READING TO PRESCHOOLERS - A RESPONSE TO SCARBOROUGH AND DOBRICH (1994) AND RECOMMENDATIONS FOR FUTURE-RESEARCH

This commentary on Scarborough and Dobrich's (1994) review of the efficacy of parents' shared book reading with preschool children responds in three ways to their findings that shared book reading accounts for only 8% of the variance on literacy outcome measures: (1) While small, the variance accounted for by this variable is, unlike variables such as SES, manipulable. (2) If researchers can improve their measures of frequency and quality of the shared book reading experience, then more valid and reliable results might be obtained in future interventions. (3) Other home literacy factors-such as child interest in literacy, parental support of literacy, and children's oral language-also have an important influence on outcome literacy measures. (C) 1994 Academic Press, Inc.