Parents reading with their toddlers: The role of personalization in book engagement

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of personalized books on parents’ and children’s engagement during shared book reading. Seven native English parents and their children aged between 12 and 33 months were observed at home when sharing a book made specifically for the child (i.e. a personalized book), a comparable book with no personalized content, and a favourite book of the child. The interactions were videotaped and later coded to provide information about the frequency of behaviours that indicated engagement with the books. Statistical analyses revealed that children and parents showed significantly higher overall frequencies of smiles and laughs with the personalized books in comparison to the non-personalized books, and showed higher frequency of vocal activity with the personalized as opposed to the child’s favourite book. In addition, there was a significantly higher rate of children’s smiles and laughs with the personalized than with the non-personalized book. It appeared that most of the children’s positive affect with the personalized books was in response to the content of those books, while the parents’ smiles occurred mostly in response to a smile or laugh from the child. These findings are among the first to suggest that personalized features of books result in specific distinct responses in parents and children during shared book reading.

Keywords

shared reading parent–child interactions books for babies young children story-book interactions

Introduction

Since pioneering research on parent–child (Heath, 1982) and teacher–child (Cochran-Smith, 1984) book reading, reading aloud with young children has been considered one of the best predictors of children’s early reading success (Neuman et al., 2000). In particular, shared parent–child book reading is identified as one of the most ecologically valid and powerful contexts in which to study and foster children’s early language and literacy skills (Justice and Kaderavek, 2002; Sénéchal and Lefevre, 2002; van Kleeck et al., 2003). Numerous research efforts and investigations have been concerned with the questions of how much and in what ways shared book reading benefits children’s early literacy development. Correspondingly, the premise of many early parent book reading programmes is that the earlier parents start reading to their children, the better for their educational development (e.g. Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, see http://imaginationlibrary.com). Research findings indicate that early engagement in book reading is predictive of children’s oral language (Crain-Thoreson and Dale, 1992) and is associated with reading achievement (Connor et al., 2009). However, despite a relatively large literature about shared book reading with preschoolers and its significance for children’s development, little is known about very young children’s engagement with different types of books.

Early shared book reading usually involves the use of commercial books, from publishers, that are designed for young children. These books are adapted to the age and interests of children and for the youngest children often include visual and tactile features such as pop-up pages, textured material and other features designed to capture the interest of children who are starting to become familiar with books and their purpose. The content of these books is not always aligned with the world of young children and their parents and, often, there is a mismatch between children’s preferences, such as those based on a book’s appearance, and the book’s educational quality and sociocultural importance. Recently, there have been calls for the development and distribution of more socioculturally relevant children’s books (see e.g. Janes and Kermani, 2001). We define personalized books as books that are written specifically for a particular child, have a personal meaning for the child and are socioculturally appropriate. A crucial feature of personalized books is that they contain information that is meaningful and relevant to a particular child. The books’ personalized character is achieved by embedding text and pictures that are unique to a specific child. The level of personalization in children’s books can vary from commercially produced books that merely substitute the main character’s name with the child’s name (see e.g. Demoulin, 2003), to books made entirely by parents (or main caregivers) specifically for a child (see Kaderavek and Pakulski, 2007). It is the latter that constitute the focus of the present study, guided by the recent concern about the personal meaningfulness and sociocultural relevance of book reading for children across families (Taylor et al., 2008).

Theoretical framework

In our research, we place a neo-Vygotskian emphasis on social and cultural factors in relation to learning, and the importance of communication and shared knowledge in promoting cognitive growth. When focusing on literacy activities such as shared book reading, a key issue for consideration therefore relates to the socioculturally meaningful and sensitive inclusion of families. Following the work of Moll and his colleagues within the funds of knowledge framework (see González et al., 2005), this investigation adopts the cultural-historical context of shared home book reading, which carries implications for personalized literacy instruction. In accordance with this research agenda, creating and sharing personalized books paves the way for new directions in early literacy acquisition. For parents, this process promotes feelings of empowerment, ownership and agency in their children’s literacy instruction (Janes and Kermani, 2001). For children, personalized books are part of personalized learning, which has been recently described as a revised code for education (Hartley, 2007). In Gonzalez and colleagues’ (2005) words, through self-made personalized books, families’ funds of knowledge (i.e. parents’ own cultural and personal experiences, traditions and home languages) become part of literacy education.

The second theoretical premise on which the present study is built is the acknowledgement of multiple or transactional influences in shared book reading (Anderson et al., 2009; Fletcher and Reese, 2005). Each shared book reading session is unique and needs to be evaluated in light of the specific characteristics of all three session participants: adult, child and book. The transactional position goes beyond general recommendations advising parents on how often or how best to read to their children (cf. Whitehurst et al., 1988); it takes into account the type of book being read, children’s and parents’ language competence, and other unique characteristics of each shared book reading session, such as, for example, the influence of different book genres, formats or media on parent–child interaction (see Kim and Anderson, 2008; Moody et al., 2010). In line with findings from cross-cultural shared book reading research, different parents’ reading styles promote different skills in children, and what works for some families may not work for others (Reese and Cox, 1999). Thus, our investigation considers both parent’s and child’s engagement in relation to different types of books.

Personalization: Promoting parent–child engagement with books?

Parent–child engagement with books is a desired outcome of many early reading intervention programmes and engagement with books can be investigated using a range of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Obtaining valid self-reports of the feelings and views of young children is extremely difficult, and because of this it was decided to employ a quantitative coding of both the children’s and parent’s engagement during their shared book reading. Another factor that influenced this decision was the comparative ease in identifying behaviours that provide good indications of engagement with both young children and parents.

Engagement has been operationalized in a range of different ways (see e.g. Lynch, 2009; Moody et al., 2010). As Baker et al. (1996: xv) have written: ‘the specific meaning attached to the term varies from writer to writer, the general sense is that engagement is a highly desirable characteristic of reading’. When broadly defined, engagement includes concepts such as a child’s interest, involvement and active participation in book reading (Cline, 2010). In a study of traditional and e-book engagement of 25 preschoolers, Moody et al. (2010) considered engagement in terms of a child’s persistence, compliance or enthusiasm during the session. In preschoolers and older children, engagement is often defined as involving joint attention, and has been found to be related to children’s future language skills (Tomasello and Farrar, 1986). In our study, engagement was defined as young children’s active participation in shared book reading. Through a comprehensive literature review, specific characteristics of engagement were identified that could provide quantitative descriptions when observing a small group of parents and their children. These included the number of pointing gestures, frequency of vocal activity, number of smiles and laughs, as well as the frequency of behaviours that signify disengagement (such as yawns or restless movements). Analyses were conducted on the frequency of behaviours to give an indication of the potential impact of activities – e.g. whether parents and children experienced a higher frequency of smiles and laughs in sessions with a personalized book. Analyses were also conducted on the rate of behaviours that can give an indication of whether the type of book altered the pace of interaction – e.g. whether parents and children produced a higher rate of smiling in sessions with personalized books irrespective of the overall duration of the session.

Children’s engagement with personalized books

There are a number of reasons to expect that personalized books will promote aspects of children’s book engagement. Personalized books are created by people who know their children best (usually their parents), and who can capitalize on parent–child shared experiences and preferences when creating those books. The books are inherently full of parents’ positive affect and, as a result, are expected more than any other books to engage children positively. Bus (2003: 12), following a series of studies on parent–child attachment and book-reading behaviour, concluded that a child’s motivation and learning depend on the ‘parental ability to bridge the child’s world and the world of the book by using their intimate knowledge of the child’s personal experiences’. A child’s interest in a personalized book may be further facilitated by his or her increased comprehension of the story; in Bracken’s (1982) pioneering work with struggling readers, story comprehension was enhanced by embedding with in the standard story some personal information (such as substituting the main character’s name with the child’s name). In Demoulin’s (2003) work, merely personalizing some elements of books for kindergartners was found to improve their reading recall by nearly 50%. In addition, personalized books offer the opportunity to build directly upon children’s knowledge and make the engagement in a learning task more meaningful. Parents who are sensitive to their children’s literacy, and in particular their language abilities, can adjust the book and their interaction level to the child’s zone of proximal development (see Vygotsky, 1978), encouraging children’s participation at their own developmental level. This is likely to lead to increased interest and attention, as autonomy, competence and relatedness are known motivational factors in learning (McCaleb, 1995).

Parents’ engagement with personalized books

Just as personalized books might be expected to engage young children, one might also expect that their content would promote parents’ engagement. Namely, given that personalized books generate a positive emotional response from children, they are also likely to spark interest in the books’ authors (i.e. children’s parents or main caregivers) who, through the book creation, feel empowered and involved. Parents’ enjoyment and engagement with personalized books were investigated by Janes and Kermani (2001). Caregivers of an immigrant and low-income community participating in the Family Literacy Tutorial Project reported that having to read pre-selected books was perceived as ‘punishment’ (Janes and Kermani, 2001: 480). It was only when parents were encouraged to create their own books for children that their overall perception of reading shifted from ‘reading as punishment’ to ‘reading as pleasure’ (Janes and Kermani, 2001: 461). Cross-cultural research further indicates that a mismatch between book content and parental values reduces parental involvement in shared book reading. Studies show that there is widely documented cross-cultural variability in parents’ beliefs of what constitutes appropriate literacy materials and early teaching at home (van Kleeck, 2006), with limited resources and lack of confidence being barriers to parents’ positive engagement in book reading (Persampieri et al., 2006). While book gifting schemes such as Bookstart address tangible constraints on home book reading (see http://www.bookstart.org.uk), socioculturally based research has been concerned with parents’ competency constraints as a barrier to their interest in reading books with their children (Ada, 1988; Delgado-Gaitan, 1994).

In this research tradition, parents’ involvement in book construction and, importantly, in the choice of book content, is considered as an empowerment tool for parents’ reading engagement. In her case study of family socialization documented in households of Mexican-American and Mexican-immigrant families, Delgado-Gaitan (1994) encouraged parents to link book content to their own lives. This led, inter alia, to parents having more engaged interaction when reading with their children. Consequently, it might be expected that parents would be more engaged and positive about books that they have had some role in creating and that they can relate to their own and their children’s lives. Therefore, in addition to child engagement, we decided to investigate the influence of personalized books on parents’ engagement during book reading. In order to match the measures of children’s behaviour, we coded instances of parents’ pointing gestures, vocal activity, smiles and laughs and less-engaged behaviours.

Parent–child mutual positive engagement with personalized books

As conceptualized in the current study, personalized books created by parents can successfully bridge the worlds of the book and of the child to capitalize on parents’ and children’s knowledge and values associated with shared book reading (Ada, 1988; Janes and Kermani, 2001). There is therefore a good reason to believe that personalized books will not only promote parents’ and children’s positive engagement, but also support a more equal contribution from both in the interaction, which is a further prediction that we wished to investigate. Balanced interactions may have various benefits for children. It is likely that equality of positive involvement is associated with more balanced interaction where both child and parent contribute to the interaction process, rather than one person dominating the interaction with a likely failure to build on the other’s interest or preferences. In their recommendations to assessors concerned with the ‘success’ of a book-reading session, Kaderavek and Sulzby (1998) suggest that successful shared book reading involves parents and children who are ‘in tune’ with each other, both actively participating in the session and jointly co-constructing knowledge and shared understanding (see also van Kleeck et al., 2003). Furthermore, previous investigations indicate that this type of interaction appears to be supportive of children’s future language skills and independent narrative (Dickinson, 1991), and has been linked to strong affective relationships (Cameron and Pinto, 2009). Accordingly, we decided to examine whether personalized books resulted in a more equal distribution of positive engagement behaviours than occurred with other comparable books. Given that smiles and laughs are widely recognized as signals that participants, including infants (see Keller et al., 1988), are happy and approve of the situation they are in, we defined positive engagement as the frequency of child and parent smiles and laughs during the observed interaction.

Another aspect of our consideration of parent–child enjoyment of the session (see Kaderavek and Sulzby, 1998), and related to our focus on the transactional influences in shared book reading (Fletcher and Reese, 2005), was an interest in whether the reading partner or the content of the book appeared to be the source of smiles and laughs. To this end, we coded parents’ and children’s positive engagement behaviours as either a ‘smile preceded by a look at the book’ or a ‘smile preceded by a child’s or parent’s reaction’ (depending on whether coding children’s or parents’ smiles). In this way we aimed to provide information about which of the triad in the interaction (child, partner or book) was instrumental in bringing about any observed positive affect and about the ways in which child and parent influenced one another. This was an exploratory measure, with no clear predictions regarding the effects of personalized books.

Aims of the present study

With the above considerations in mind, we decided to compare shared book reading involving a personalized book constructed using parental assistance with reading that involved a non-personalized book containing similar information, but without any reference to the child or their interests. Based on the findings of the attractiveness of books with personalized features (Janes and Kermani, 2001), we predicted that personalized books would generate more engagement and more equal positive interaction than non-personalized books. In addition, we compared shared book reading involving a personalized book with shared book reading involving a favourite book of the child – i.e. a book that was very familiar to the child and that provided a benchmark for high levels of engagement. As a result, the parent–child engagement behaviours observed in the sessions were analysed to address the following research questions:

Do personalized books result in higher levels of engagement than non-personalized books or a child’s favourite book in both young children and their parents?

Do personalized books result in more equal patterns of positive interaction and is this attributable to book characteristics and/or one of the reading partners?

Method

Participants

Parents and children were recruited to meet the following eligibility criteria: the parent was a native English speaker and the child had typical language development and was aged between one and three years. Participants were recruited initially through advertisements in the local media. However, because we failed to recruit enough participants in this manner, we also used snowball sampling, in which one participant recommended another family, and so on. This procedure resulted in an initial sample of eight parent–child dyads. One parent–child dyad took part in a pilot study, resulting in the final sample of seven parents and their children. The pilot study explored the use of paper-based, self-made books with children of this young age and different measures of children’s engagement behaviour.

Details about the children in the study were supplied by the parents who reported no concerns about their children’s cognitive or language development during the home visit; all children appeared to be developing typically. There were three boys and four girls in the study, aged between 12 and 33 months, with a median age of 22 months. Four children had older siblings; three children were an only child. Out of the seven families, two fathers and five mothers took part in the study. When asked about their child’s general engagement in book reading, six parents rated their child’s general engagement as ‘a lot’ and one parent as ‘a bit’ on a four-point Likert scale (1 = a lot; 2 = a bit; 3 = not much; 4 = not at all). The same response pattern was obtained from parents rating their own engagement in book reading, with one parent rating his general engagement in reading with his child as ‘a bit’ and six parents as ‘a lot’. All parents reported that their children asked for reading on a regular basis. In all the families that were visited, reading to children was a clearly established routine, with all parents regularly reading to their child at bedtime, some in the mornings (n = 4) and some ‘anytime during the day’ (n = 2). Three parents reported that they first started reading to their child when they were younger than six months; four parents said they introduced the first book after the child turned one year (but younger than two years). Four parents indicated that they read with their child seven to nine times a week, and three parents more than 10 times a week. Only one parent had created a book for her child before, based on her daughter’s pictures, with the aim to ‘share a story of her life’.

Study protocol

Three different types of books were used in the study: a personalized book, a non-personalized book and the child’s favourite book. In order to create personalized books, parents were asked to take seven pictures of any things, places or activities their child enjoyed and to provide a simple storyline to accompany them. The draft text and parents’ pictures were then formatted using RealeWriter software, which offers an easy-to-use and efficient way of creating electronic books. The non-personalized book was a book created by the first author of the study, using RealeWriter software and photographs and text showing similar objects and activities to those in the personalized book, but with no pictures or text featuring the target child as the protagonist. The personalized book was taken as a model for the creation of the non-personalized book, with a similar story structure, pictures and grammatical complexity of text. This procedure ensured that the two books had the same or almost the same number of words and pictures, a method followed in previous book comparison studies (cf. Kim and Anderson, 2008). The books were then printed and laminated by the researcher and given to the parent on the day of the home visit. The favourite book was a book chosen by the parent on the day of observation, following the researcher’s prompt: ‘Would you like to choose one of your child’s current favourite books?’

Procedure

The families were visited at home. Before the videotaped reading sessions, the parent who volunteered to participate in the study was given a short questionnaire to complete and was interviewed about the family’s general reading practices at home (see description of participants). Parents were then given the personalized book and the non-personalized book to share with their child and were asked to choose one of their child’s current favourite books. To control for possible order effects, the three books were presented in a counterbalanced order across participants. Parents were asked to read the books as they normally would with their child, in a room of their choice. The interaction was recorded with a non-intrusive video camera.

After the reading session, parents were given a short questionnaire asking them to rate their and their children’s engagement when reading the three books. Data obtained from these additional measures are not reported here, but the findings mirror those obtained using the video analyses.

Analysis of all video clips was performed using Focus II software. This enabled a detailed annotation of behavioural categories. To measure the reliability of the coding procedure, six video sessions were viewed independently and re-coded by a second coder. These sessions were chosen randomly, across each parent–child pair (resulting in a total of 21 sessions). Cohen’s weighted kappa was used as a measure of agreement; all items were reliable at or above .85 level. Any disagreements were resolved through discussion to arrive at a final rating to be used for data analyses.

Measures

The coding system provided information about the frequency of behaviours and was based on behavioural categories identified in a pilot study and used in previous research (Hynd, 2006; Moody et al., 2010). A description of these behaviours, which include pointing, vocal activity, smiles and laughs and less-engaged behaviours, along with some examples and relevant research sources, are shown in Table 1. In addition, the smiles and laughs of each partner were coded to ascertain whether this type of reaction/behaviour was preceded by a look at the book or a look at the partner; a separate analysis was carried out for the children and for the parents.

Table 1.

Parents’ and children’s behaviours: coding framework

Variable	Specification	Details and examples	Scoring
1. Pointing Child Parent	The number of times the infant points to or touches a picture or a line of text or the whole page (cf. Murphy, 1978)	Accidental touching or playing, chewing and eating were not counted as pointing. Also, turning pages, simply holding the book and interacting with flaps of flip-flap books were not considered pointing.	Frequency count obtained for each participant in each book session
	The number of times the parent points to or touches a picture or a line of text or a letter or the whole text (cf. Whitehurst et al., 1988)
	2. Vocal activity Child Parent			Total number of vocalizations (see Crowe et al., 2004)	For younger babies, vocal activity included non-verbal sounds and slurred or simplified versions of ordinary words. Imitating animal sounds in response to questions like ‘Which animal is this?’ were also included. For older toddlers, all of the above plus simple words were included.	Frequency count for each participant in each book session
For parents, all verbal utterances were included, including imitating animal sounds and providing back-channel responses (e.g. ‘yeah, uh-huh’). A complete utterance was treated as one vocal act.	2. Vocal activity Child Parent					Frequency count for each participant in each book session
3. Smiles and laughs Child and Parent	Total number of smiles and laughter (see Hynd, 2006)	Any smile or laughter observed during each reading session counted towards the indicator.	Frequency count for each participant in each book session
4. Less-engaged behaviours Child Parent	Total number of yawns, restless movements, looks away from the book and furtive departures	Any sign of lack of interest in the book or discomfort with the reading session counted as ‘one’ behaviour for each child per session.	Frequency count for each participant in each book session
4. Less-engaged behaviours Child Parent	Total number of yawns, restless or harsh movements, looks away from the book and furtive exits	Any sign of lack of interest in the book or discomfort with the reading session counted as ‘one’ behaviour for each parent per session.	Frequency count for each participant in each book session

Results

Children’s engagement

The mean numbers of behaviours that occurred with each type of book are given in Figure 1, with the mean values displayed above the columns.

Figure 1.

The mean frequency of children’s behaviours with each type of book

A Kolmogorov-Smirnov one-sample test was used to check whether the data were normally distributed; for behaviours where this was not the case, non-parametric statistics were employed (e.g. for smiles and laughs as detailed below). Across the three conditions, there was a significant difference in the children’s vocal activity (repeated measures ANOVA: F(2, 6) = 6.57, p = .012, η²= .523) and smiles and laughs (Friedman test statistic: χ²(2) = 3.93, p = .049), but no significant difference in pointing or less-engaged behaviours. Simple planned contrasts showed that the frequency of children’s vocal activity was significantly higher with the personalized than with the child’s favourite book (F(1, 6) = 13.0, p = .011, η²= .685) and the difference was close to significant for the comparison of the personalized and non-personalized books (F(1, 6) = 4.91, p = .069, η²= .450). Planned contrasts revealed that there were significantly more smiles and laughs with the personalized than with the non-personalized book (Wilcoxon signed rank test Z = −2.06, p = .039). All other comparisons were statistically non-significant.

There was variation in the mean duration of the sessions and the personalized book sessions were longer than the others (Table 2); however, this difference was not statistically significant (F(2,6) = 2.217, p = .152, η²= .270). A further set of analyses was conducted to check whether there were differences in the rate of the behaviours (frequency of behaviour/duration of session x 60 to give rate/minute). For smiles and laughs there was an overall difference between books that was close to being significant (Friedman statistic = 5.810, d.f. = 2, p = .055). Selected pairwise comparisons using a Wilcoxon test revealed that there was a significantly higher rate of smiles and laughs with personalized versus non-personalized books (z = −2.032, p = .042). No other significant differences were identified. Together, these two sets of analyses indicate that, for the children, there was a higher frequency and higher rate of smiles and laughs with the personalized book than at least one other type of book, and a higher overall frequency of vocalizations for the personalized than the favourite book, but no significant difference in the rate of vocalization.

Table 2.

Durations of sessions and frequencies of behaviours observed

Favorite book	Non-personalized book	Personalized book
Variable	M (SD)	M (SD)	M (SD)
Children
Gestures	5.0 (4.4)	10.1 (11.8)	12.6 (8.1)
Vocal activity	7.6 (7.1)	13.7 (15.2)	26.1 (17.2)
Positive engagement	1.4 (1.4)	1.3 (1.9)	3.9 (3.2)
Negative engagement	2.3 (1.8)	1.9 (2.7)	1.3 (0.9)
Parents
Gestures	5.9 (5.7)	2.4 (3.1)	6.9 (9.4)
Vocal activity	21.1 (14.9)	44.0 (30.2)	58.7 (24.4)
Smiles and laughs	0.86 (1.2)	1.6 (1.6)	4.0 (2.3)
Negative engagement	0.14 (0.38)	0.29 (0.49)	0 (0)
Duration of the session overall (in seconds)	172.3 (134.3)	213.3 (113.7)	300.8 (124.3)

Parents’ engagement

As can be seen in Figure 2, there were no examples of parents producing behaviours that would involve negative or less-engaged behaviours. Across the three conditions, ANOVAs revealed that there was an overall significant difference in parents’ vocal activity (F(2, 6) = 5.5, p = .02, η²= .479) and smiles and laughs (F(2, 6) = 5.7, p = .018, η²= .487), but no significant difference in pointing. Simple planned contrasts revealed that there were significantly more vocalizations with the personalized book than the favourite book (F(1, 6) = 10.198, p = .019, η²= .630), and that there were significantly more smiles and laughs with the personalized than the other two books (favourite book: F(1,6) = 6.205, p < .047, η²= .508; non-personalized book F(1,6) = 6.936, p < .039, η²= .536).

Figure 2.

The mean frequency of parents’ behaviours with each type of book

Comparisons between the three types of book revealed no significant differences in the rate of parental behaviours. Thus, the parents showed overall differences in frequency of smiles and laughs as well as vocalizations, but they did not show differences in the rate of these behaviours.

Mutual parent–child positive engagement

For each type of book, the frequency of children’s smiles and laughs was expressed as a proportion of the total number of smiles and laughs of both the child and their parent. Figure 3 shows the degree of correspondence between parents’ and children’s smiles and laughs (represented by the position of the division line between parents’ and children’s proportions). To evaluate whether any of the books provided a more equal proportion of parents’ and children’s smiles and laughs, a calculation was made of the difference between 50% and the lowest proportion of smiles and laughs that had been calculated for either the child or his/her parent. Complete equality would produce a score of 0% (i.e. 50% - 50%), and if only one person demonstrated a particular behaviour this gave a score of 50% (i.e. 50% - 0%). A repeated measure ANOVA in these proportions across the three types of book did not reveal any significant differences. Therefore, the personalized book was not found to promote a more equal distribution of positive behaviours between the two participants.

Figure 3.

Parent–child correspondence for smiles and laughs: proportion of behaviours displayed for parent and child.

We were also interested in finding out whether the source of parents’ and children’s smiles and laughs was the book or the partner. For this purpose, smiles and laughs were coded according to whether they were preceded by a look at the book or a look at the reading partner; this was done separately for children and parents. An initial ANOVA involving parent/child as the between-subjects factor with type of smile (look at book or look at partner) and type of book (favourite, personalized and non-personalized) produced a significant three-way interaction (F(2, 24) = 7.624, p = .003, η²= .388). This provided the justification for comparisons using repeated measures one way ANOVAs to investigate whether there were differences between each type of smiling across the three types of book (i.e. repeated measures ANOVA on three books). For children, in the case of smiles following a look at a book, there was a significant effect of book type (F(2, 6) = 7.3, p = .008, η²= . 549) and planned simple contrasts indicated that this was because there were significantly more smiles/laughs following a look at the personalized book than the other types of book (favourite book: F(1,6) = 6.564, p = .043, η²= .522; non-personalized book: F(1,6) = 9.346, p = .022, η²= .609). For parents, there was a significant effect of book type involving the number of smiles/laughs following a look at the child (F(2, 6) = 17.211, p = .001, η²= .741). Planned simple contrasts indicated that there were significantly more smiles/laughs following a look at the child in the personalized book condition than in the other two conditions (favourite book: F(1,6) = 20.056, p = .004, η²= .770; non-personalized book: F(1,6) = 43.350, p = .001, η²= .878). None of the other analyses produced significant effects. Thus, parents’ and children’s smiles and laughs were most frequent with the personalized books, but these effects appear to be due to different processes in parents and children.

Discussion

We set out to answer the question of whether parent–child engagement in sharing personalized books is different from shared book reading with other comparable books. There were several differences in the observed sessions according to the type of book that parents and children shared, and these are discussed in the following sections: (1) children’s engagement; (2) parents’ engagement; (3) mutual positive engagement, and study limitations.

Children’s engagement with personalized books

Using measures of engagement that have been identified in previous research and in pilot work, our detailed video analysis indicated that children were more engaged with personalized books. The frequencies of the children’s vocal activity and of their smiling/laughing were significantly higher in the personalized than in at least one of the other book conditions. In addition, the rate of smiling and laughing was significantly higher in the personalized book than the non-personalized book condition. Furthermore, the rate of children’s smiles that followed looks at the personalized book was significantly higher in the personalized than the other conditions.

The findings suggest that personalized books have the potential to foster children’s language development through the promotion of speech and discussion during a session. Flood’s (1977) early research with preschoolers indicated that most of the variance in children’s language gains from shared book reading can be explained by the total number of words spoken by the child during the reading session. Consequently, our finding of higher overall frequency of children’s vocal activity with personalized books is particularly encouraging when considering the longer-term benefits of this form of shared book reading.

It was expected that children’s engagement with their favourite book would be high, particularly because of the importance of familiarity with the reading material and the repetitive nature of book-reading interactions with young children (Horst et al., 2011). The analyses allowed an examination of whether or not personalized books had an equivalent attraction to that of a favourite book. No significant differences in the frequency of children’s smiles and laughs were found between the personalized and favourite books. This suggests that personalized books have an immediate attraction to young children and that this is at least equivalent or similar to that of books that have an established track record of engaging a child’s interest. However, a degree of caution is needed here when interpreting these findings given that, in some respects, the boundary between what is a personalized book and what is a favourite book is somewhat blurred. The frequent exposure to favourite books implies that, at some point, children’s favourite books become personally meaningful to them in terms of internalized memory of the characters, context and storyline. It is also possible that the child’s interest in the content of a book is the reason for it becoming a favourite one as the book becomes ‘personally relevant’ to the child; although of course a favourite book is highly unlikely to contain specific reference to the child.

Although it has been previously acknowledged that books with personalized features have the potential to enhance children’s active and meaningful engagement in shared book reading (Allen et al., 2002; Kucirkova et al., 2010), to date it is not clear whether this potential is realized through the books’ personal relevance for children or through other factors. In the current study, the personalized and non-personalized books had similar content, which only differed according to its personal relevance to each child. Consequently, a factor that contributes to the difference in the children’s engagement with the two books is the personal nature of the book content and/or an indirect result of parents being more involved in the book-creation process (for personalized books, the story and pictures had been supplied by parents).

Children smiled and laughed more frequently, and at a higher rate, with the personalized than the non-personalized books (p = .069 for frequency). These findings are in line with previous work that emphasizes the importance of following children’s interest to promote their enjoyment and engagement in reading (Fink, 2008), and offers evidence for the association between personalized aspects of books and young children’s increased positive book engagement (cf. Kaderavek and Pakulski, 2007). Our analyses of the source of children’s smiles indicated that there was a significantly higher proportion of smiles and laughs following a look at a personalized book. This adds weight to the suggestion that it was the content of the book that led to the higher frequency of positive affect observed in children.

In their study of social interactions with infants and mothers, Hornik and Gunnar (1988) defined infants’ looks that were accompanied by smiles or positive affect as ‘sharing looks’ and as the infants’ attempt to include their mothers in their experience. It may be that seeing pictures of their own face, toys and other personally meaningful objects depicted in the personalized books brought about more smiles in children because of their intention to communicate their interest in the book. Jones et al. (1991) provide evidence that infants, as young as 10 months, use smiles as communicative rather than emotional signs. The youngest child in our study was older than 10 months, but all study participants were in the first stages of their language acquisition. Their smiles could therefore be interpreted as an attempt to involve mothers in their positive experience and to draw their attention to the personalized book, for which there were overall more signs of children’s interest than for the non-personalized books.

Parents’ engagement with personalized books

Parents produced significantly more smiles/laughs and vocal activity with the personalized than with at least one of the other books. These effects might partly be due to ‘ownership’, as the personalized books were the only ones to have their content determined by the parents. However, there was no significant difference in the rate of parents’ smiles/laughs with the different books. The contrast between these two analyses may well be due to a lack of power in detecting differences of rate in a small sample. Additionally, there was evidence of difference in the source of parents’ smiles and laughs across the different book conditions. The personalized books had the highest frequency of smiles or laughs that followed a look at the child rather than a look at the book. Consequently, it seems likely that parents’ smiles or laughs were a response to the children’s positive engagement, rather their own enjoyment generated by the content of the book.

Previous research by Janes and Kermani (2001) found that immigrant parents from Mexico and Central America perceived reading pre-selected commercially produced books as castigo (punishment). It was only when parents were encouraged to create their own books for their children that they became positively motivated and engaged in shared book reading. Our findings agree with those of Janes and Kermani, in that books created by parents generated the highest levels of positive affect and talk around the story. However, our results also suggest that these effects could be attributable to parents reacting to the children’s enjoyment of the books.

Whatever the reason for parents’ higher frequencies of vocal activity and smiles/laughs, these are important findings, as previous research has shown that the amount and type of parents’ talk around a book is linked to children’s later literacy skills (De Temple and Snow, 2003; Reese, 1995; Wells, 1981) and that a high level of parental enjoyment in reading (evidenced by smiling and laughing) is associated with children’s learning outcomes (Cline, 2010). As such, our findings should encourage the application of this technique with more diverse samples where the parents’ engagement in shared book reading is generally low and therefore these effects might be even more beneficial. Moreover, if parents’ instrumental involvement in book creation leads them to use more vocal communication, then it is desirable to support such engagement through a variety of means, including, for example, digital technology (see the Our Story application at http://creet.open.ac.uk/projects/our-story).

Parent–child mutual positive engagement with personalized books

It was expected that personalized books might result in more equal contributions from child and parent to interaction in terms of smiling and laughing. However, the analyses did not support this expectation. The analyses of the sequences of events during social interaction indicated that, with the personalized books, the mechanisms through which parents and children demonstrated their positive engagement were different: children’s smiles were preceded by their looks at the book whereas parents’ smiles with the personalized books were mostly triggered by looks at children. It is difficult to assess whether this finding is an indication of mutual synchrony between parent and child, as previous research is not conclusive regarding the indicators of mutual sensitivity between reading partners and their engagement during shared book reading. Ortiz and colleagues (2001) found no significant association between observed parent variables (e.g. enthusiasm, number of questions asked per minute, positive feedback) and the child’s interest in reading. Riedl Cross et al. (2011), on the other hand, found that parents whose children scored high on a standardized language measure were more in tune with their children’s needs and abilities during book reading. Conversely, parents of children with more limited language were mostly unaware of their children’s abilities during book reading, such as, for example, the ability to respond to questions. It is therefore interesting to note that when reading personalized books, parents were responding to their children’s non-verbal cues, while children, on the other hand, were more focused on the personalized character of their books, rather than on their parents reading with them. Given that infants’ smiling during interaction with mothers has been recognized as ‘an effective social signal’ serving a specific communicative action with adults (Trevarthen, 1979: 326), it is of interest to note that personalization influences this type of behaviour in children.

Thus, when considering mutual book engagement between parents and children, it is important to realize that children may, through their verbal or non-verbal engagement, be directing some aspects of the observed interaction depending on how personally meaningful a book is. In this respect, the study highlights the variety of self-regulated and self-based context of parents’ and children’s interest in books and the importance for acknowledging the idiosyncratic nature of mutual parent–child shared book-reading engagement (cf. Fletcher and Reese, 2005). The latter is an important concept in research concerned with socioculturally sensitive book-reading interventions (see Ada, 1988; Campoy et al., 2006) and makes our study directly relevant to the many research and policy attempts that seek to maximize the learning benefits of shared book reading by making it an enjoyable and entertaining event for both parents and their children (see Cairney, 1997; Dunst et al., 2006; Gadsden, 1996; Moll and Cammarota, 2010).

Study limitations

Before generalizing our findings to larger cohorts, further confirmation of our results is needed, given the current small sample size and homogeneity of the sample. Furthermore, when identifying what constitutes effective, mutual and equitable interaction, it is worth considering whether analyses based on frequency of behaviours can be enhanced by observations that capture other subtle qualitative aspects of social interaction, such as, for example, self–other agreement or anticipation. With this caveat in mind, it would appear that a specific feature of books, namely their personal significance to the parent and child, influences parent–child engagement in a session. The study focus on personalization, rather than a specific book type or book genre, means that the findings add to the growing research evidence regarding the importance of certain book features rather than book types (Anderson et al., 2009). Furthermore, by finding a difference in relation to different book features and in relation to different aspects of parents’ and children’s engagement, the study contributes to discussion of the interrelated influences of parent–child engagement in shared book reading (cf. Reese and Cox, 2005). We therefore suggest that personalized books are an area worthy of future research, especially because they can be used with a wide variety of socio-economic and cultural groups, and it would be interesting to examine the variations in books and their effects on children and parents from families with different backgrounds. It would also be interesting to see how older children engage with personalized books, as this would provide further opportunities to investigate the effects on children’s language and thinking. For example, it would be interesting to see whether, with personalized books, there are similar or greater benefits to those that are known to occur with traditional shared book reading; these benefits might involve vocabulary and other emergent literacy skills, such as storytelling (cf. Allor and McCathren, 2003; Kang et al., 2009; Ninio, 1983).

Conclusion

Our focus on self-made personalized books was influenced by the growing interest in the relationship between specific book features and parent–child positive engagement in shared book reading. Personalized books (i.e. self-made books created specifically for the child) are, by definition, culturally sensitive and family-oriented resources, adjustable to parents’ and children’s interests and needs. Interestingly, despite the relatively widespread occurrence of personalized books in homes and children’s preschools, very few studies have looked at how both parents and children respond to books that are personally meaningful to them. Parents’ and children’s higher engagement levels with personalized books highlight some key characteristics of these books and the importance of: (1) the content of children’s books being based on what children enjoy and have previously been exposed to; and (2) a book’s personal relevance to both parent and child during shared book reading. Given the importance of enjoyment and verbal participation in parent–child shared book reading, future research is warranted on personalized books and the specific responses they facilitate in parents and children.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a studentship funded by the Centre for Research in Education and Educational Technology at the Open University.

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