Association between teachers’ shared book reading strategies and children’s vocabulary development in rural China preschools

Shared book reading is among the most common activities in preschools and is a key teaching practice to improve children’s language and literacy skills. The purpose of this research is to investigate the association between teachers’ shared book reading strategies and preschoolers’ language skills in rural China. We coded shared book reading class videos of 10 village-level kindergarten classrooms and divided teachers’ strategies into two categories – textual and extratextual strategies. This study analyzed the correlation between teachers’ choice of shared book reading strategies and children’s language skills among 10 teachers and 94 children. We found that teachers’ use of textual strategies was a strong predictor of children’s language skills. Implications for teaching skills during shared book reading in rural China preschools are discussed.