In the article “The Words Children Hear Picture Books and the Statistics for Language Learning”, the authors have observed the speech development benefits associated with reading picture books to children. The study hypothesis was that there is a link between the degree of a child’s vocabulary development and the quality and time invested by parents in picture book reading. Due to the peculiarities of its focus, the study employed a research sample consisting of word extracts from 100 most popular kids’ picture books rather than research participants. The variable examined in the study was the consistence between the percentage of picture books wording patterns and infants’ vocabulary. The study has found that “the text of picture books may be an important source of vocabulary for young children, and these findings suggest a mechanism that underlies the language benefits associated with reading to children” (Montag, Jones, and Smith 1489).
The degree of generalization of study results to common populations can be evaluated as rather high. However, the study has certain limitations since it has observed samples from written sources rather than conducted quantitative research in the focus groups of respondents. If I conducted a follow-up study, I would invite participant families who have the habit of reading picture books to their children to evaluate the situation first-hand and make conclusions regarding the general trends in such families. Another idea is to invite families where there is no practice to read picture books to infants to compare the degree of vocabulary development in this population category with the advancements made by the children who listen to their parents’ reading books.
Works Cited
Montag, Jessica L., Michael N. Jones, and Linda B. Smith. “The Words Children Hear Picture Books and the Statistics for Language Learning.” Psychological Science 26.9 (2015): 1489-1496. Print.