The Missouri Reader Vol. 37, Issue 1 | Page 39
confidence in using the strategy, and improves the
likelihood that strategies being taught at school will be
carried over to the home.
Session 2 should be held about a month later
when parents have had the opportunity to practice
and become familiar with the CAR strategy, but not
so long that they loose interest in the process. Session
2 should be used to review the CAR strategy and
check in with parents to provide an opportunity for
them to share successes, questions, and / or concerns.
After this initial review, the 1, 2, 3 Tell Me What
You See strategy (Table 3) can be introduced. Again,
after a brief introduction, the strategy should be
modeled with parents, and parents should be
provided with time to practice with their children.
It is important to help parents understand that
they can use dialogic reading strategies with any book
regardless of their home language or literacy skills.
Appendix 1 provides a list of English and Spanish
books the authors recommend for dialogic reading.
However, this list is just to get parents started. The
only thing parents need to look for are children‘s
books that have detailed and varied illustrations
including a simple and interesting story line for their
children. Appendix 2 provides additional strategies
about how to increase children‘s vocabulary using
dialogic reading that could be introduced at a third
family night or provided to parents as a handout as a
follow-up to the second family night.
Conclusion
Dialogic reading is a research-based program that
helps parents expand their children‘s language and
emergent literacy skills by sharing a book together.
Research has shown that exposure to dialogic reading
opportunities for young children results in significant
gains in expressive language, sound and letter
identification, emergent writing skills, and knowledge
of print concepts. Huebner and Payne (2010) found
that two years after receiving brief dialogic reading
training, parents who received training used 90%
more dialogic reading behaviors than parents who had
not received training. This leads to the encouraging
conclusion that parents‘ literacy interactions with
their children can be positively influenced with
limited dialogic reading training. The PARTNERS
Program is a quick and easy research-based program
that can be used to help parents and caregivers of
young children increase their children‘s vocabulary
and verbal interactions.
Appendix 1: Sample English and Spanish Books Recommended for Dialogic Reading
English Books
Bilingual and Spanish Books
10 Minutes till Bedtime, by Peggy Rathmann
Bravo, by Ginger Foglesong Guy
Big Red Barn, by Margaret Wise Brown
Fiesta, by Ginger Foglesong Guy
Good-bye, Hello!, by Shen Roddie
Hello Night / HolaNoche, by Amy Costales
Good Night Gorilla, by Peggy Rathmann
I'm Just Like My Mom; I'm Just Like My Dad / Me
Parezco Tanto a Mi Mama; Me Parez, by Jorge Ramos
In Grandma‘s Arms, by Jayne C. Shelton
Is Your Mama a Llama?, by Deborah Guarino
My Way / A Mi Manera, by Lynn Reiser
Llama Llama Red Pajama, by Anna Dewdney
Nuestro Autobus / The Bus for Us, by Suzanne Bloom
Max Cleans Up, by Rosemary Wells
Perros! Perros! / Dogs! Dogs!, by Ginger Foglesong
Guy
Old MacDonald Had a Farm, by Jane Cabrera
©The Missouri Reader, 37 (1) p.39