A whole new world: Discovering a story sack

Third- and fifth-grade children and adults were presented with 8-item letter sequences of varied approximations to English in a tachistoscopic single report, cue delay task. Age differences in report accuracy suggested that younger children, as compared with adults, may be at a double disadvantage in tasks requiring perceptual-memory processing: Their initial intake capacity and/or selective processing abilities may be more limited than those of adults; and the subsequent strategy employed by children to transfer iconic information into a more permanent memory store appears to be qualitatively, as well as quantitatively, different (less systematic, less orderly, and less efficient) than that used by adults. The suggestion that children's reading experience and ability (as assessed by a word recognition task) may be related to their systematic use of an orderly left-to-right iconic transfer strategy was also examined. In addition, the results suggested that the differential letter-pattern familiarity effect between children and adults may not be attributable to visual intake components but, rather, may be related to the relative rates with which familiar letter patterns are transferred out of iconic memory.

This ethnographic case study explores how parents participating in reading experiences influenced children's responses to culturally relevant texts. I focus on six Chinese American families who participated in an online family book club. The children were between the ages of four and six and spoke both English and Chinese Mandarin. In each session, the families listened to an interactive read-aloud, participated in a family book discussion after reading, and shared a question/connection with the group. The data included transcribed video-recordings, transcripts of the family's book discussions, and transcripts of interviews conducted with the families. These data were analyzed using Nexus Analysis and grounded coding methods. Findings showed that parents fostered connections between the child, the book, and their own relationship to the book. These connections reflected heritage culture, family history, and family experiences. The parents shaped the children's reading experience and cultural knowledge by building on and extending existing cultural knowledge, redirecting children to attend to new cultural knowledge, choosing not to address certain types of cultural knowledge, utilizing home resources, and cultivating intercultural awareness and language learning. This study has implications for teachers and educators who want to engage parents in supporting children's cultural knowledge.

The article is devoted to the problem of linguistic originality of hagiographic texts for children regarded as a special branch of hagiographic genre, which communicates to the new generation culturally significant senses and values of the ethnic group, with the emphasis on the concept of a religious and moral ideal. The source of the language material was collections of hagiographies for children. The author focuses on lexical units that nominate and describe emotional experiences. The features determining the use of units of this lexical set for the creation of texts that consider children's reading experience are established. It is shown that the specificity of using the vocabulary of emotions in a hagiographic text is determined by its functional load: its usage as a means of characterization (characterological function), the basics of compositional text formation (text-building function), the implementation of the educational orientation of the hagiographic text (didactic function). The vocabulary of emotions is an important means of creating imagery based on metaphorical and metonymic shifts, which contributes to the adaptation of the text to the age and cultural demands of the children's readership. The consideration of functional and stylistic originality of lexemes, their heterogeneity, mixing of bookish and colloquial words has enabled the author to trace transformation processes in hagiographic genre, which are characteristic of modern hagiographic texts.

This study examines the perspectives of children enrolled in a six-week summer literacy program and its impact on their attitudes toward books and reading. Specifically, the research aimed to explore how culturally relevant pedagogy and engaging literacy activities influenced children’s motivation to read by addressing the following two research questions: What are participants’ perspectives on the benefits of a summer literacy program? and What are participants’ perspectives on reading and books after immersion in a summer literacy program? The sample consisted of 21 children in grades 1–6. Using a mixed-methods approach, including surveys and open-ended questions, the study investigated participants’ perceptions of the program’s content, structure, and the quality of relationships with instructors and peers. The research focused on how the use of culturally relevant literature and enrichment activities shaped children's reading experiences and the role of child-staff relationships in fostering engagement. Outcomes revealed that the program's diverse literature, coupled with interactive activities, significantly contributed to cultivating a passion for reading. A supportive, nontraditional learning environment and positive relationships between children and staff further enhanced participants’ perceptions of reading and learning. This study highlights the effectiveness of innovative summer literacy programs in fostering a love for reading and strengthening student engagement.

Parental involvement in reading is crucial for learners. Active engagement helps develop early reading skills, boost self-esteem, and improve parent-child relationships that may grow their children's reading experiences by having frequent storytelling sessions, having book discussions, and setting up a family that values literacy. This study determined the nature of parental involvement in reading among Grade 1 learners in the three identified public elementary schools in Cebu, Philippines. The instruments used in the study included a researcher-made questionnaire administered to 174 parents. Quantitative data from the questionnaire were analyzed using statistical measures such as frequency, simple percentage, weighted mean, and the Chi-square test of independence. It was concluded that although parents were somewhat involved, parents were more active in learning at home. The parental involvement was often modest. The same empirical findings showed no correlation between the respondents' diversified profiles and parental reading engagement with Grade 1 learners. Aware of the results, the researchers politely suggested using the action plans explicitly created to help parents involve their children in reading.

Phonological awareness (PA) is an important predictor and outcome of reading. Yet, little is known about the reciprocal relation between PA and reading across development without consistent reading experience (e.g., as a result of limited access to quality education and late enrolment in school). We tested the hypothesis that variable reading experience in childhood influences neural activation in regions involved in language and reading processing—left frontal and temporoparietal cortex. Sixty‐nine primary‐school children (Mage = 10.4) from rural low‐literacy communities in Côte d'Ivoire completed a PA task while undergoing functional near‐infrared spectroscopy neuroimaging (fNIRS) neuroimaging and a reading battery. We observed differences in left inferior frontal and bilateral temporoparietal activation for younger versus older children with similar reading skills, suggesting neural activations for phonological processing depends on the age when children have reading experience. Without consistent access to quality education, children may miss out on reciprocal interactions between phonological processing and reading shaping language processing in the brain.

The stimulus for the development of the project was the formation and examination of preschool aged child's reading experience, using the example of the fairy tale "Little Red Riding Hood". The backbone of the project is represented by four literary works. "Little Red Riding Hood", by the Brothers Grimm, as a reference text, and three other texts that are in intertextual dialogue with it: "Wrong telling of the fairy tale" by Gianni Rodari, "Nibbles: The Book Monster" by Emma Yarlett, " Wolf and the Other Little Red Riding Hood" by George Fisher. The aim of this research is to form and examine child's reading experience and encouraging children to notice the places that are deconstructed, and thus see the way in which they understand it. Based on the results obtained, we will determine how children understand the intertextual dialogue between the fairy tale and the texts that rely on it.

Improving the Reading Comprehension Skills of the First Year International College Thai Students Through Unlocking of Difficult Words

Aim/purpose – The study delves into the creation and the experience of interactive children’s narratives based on poetry, examining the emerging role of artificial intelli- gence (AI) as a collaborative partner in storytelling for children. The research questions are: 1) What are the experiences of readers, specifically children’s guardians, with inter- active narratives based on children’s poetry?; 2) How do children’s guardians experience inter-active stories co-generated in real-time through conversations with artificial intelli- gence?; 3) Is it feasible to create a satisfying narrative for children from a specific set of images through the use of AI technology? Design/methodology/approach – This paper synthesizes findings from the following studies: a) Qualitative analysis of interactive narratives based on Stanisław Jachowicz’s poems, involving a comprehensive online questionnaire survey, with 80 respondents participating in the latest study; b) An evaluative study focused on real-time interactions with AI-generated interactive narratives based on Stanisław Jachowicz’s poems. This involved 12 participants who provided detailed feedback on their experience; c) An autoethnographic study exploring the creative process of generating children’s narratives from a set of images using AI. Findings – The findings from the exploratory studies suggested that interactive narra- tives based on poetry would be beneficial for education and the promotion of reading. The interactive narrative can be simply designed (simple mechanics, simple options) and nevertheless, it can evoke a positive user experience. The constructs of telepresence and player agency apply not only to the interactive narrative and the poem that serves as its foundation. The evaluation of the interactive narrative generated by ChatGPT was posi- tive, both as real-time interactive storytelling experienced by the reader with AI and as the interactive narrative created based on a set of images. In the process of generating interactive narratives during real-time interactions, ensuring safety, reliability, and trust- worthiness for children is a crucial aspect. Research implications/limitations – The research suggests that educational organiza- tions can benefit from introducing interactive narratives based on poetry into children’s curricula. Furthermore, artificial intelligence can be effectively utilized in creating such content, both in the form of traditional interactive narratives presented to children and in real-time interactions with AI. However, it is also important for organizations to develop tools for monitoring children’s safety. Originality/value/contribution – This paper sheds light on the reader’s experience with interactive narratives based on poetry and highlights the transformative impact of AI on reading and writing in children’s literature, emphasizing how significantly the roles of writers and readers have changed with the introduction of AI. The swift evolution of artificial intelligence raises concerns that vital literary participants – including authors, researchers, publishers, and readers – may not grasp the essential skills and knowledge for utilizing AI. This paper can be helpful for these groups as it provides clues on how to produce good prompts, leading to the creation of children’s narratives. Keywords: art studies, Human-Centered AI, interactive narrative, game development, user experience. JEL Classification: Z11, L86, M31.

Shared reading and book talk are common activities used to engage elementary school readers, yet can be anxiety provoking for those with reading difficulties. Identifying whether, and how, new technologies can foster more positive reading experiences for children with reading difficulties is therefore essential. This study compared children’s book-talk and reading experiences with an Augmented Reality (AR) and non-AR (matched in content) book. In total, 32 UK children (aged 8–10) with reading difficulties participated in dyads in two shared book reading sessions (AR/non-AR book, counterbalanced), with book-talk after each session, followed by a general discussion to learn of the similarities and differences in their AR/non-AR reading experiences. AR books significantly increased the quantity of children’s book talk (number of words spoken and sentence length) and many similarities and differences found in children’s experiences with the AR and non-AR book. Results are discussed in full, in addition to educational implications.

Studies of early reading in the home indicate the relevance of these experiences for young children’s later reading development when they start school. The study reported here followed twenty children through 2 years prior to starting school and assessed their reading progress at the start of school. Audio/tape-recordings of their home experiences were collected in some detail, at random during whole days and transcripts of the audio/tape-recordings were reviewed for instances of reading experiences. In addition, parent interviews reported activities with their children, including those not captured on the audio/tape-recordings and others that took place across different days not recorded. Strong relationships were found between measures of family interest in reading and their children’s reading development when they started school. It was also found that Socioeconomic Status (SES) of family background did not necessarily determine these children’s reading development. Those children who had the opportunity to form successful understandings about reading from their home experiences, arrived at school with strong conceptual frameworks that supported their continuing reading development.

This study investigated the phonological awareness and early literacy development of 12 children who presented at 3 years of age with moderate or severe speech impairment. The children's response to early intervention that included specific activities to facilitate phoneme awareness and letter knowledge, in addition to improving speech intelligibility, was examined. Using a 3-year longitudinal design, the children's development in phonological awareness was monitored and compared to that of a group of 19 children without speech impairment. During the monitoring period from 3 to 5 years of age, the children with speech impairment received, on average, 25.5 intervention sessions. At 6 years of age, the children's performance on phonological awareness, reading, and spelling measures was also compared to that of the 19 children without impairment as well as to a matched control group of children with speech impairment who had not received any specific instruction in phonological awareness. The results indicated that (a) phoneme awareness can be stimulated in children with speech impairment as young as 3 and 4 years of age, (b) facilitating phoneme awareness development can be achieved concurrently with improvement in speech intelligibility, and (c) enhancing phoneme awareness and letter knowledge during the preschool years is associated with successful early reading and spelling experiences for children with speech impairment. The data provide evidence to support the clinical practice of integrating activities to develop phoneme awareness and letter knowledge into therapy for 3- and 4-year-old children with moderate or severe speech impairment.

The ALISE Youth Services Special Interest Group (SIG) presents a panel exploring how youth services programs support communities. Community issues of homelessness and barriers to youth engagement are considered, as well as the need to honor the voices of all library users. The session will begin with presentations of papers (15 minutes each), followed by a themed question-and-answer portion to conclude. Attendees will be able to share their own experiences and work-in-progress on these topics during the discussion. Amanda Hovious will discuss the barriers that may prevent rural teens and youth from engaging in their libraries, regardless of whether youth services are offered. Findings from a needs assessment survey conducted with Kansas public libraries (N = 50) as a component of the statewide Adaptive and Resilient Infrastructures Driven by Social Equity (ARISE) will be shared. Jessie Maimone will present information on the experiences of black teenagers in the public library. The aim of the research is to identify how race affects their interactions within the library, what they see as the purpose of libraries, and what an ideal library would look like for them. Vikki C. Terrile will share research about library support of homeless children and families. Practitioner and/or scholarly work in LIS is focused on people who are or appear to be chronically homeless adults. Children and families who are experiencing homelessness are rarely mentioned. Terrile shares an exploration of her work partnering with shelters and how this experience is used with LIS students. DeAnza Williams and Caitlin Tobin will detail the reading experience of children and youth as experts of their own reading preferences and library experiences. They will propose potential methods for incorporating youth voices in children and youth literature courses. Youth services can nurture youth, community, and support learning and family connections. This presentation and the subsequent attendee discussion will explore the ways in which the LIS field can work to address these and other community needs through excellent youth services.

In this study, we examined the longitudinal relations between frequency and features of reading experiences within the preschool classroom to children's language and literacy outcomes in kindergarten and 1st grade. Frequency refers to the number of shared reading sessions conducted each week as measured by teachers' written reading logs recorded across the academic year. Features refers to teachers' extratextual talk about literal, inferential, or print or phonological topics as assessed by analysis of 6 videotaped readings of narrative and informational texts collected across the preschool year. Participants were 28 preschool teachers and 178 children. The children were largely at risk and randomly selected from among those in each classroom to complete longitudinal assessments. In preschool, results showed that the frequency of classroom shared reading was positively and significantly related to children's receptive vocabulary growth, as was the inclusion of extratextual conversations around the text; only extratextual conversations related to children's preschool literacy growth. There was no evidence of differential influences of these experiences for children; that is, the relationship between frequency or features and children's language and literacy development was not moderated by children's initial skill level. Longitudinally, extratextual talk during preschool shared reading remained associated with children's vocabulary skills through kindergarten, with trends toward significance extending to 1st grade literacy skills. The frequency of preschool shared reading was not a significant predictor of longitudinal outcomes.