The effect of three interactive reading approaches on language ability: an exploratory study in early childhood education

Language ability plays a major role in children’s future development. In the present study, the effect of three interactive reading approaches on children’s language ability was investigated through a pre-posttest design. Participants were N = 73 children (aged 4–6) from three early childhood education classrooms. Classrooms were assigned to one of three reading approaches: (1) traditional interactive reading, (2) interactive reading with focused attention, and (3) interactive reading using a mindmap. The hypothesis was that the effect of the mindmap approach would be greater than the effect of the other two reading approaches. Children’s productive vocabulary, receptive vocabulary, listening comprehension skills, and narrative skills were measured. Results indicated no differences between the effects of the three reading approaches. However, after the intervention period, children’s language ability was significantly improved. This indicates that different interactive reading approaches are beneficial for children’s language ability, even after a short intervention period of four weeks. Future large-scale, longitudinal research should follow-up on the present study in order to indicate whether the use of mindmaps during interactive reading is even more effective than other reading approaches.