Starting young-what kinds of picture books facilitate young children's learning?

Exposing children to books at a young age has been promoted for some time now as a means of helping children learn to read. Most American parents believe that reading to their children is important for their development, and children's reading achievement has been linked with the quantity and quality of early interactions with books. When children are first exposed to books, the books we most often picture are those durable board books with few words and many pictures. Some of the first books children explore are alphabet and number books, as learning the alphabet is an important step before learning to read. But how do we know which books are going to help children learn the best? There are thousands of these beginner books: where do we begin to look, and what are the qualities to look for? Cynthia Chiong and Judy DeLoache explore some of the beneficial and disadvantageous aspects in children's books in their article, "Learning the ABCs: What kind of picture books facilitate young children's learning?"

In their article, Chiong and DeLoache explore the results of two studies they conducted dealing with manipulative books and standard books. Manipulative books are those that have pop ups, flaps, pull tabs, and other items to feel and explore, and standard books are the typically flat pages made for looking at rather than feeling. Prior studies by Ganea et al. and Simcock and DeLoache indicated that children who interacted with pictures books that contained realistic images or photographs were better able to associate the images with objects in the real world than children who interacted with picture books that used cartoons. Chiong and DeLoache wanted to observe if there were other aspects of books that affected young children's learning. 

The first study they conducted compared letter learning and recognition for children 30-36 months old using three different types of books: a standard book, a manipulative book, and a book that contained all the content and images of the manipulative book but without the manipulatives. As children were read to, students who were interacting with the manipulative book were encouraged to touch and explore the book whereas students interacting with the other two types were just read to and had the letters pointed to. When the children were tested in letter naming and recognition, the results were all about the same for letter naming-low, but letter recognition was much higher for children who did not interact with the manipulative book. The theory for this result is that the focus on the manipulative features detracts from the child's focus on the actual information presented (the letters), so even though the child's interest may be piqued using a manipulative book, their learning may be suppressed. On the other hand, during the testing, children who interacted with manipulative books were more social than those who listened to standard books, asking more questions and speaking more overall, so interactive books may have different benefits. 

The second study wanted to determine if manipulative books suppressed learning in general or if the way the manipulatives were used made a difference. In this study, two types of books were used: a manipulative book as described above and a manipulative book that attracted the children specifically to the letters in the form of sandpaper letters that children could touch and trace. After reading to the children and performing similar tests to those above, no differences in children's letter recognition was found. This indicates that using manipulatives to attract children's attention to the letters neither helps nor hinders their learning which could be beneficial for shy students (because manipulative books appeared to increase socialization) as well as tactile learners whose attraction to reading might be increased by the opportunity to touch letters as they read. 

While this study was performed with children between 2 and 3 years of age, kindergarten and first grade teachers receive students at various reading levels. Knowing the types of book interactions that young children have had and should have is important for their development. If parents are specifically trying to teach their children to read and recognize numbers, typical books or manipulative books that direct attention toward letters, numbers, and words specifically should probably be used more often. Typical manipulative books might be better used if parents are trying to spark interest in books in general or help their children increase their social interactions. The frequency of use should be determined by parents and teachers depending on the necessary goals for the child in question. These concepts can be applied when teaching young primary students when trying to select appropriate book choices. 

Source: Chiong, C., & DeLoache, J.S. (2012). Learning the ABCs: What kinds of picture books facilitate young children's learning? Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 13(2), 225-241.