life is full of chances to talk about math. For example, caregivers can count the buttons on their child’s shirt while helping them get dressed and point out patterns made from stripes (e.g., blue, yellow, red, blue, yellow, red…).

A child practises their math skills using fruit and vegetables. Photo by Monstera Production on Pexels

The grocery store is also full of opportunities to learn math. For example, caregivers might ask: “We need an apple for everyone in our family, so how many do we need?” and “Can you put five apples in the bag?” Or they might ask: “Which is taller, the Cheerios box or the Corn Flakes box? Which is wider?” Or “Which line has the fewest people in it?”

Math exploration can be a joyful part of family activities

Times when families engage in fun or relaxing activities are also rich with meaningful opportunities to notice and explore math. Consider a walk to the park, which can serve as an informal math classroom.

Among the possible questions to ask children are: “Do you see any circles? What shape is the stop sign?” “Do you see those numbers on the house? Let’s read them together.” “Which is farther, the tree or the telephone pole? Let’s count how many steps it takes us to get to the corner.” “Can you hop like a bunny four times?”

Through these early activities, children can also build a sense of competence and confidence that can prevent them from developing the math anxiety that is so common in adults.

Math opportunities in holiday traditions

Consider, too, the math opportunities in holiday traditions. Children often spontaneously sort their Halloween candy into piles based on type. Caregivers can ask: “Which kind of candy do you have the most of/the least of? How do you know?” “How many more lollipops do you have than M&Ms?” “If you gave me a candy bar, how many would you have left?”

The role of games

Many games can help children develop their math skills while also teaching social skills, such as taking turns and practicing good sportsmanship. Board games like Chutes and Ladders, which involve counting with one-to-one correspondence (moving one square for each number as players count), have been shown to improve children’s number knowledge.

Many family card games can be used to teach children counting and other math operations. For example, in the card game War, players are instructed to first remove the face cards and split the deck between two people, then have each person turn over one card.

A group of children learning math by playing a game. Photo by Ksenia Chernaya on Pexels

Children can count the number of pictures (e.g., spades) or read the number on the card to determine which card is higher. Whoever has the higher card gets to keep the cards from that round. The game continues until one person has all the cards. To make the game more difficult, each player can turn over two cards at a time and the child has to add the values on the two cards and compare.

Books can support children’s skills in both reading and math

Engaging in math activities does not mean reading less. Research shows that families can promote children’s literacy and math skills simultaneously. Some counting books are designed for math. And research has shown that reading number books increases preschool-aged children’s number understanding.

But math can be integrated into any picture book. For example, caregivers reading a book about animals and nature might say: “Let’s count how many turtles are on the beach in this picture. Are there more birds or more bunnies? Which tree is the shortest/tallest? Do you see any rectangles on this page?”

Caregivers should take care to avoid ruining a good story or turning reading time into a math test, but an occasional math-related question can engage children in active learning while they enjoy listening to the story.

Parents play a big role in building children’s math skills and interest

The DREME Network has found that engaging in playful, everyday family math activities together can prepare children to succeed in kindergarten and later grades. Through these early activities, children can also build a sense of competence and confidence that can prevent them from developing the math anxiety that is so common in adults.

For more ideas on how parents and other caregivers can support young children’s math skills, visit the DREME Family Math website.

The post How parents can support math learning at home and through everyday activities appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Executive function (EF) skills: EF skills are brain-based processes that allow us to remember goals, resist impulses, and think flexibly.
• Early EF skills matter: Developing EF skills early in life is crucial for various outcomes like social competence, emotion regulation, academic achievement, and keeping out of legal trouble.
• Parental and caregiver influence is significant: Parents play a vital role in promoting positive development of EF skills, especially during early childhood when children spend a lot of time with their caregivers.
• Autonomy-supportive care: In studies, caregivers’ autonomy-supportive care behaviors – including adapting assistance to the child’s needs, using positive communication, recognizing the child’s perspective, and offering choices – are consistently related to children’s EF skills.
• Choices and EF skills: Providing children with age-appropriate choices appears to have an especially powerful relation to their development of EF skills.
• Research: Ongoing studies are exploring whether children’s behaviors around choice (e.g., how many options they prefer) predict their EF skills. The findings will improve our understanding of how children make decisions and how caregivers can provide optimal choices that support children’s EF skills and overall well-being.

What are EF skills and why do they matter?

The skills children learn when they are young can make a big difference in their achievements and relationships as they grow up. Skills like getting along with others, controlling emotions, and being ready to learn new information are all important for children’s development.

Scientists have been studying how to help children improve these skills, which we call executive function (EF) skills. These are the brain-based processes used to hold information in mind, resist impulses, and think flexibly. Together, they allow individuals to solve problems, make good decisions, and accomplish goals.

EF skills predict more positive outcomes later in life

More and more, researchers are identifying the importance of EF skills for later life outcomes. The evidence has come primarily from Western cultures and from families across a wide range of socioeconomic statuses.

It suggests that children with stronger EF skills are more likely than their peers with weaker EF skills to be socially competent, emotionally regulated, and ready for kindergarten, and that they are more likely to meet standards in math and reading throughout school and to be financially secure later in life.

Strong EF skills reduce likelihood of substance abuse, criminal activity and premature aging

In addition, children with stronger EF skills are less likely to have substance abuse and a criminal conviction, and they even are less likely to age prematurely. These findings have not been explained by children’s intelligence or family background alone – EF in childhood was a key factor.

Given that this foundation for lifetime skills is built during childhood, caregivers have a very important role to play in helping their children develop these skills.

What specific caregiver behaviors help children develop EF?

Researchers have discovered that caregivers can take many steps to help children as young as 2 years old improve their EF skills. When caregivers are warm and sensitive, and when they encourage children to think, it can make a big difference.

But a particular aspect of caregiving caught researchers’ attention: autonomy-supportive care. Supporting children’s autonomy means structuring their lives in ways that let children feel like they are in charge of what they do and that their actions matter. This includes using positive words to cheer them on, giving them age-appropriate choices, and helping them when they need it, without taking over.

Studies in my lab at the University of Minnesota and other research conducted in Western societies have found that when parents and caregivers provide autonomy-supportive care more frequently, their preschool-age children tend to have stronger EF skills.

Supporting children’s autonomy means structuring their lives in ways that let children feel like they are in charge of what they do and that their actions matter.

Exploring specific autonomy-supportive caregiver behaviors in action

My colleagues and I study the relation between autonomy-supportive caregiving and children’s EF by observing a parent and child working on puzzles that are a bit too hard for children to solve on their own, so they need some help. In our work, we look for four types of autonomy-supportive caregiver behaviors:

1. Adapting assistance to the child’s needs (e.g., “How about if we start by finding the edge pieces?”)
2. Using encouraging words (e.g., “I think you’ve got this part, but let me know if you want my help.”)
3. Considering the child’s perspective (e.g., “This is a tricky one!”)
4. Offering choices and following the child’s pace (e.g., “Which corner would you like to start on?” then giving the child time to take their turn.)

Photo by Yan Krukau on Pexels

The children also spend time with a researcher doing activities designed to assess their EF skills. These include having to wait for a reward, remembering where stickers are hidden, and playing a digital game we developed called the Minnesota Executive Function Scale (MEFS).

We used this method in a series of studies of more than 350 families living in the Twin Cities region of Minnesota, in Evansville, Indiana, and in Montreal, Canada. The parents were mothers and fathers, and the families were of high, middle, and low socioeconomic status from a variety of racial/ethnic backgrounds; the children ranged from 1 to 5 years old.

The better the autonomy-supportive behaviors, the stronger the EF skills

Across the board, we found that the more caregivers engaged in autonomy-supportive behaviors, the stronger their children’s EF skills, independent of the children’s general intelligence.

This made us wonder: Are all parts of autonomy-supportive care equally important for helping children with their EF skills?

To dig deeper into the data from the series of studies, my students and colleagues and I directly compared the different forms of autonomy supportive care demonstrated by the participating caregivers.

We found that letting children make choices was the strongest predictor of EF: Children whose caregivers gave them more choices had stronger EF skills than children whose caregivers gave them fewer choices.

For instance, some parents were more likely than others to let their children choose which puzzle to begin with and which corner to work on, and to limit the problem space by offering a finite task (e.g., “Which of these pieces – a red one or a blue one – should we try next?”).

Why would letting children choose improve thinking skills?

EF skills help individuals control themselves and stop acting impulsively, and instead take steps that help them reach their goals. To accomplish these goals, individuals need to believe that they have control over what they do and that their actions matter.

When caregivers provide children with opportunities to make their own choices, it helps children reflect on their goals rather than just do whatever feels good in the moment. This reflection supports the conscious control needed for EF.

I like to summarize it this way: Before children can control how they act, think, or feel, they must have a sense of choice in how to act, think, or feel.

Photo by Kamaji Ogino on Pexels

Since this research is correlational, might the process also work the other way around?

Indeed, I predict that children with stronger EF skills are more reflective, and have a stronger sense of agency and preference for choice, leading them to shape their caregivers to offer more choice. Like most concepts in psychology, this is very likely a transactional, bidirectional process.

How can caregivers provide choices to children?

To put this research into action, caregivers can try to become more conscious of opportunities to let their children make choices. Consider these examples:

• Instead of laying out clothes for your child, ask them to choose their outfit. If you are worried they will dress inappropriately, limit their options, such as by asking which school outfit they would like to wear.
• If your child is procrastinating on a chore or homework, instead of saying, “Do your homework” or “Why haven’t you done your homework?” try asking, “Do you want to start with English or math homework?”

These small twists of language can make a big difference in the way children feel agency and take responsibility for their own decisions. In turn, children are more likely to follow through on their goals.

Although it might seem counterintuitive at first blush, research suggests that caregivers might actually help children get better at controlling their behavior by giving them more freedom of choice, not less, as part of autonomy-supportive care.

Next steps in research

Our research has focused on how parents give children choices, but there is more to explore. My students are now looking at the notion of choice itself. For example, do children prefer to select a sticker from a sheet with only one type of sticker or from a sheet with multiple options?

We want to figure out how children respond when faced with choices, how many options to provide at different ages, and what reasonable limits on choice are – after all, having ice cream for breakfast might not be a realistic option!

As we uncover more research results, we will learn even more about how children’s choices and their thinking skills go hand in hand.

Photo by Ketut Subiyanto on Pexels

In the meantime, giving children more choices is a promising way to help them learn to control their behavior

In summary, although it might seem counterintuitive at first blush, research suggests that caregivers might actually help children get better at controlling their behavior by giving them more freedom of choice, not less, as part of autonomy-supportive care.

Studies show that this approach is related to stronger EF – the thinking skills children need to succeed in school and relationships. By understanding and applying these findings, caregivers can actively support the development of their children’s cognitive growth, independence, and overall success.

The post Let Children Choose: Autonomy-Supportive Care for Cognitive Growth appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Multilingual children use digital media regularly, in all their home languages.
• Digital media use may affect multilingual children’s early language learning by reducing opportunities for back-and-forth conversations with adults.
• This finding is similar to results of studies of digital media and language learning for children learning only one language.
• When using digital media, families can try to select programs that are geared toward building children’s skills and presented in the families’ language(s).
• Families can support language development with back-and-forth conversations (both about the digital media and unrelated), especially in the families’ language(s).

How might digital media affect multilingual children’s language learning?

Most research on digital media and child development has studied families who speak only English—but as much as 60% of the world is multilingual. We do not know much about multilingual children’s digital media use.

We explored this topic in families who speak Spanish and English. Spanish is the fourth most common language spoken worldwide; it is the second most common language spoken in the United States, where we conducted our research.

Photo by Jenny on Flickr

Exploring the effects of digital media on children’s Spanish and English language development

We studied 30 families from Mexican backgrounds that had a child between 15 and 27 months old. Families spoke mostly Spanish with their children, but all children also heard and spoke some English at home.

With the families’ permission, we recorded samples of the toddlers’ exposure to language at home. Children wore a small audio-recording device over two to three days for a total of about 15 hours. Our research team reviewed the recordings to study language exposure from digital media (television, radio, electronic games, and videos on cell phones and tablets) and from people talking.

What did we listen for in the recordings?

Based on the recordings, we noted the amount of time children were exposed to digital media, the language of the digital media (Spanish or English), and the type of digital media (programs for children or for adults).

We also reviewed the recordings to explore talk from adults and children (the number of words spoken by adults, how much back-and-forth conversation occurred between adults and the child, and children’s amount of words and babbles).

If you use digital media with your young children, you are not alone! Parents use digital media to keep children busy, to help them relax, and to assist with learning.

What did we learn? Why does it matter?

All families exposed their children to some digital media during the recordings. If you use digital media with your young children, you are not alone! Parents use digital media to keep children busy, to help them relax, and to assist with learning.

Next, we share three main findings and briefly explain their implications for how you can use digital media most effectively with your child.

Photo by Alex Green on Pexels

1. Children with more digital media exposure participated in fewer conversations with adults.

Back-and-forth conversations are essential for learning how to communicate. Children learn about communication even when they are not yet talking much. Children learn new sounds, words, and phrases from conversations. Too much digital media can limit such conversational opportunities for learning. 

Consider reducing your child’s use of digital media to under an hour per day. Or talk more with your child while they watch media.  Ask them who, what, where, and why questions about the program. Connect the events in the program to their life. Expand on what your child says with new information. These strategies can support language development. 

2. Children heard more media in Spanish than in English.

This matches our finding that families used more Spanish than English when talking to their children. We strongly recommend high-quality and regular conversations in the family’s language(s)—any languages the family uses—to provide the strongest support to the child.

Often, this is parents’ native language(s). Learning the family language (English or another language) can help support children’s identities, connections to family and culture, and future outcomes. Digital media in the family language may play a supportive role.

We also found that programs for adults, like news or telenovelas, tended to be in Spanish. Programs for children, like cartoons, were often in English. Parents may have selected programs in English to help their children learn English before starting school. We do not know how digital media supports children to learn two languages.

In general, children are more successful learning words from human conversations than from digital media. Most children who attend U.S. schools learn English over time, with English supported in their schools. Schools may not help children learn the family language. It may be important for caregivers to use the family language at home so children can become multilingual.

Learning the family language (English or another language) can help support children’s identities, connections to family and culture, and future outcomes.

3. Children heard more media intended for adults than for children, but watching children’s programs appeared to increase children’s use of words and babbles.

Child-focused programs may support children in practicing new words. Programs that teach a school skill, like numbers or letters, or a social skill, like how to make friends, may be most helpful.

Still, back-and-forth conversations with a live person are best for children’s language development.

Photo by Marta Wave on Pexels

How can you support your child’s communication?

Based on our findings and those of other studies, we recommend that parents and caregivers:

• Limit exposure to digital media when possible. Instead, include children in social activities, like helping with chores or playing.
• Select digital media in the family language(s) that have educational goals. Avoid programs that do not teach your child new skills. 
• When possible, talk with your child while you listen to or watch digital media. Ask what, why, who, and where questions about the content. When they respond, keep the conversation going by adding to what they say. 
• Continue to use your family language(s) often with your child, even if they do not respond in the same language(s). Look for opportunities for your child to have more meaningful interactions in your family language(s), like telling stories or reading books. 
• Remember that there is no evidence that multilingualism or support for the family language(s) causes or worsens existing speech or language delays.

Discover the Spanish version of this article here.

The post Children’s digital media exposure as a backdrop for multilingual learning appeared first on Child and Family Blog.

• Los niños multilingües usan frecuentemente los medios digitales y los usan en los distintos idiomas que se hablan en su hogar.
• El uso de los medios digitales (por ej., la televisión, el computador o los “smartphones”) puede afectar negativamente el desarrollo del lenguaje en los niños que son multilingües porque reducen el tiempo que dedican a conversar con otros adultos.
• Otros estudios han mostrado que esto sucede de igual manera para niños/as que solo aprenden un idioma.
• Al usar medios digitales, las familias pueden tratar de elegir programas que ayuden a sus hijos/as a desarrollar nuevas habilidades y que estén en el o los idiomas que se hablan en el hogar.
• Las familias pueden ayudar a sus hijos/as a desarrollar el lenguaje al tener conversaciones con ellos/as, en el o los idiomas que hablan en casa. Estas conversaciones pueden sobre los medios digitales u otros temas.

¿Cómo pueden afectar los medios digitales al aprendizaje de idiomas de los niños multilingües?

La mayoría de las investigaciones sobre los medios digitales y el desarrollo infantil han estudiado a familias que solo hablan inglés; pero la mayoría de las personas en el mundo (alrededor de un 60%) habla más de un idioma, es decir es multilingüe. No sabemos mucho sobre el uso de los medios digitales por parte de los niños multilingües. Por ello, realizamos un estudio para investigar este tema en familias que hablan español e inglés. El español es el cuarto idioma más hablado en todo el mundo; y es el segundo idioma más hablado en Estados Unidos, donde realizamos nuestra investigación.

Foto de Jenny en Flickr

Explorando los efectos de los medios digitales en el desarrollo de los idiomas español e inglés de los niños

Estudiamos 30 familias de origen mexicano que tenían un hijo entre 15 y 27 meses de edad. Las familias hablaban principalmente español con sus hijos, pero todos los niños también escuchaban y hablaban algo de inglés en casa.

Con el permiso de las familias, grabamos lo que los niños y niñas pequeños/as escuchaban en su hogar. Para eso colocamos en los niños y niñas un pequeño aparato de grabación de audio que grabó durante unas 15 horas en total, durante dos o tres días. Nuestro equipo de investigación revisó las grabaciones para conocer que idioma escuchaban los niños y niñas cuando se usaban medios digitales (televisión, radio, juegos electrónicos y videos en teléfonos celulares y tabletas) o cuando las personas hablaban en su hogar.

¿Qué escuchamos en las grabaciones?

A partir de las grabaciones, registramos la cantidad de tiempo que los niños estuvieron expuestos a los medios digitales, el idioma de los medios digitales (español o inglés) y el tipo de medios digitales (programas para niños o para adultos). También revisamos las grabaciones para conocer como hablaban los adultos y niños y niñas (el número de palabras de los adultos, la cantidad de conversaciones entre los adultos y el niño, y la cantidad de palabras y balbuceos de los niños y niñas).

Es decir, si utilizas los medios digitales con tus hijos e hijas pequeños, ¡no eres el único! Los padres utilizan los medios digitales para mantener a los niños ocupados, ayudarlos a relajarse y apoyarlos con el aprendizaje.

¿Qué aprendimos? ¿Por qué es importante?

En todas las familias que participaron del estudio se usaron medios digitales. Es decir, si utilizas los medios digitales con tus hijos e hijas pequeños, ¡no eres el único! Los padres utilizan los medios digitales para mantener a los niños ocupados, ayudarlos a relajarse y apoyarlos con el aprendizaje. A continuación, compartimos tres resultados principales de nuestro estudio y explicamos brevemente algunas sugerencias sobre cómo puede usar los medios digitales con su hijo e hija.

Foto de Alex Green en Pexels

1. En las familias en que se usó por más tiempo medios digitales, los niños y niñas participaron en menos conversaciones con adultos.

Las conversaciones con adultos son muy importantes para aprender a comunicarse. Los niños y niñas comienzan a aprender sobre como comunicarse antes de empezar a hablar. Aprenden nuevos sonidos, palabras y frases a partir de conversaciones. Mucho uso de medios digitales puede reducir las oportunidades de aprendizaje a través de las conversaciones con adultos.

Intente reducir el uso de medios digitales por parte de su hijo/a a menos de una hora al día. O converse más con su hijo/a mientras ve los medios digitales. Hágale preguntas relacionadas con el programa que empiecen con quién, qué, dónde y por qué. Relacione los sucesos del programa con su vida diaria. Amplíe lo que dice su hijo/a con nueva información. Estas estrategias pueden apoyar el desarrollo del lenguaje.

2. Los niños y niñas escuchan más medios digitales en español que en inglés.

Esto encaja con lo que habíamos encontrado antes; que las familias usaban más español que inglés cuando hablaban con sus hijos/as. La mejor manera de apoyar el aprendizaje de su hijo/a es tener conversaciones de alta calidad seguidas con él/ella cualquiera sea el idioma que use la familia. A menudo, este es el idioma nativo de los padres. Aprender el idioma de la familia (inglés u otro idioma) puede ayudar a apoyar la identidad de los niños, las conexiones con la familia y la cultura y su desarrollo futuro. Los medios digitales en el idioma de la familia pueden ser una importante ayuda para lograr eso.

También encontramos que la mayoría de los programas para adultos, como las noticias o las telenovelas, eran en español. Los programas para niños, como los dibujos animados, a menudo estaban en inglés. Es posible que los padres hayan seleccionado programas en inglés para ayudar a sus hijos a aprenderlo antes de comenzar la escuela. No sabemos cómo los medios digitales ayudan a los niños/as a aprender dos idiomas. En general, a los niños/as les va mejor  aprendiendo palabras de conversaciones con personas que de medios digitales. La mayoría de los niños y niñas que asisten a escuelas de EE. UU. aprenden inglés con el tiempo, y el aprendizaje del inglés es apoyado en sus escuelas. Pero es posible que las escuelas no ayuden a los niños a aprender el idioma de su familia. Es importante que los padres y los miembros de la familia usen su propio idioma en el hogar para que los niños/as puedan ser multilingües.

Aprender el idioma de la familia (inglés u otro idioma) puede ayudar a apoyar la identidad de los niños, las conexiones con la familia y la cultura y su desarrollo futuro.

3. Los niños escuchaban más medios destinados a adultos que a niños, pero ver programas infantiles parece aumentar el uso de palabras y balbuceos por parte de los niños.

Los programas centrados en los niños pueden ayudar a los niños/as a practicar nuevas palabras. Los programas que enseñan una habilidad escolar, como números o letras, o una habilidad social, como cómo hacer amigos, pueden ser los más útiles. Aun así, las conversaciones con una persona real son las mejores actividades para el desarrollo del lenguaje de los niños/as.

Foto de Marta Wave en Pexels

¿Cómo puede apoyar la comunicación de su hijo/a?

 A partir de lo que aprendimos de este y otros estudios, recomendamos que los padres y cuidadores:

• Limiten la exposición a los medios digitales cuando sea posible. En su lugar, incorpore a los niños/as en actividades sociales, como ayudar con las tareas domésticas o jugar.
• Elijan medios digitales en el(los) idioma(s) que usa la familia y que tengan objetivos educativos. Eviten los programas que no le enseñen a su hijo/a nuevas habilidades.
• Cuando sea posible, hablen con su hijo/a mientras escucha o mira los medios digitales. Hagan preguntas relacionadas con lo que están viendo del tipo qué, por qué, quién y dónde. Cuando respondan, mantengan la conversación, comentando lo que dijeron o haciendo nuevas preguntas.
• Continúen usando su(s) idioma(s) familiar(es) con frecuencia con su hijo/a, incluso si no responde en el(los) mismo(s) idioma(s). Busquen oportunidades para que su hijo/a tengan experiencias distintas y entretenidas en el(los) idioma(s) que usa su familia, como contar cuentos o leer libros.
• Recuerde que no hay pruebas de que el multilingüismo o apoyar el aprendizaje de distintos idiomas causen retraso o tengan efecto negativo en el desarrollo de los niños y niñas.

Escrito por Lauren M. Cycyk y Stephanie De Anda; Traducido por Daniela Aldoney y Claudia Angulo

Haga clic aquí para ver la versión en inglés.

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