A literacy intervention for preschool children in Bangladesh: the …ecd-bangladesh.net/document/research/ECDRC_Research... · 2015-03-18 · A literacy intervention for preschool

A literacy intervention for preschool children inBangladesh:

the benefits of dialogic reading

Aftab Opel, Syeda Saadia Ameer, Frances Aboud

ECD Research Report 1

Early Childhood Development Resource CentreBRAC University Institute of Educational Development

B U-I E D

Foreword

We are very pleased to publish the first issue of the research report series onearly childhood development. This report on early literacy development isbased on experiment conducted at BU-IED in 2006.

With the overall aim of contributing to early childhood development inBangladesh, BU-IED has taken initiatives to conduct studies and experiment inorder to adopt relevant standard child development methods and approachesto the rural and urban contexts of Bangladesh. This report describes the first ofsuch initiatives which is aimed to improve the vocabulary of young children inpreschools. The positive results of this intervention have encouraged us toplan a trial on a larger scale for incorporating the methodology in the regularcurricula of the preschool programme.

Different studies show that children from poor families lack readiness forprimary school. For a variety of reasons, they lag behind their more privilegedcounterparts on vocabulary and literacy skills. This is partly due to less timegiven to reading storybooks to children or letting them hear new stories in thepreschool years. This is particularly a problem in Bangladesh where books arenot available in rural areas and many parents are not literate themselves.Preschool programmes being implemented by different organizations attemptto address this gap. However, available studies show that the results are notvery impressive. In this context, the experiment with the 'dialogic reading'approach in five randomly selected preschools was undertaken. Statisticallysignificant increase in children's expressive vocabulary was observed, as thestudy report shows.

I congratulate the research team for its hard work and thank those, includingSave the Children (USA) and Village Education Resource Centre (VERC), whohave given total cooperation and support to the research team.

Manzoor AhmedDirectorInstitute of Educational DevelopmentBRAC University

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to examine the efficacy of a 4-week dialogicreading intervention with rural Bangladeshi preschoolers with the intentionof increasing their expressive vocabulary. Eighty preschoolers randomlyselected from five preschools participated in the program during four weeksin the summer of 2006. Their expressive vocabulary was tested on 170challenging words before and after the program and compared with that ofcontrol children who participated in the regular language program. Bothgroups were read eight children's story books with illustrations, but thedialogic reading teacher was given a set of "wh" and definitional questions toenhance children's verbal participation during reading. Results confirmedthat the mean vocabulary scores of dialogic program children increased from26% to 54% whereas the control children remained at the same level. Inconclusion, the dialogic reading program which can be tailored to suit theskills of paraprofessional teachers allows children to quickly improve theirvocabulary with the help of challenging stories.

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to acknowledge the support provided by variousindividuals and organizations. Save the Children (USA) and VillageEducation Resource Centre (VERC) allowed the research team to implementthe intervention on their preschools. Dr. Manzoor Ahmed, Professor NazmulHaque, Dr. Fahmida Tofail and Dr. Cassie Landers reviewed and providedimportant comments on the research protocol. Dr. Sudhir Chandra Sarkerprovided the administrative support to implement the program. MahmudaAkhter provided administrative and professional support. Shashoti DweanShorna, Nasrin Akhter Rony, Syeda Tashmia Sultana, Khodeja Akhter Munni,Afroja Sultana Jhuma, Washima Parveen Lopa, Farah Deeba, ShamsunnaharChonda and Nusrat Sharmin collected the data. Dilshana Parul entered thedata and Faizun Nessa helped supervise the research assistants and theprogram. Kamal Uddin sketched all the pictures. Finally, we are grateful tothe teachers, students of the preschools and their mothers for theirparticipation in the project.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1Method 3Design and sample size estimation 3Preschool setting 3Participants 4Measures 4Testing procedure 5Preschool Intervention 5

Results 7Characteristics of the sample 7Vocabulary 8Discussion and implications 9Appendix 1: 11Appendix 2: 11References 12

children's vocabulary are being evaluated(e.g. Senechal, 2006; Snow, 2006). Oneeasily implemented strategy includesstory book reading which can provideopportunities for age-appropriate andresponsive language. The current studyevaluated a 4-week intervention in ruralBangladeshi preschools to improvechildren's vocabulary using dialogic orshared reading, before implementing iton a larger scale.

In Bangladesh, preschools are stillrelatively new and their quality is thesubject of extensive study. A recentsurvey in Bangladesh shows that a totalof 147 organizations, most of which arenon-governmental, have preschoolprograms attended by about 790,000children (ECDRC, 2006). They areexpanding rapidly and consideredessential in order to prepare children forprimary school, reduce the drop-out rate,and increase the number of children

Introduction

It is well-recognized that children fromfamilies who are poor and withoutformal education may not possessreadiness skills for primary school(Aboud, 2006; Britto & Kohen, 2005). Fora variety of reasons, children from lowersocioeconomic communities lag behindtheir counterparts on vocabulary andliteracy skills (Evans, 2004). This is partlydue to less responsive and sophisticatedadult communication and less time beingread storybooks or hearing new stories inthe preschool years. This is particularlyproblematic in countries such asBangladesh where books are notavailable in rural areas and many parentsare not literate themselves (Aboud, inpress). Under these conditions, preschoolteachers must provide the languagestimulation necessary to developchildren's pre-literacy skills. Because ofits importance for future readingcompetence, strategies to improve

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Early Childhood Development Resource Centre

reading skill associated with later readingcompetence (Storch & Whitehurst, 2002).Oral vocabulary, both receptive andexpressive, is positively associated withreading competence at least throughgrade 4 and probably beyond (Storch &Whitehurst, 2002). Vocabulary developsrapidly in the preschool years but there iswide individual variation: mothers'reports reveal that 10-month-old childrenmay comprehend anywhere from 11 to154 words, and by the age of 6 it mayincrease to 14,000 (Hoff, 2006). Systematicintervention in the pre-primary years istherefore important to increasevocabulary in order to facilitate readingin primary school.

Among the interventions aimed atimproving vocabulary, the one mostsuited to rural Bangladesh involvesdialogic storybook reading in thepreschool context. Parents are unlikely tohave books at home or to talk withchildren about pictures in a way thatextends vocabulary (Aboud, in press).However, most preschool teachers haveone 60-minute language period everymorning with time for reading stories.Dialogic reading is a form of sharedstorybook reading in which the adultreader engages the child(ren) in a verbaldialogue about the story (e.g. Lonigan &Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst, et al. 1994).Children are actively engaged inexpressive language when the teacherasks open-ended "wh" questions andpursues the child's answer with a furtherextension or question. The procedurewas successfully used in a 4-weekprogram by Hargrave and Senechal(2000) to improve the vocabularies ofchildren 3 - 5 years who had lowervocabularies than expected for their age.As in the Whitehurst studies, the teacherwas trained with the help of a video andpersonal practice to ask "wh" questions,to follow the child's answers with

passing fifth grade competencies. Priorevaluations indicated that in somerespects their quality was moderate -- 3.5out of 7 on the Early ChildhoodEnvironment Rating Scale (ECERS,Aboud, 2006). After implementing anumber of recommendations, 10 pilotpreschools reached an average ofbetween 4 and 5 on the two importantsubscales of Activities and ProgramStructure (Moore, Akhter, & Aboud,2005). This was accomplished within ayear at minimal extra cost. Newmaterials and activities included 50storybooks instead of only 10, moreconstructive play materials such as blocksand puzzles, and teacher training inresponsive talk.

Benefits were passed on to the childrenwho attended the pilot preschools incomparison to those who attended theregular program, matched for ECERSscore the year before. In particular, pilotchildren showed greater improvements inBlock Design and Matrices, bothmeasuring visual analytic reasoning thatwould later support math skills (Moore etal.,2005).However,children's vocabulariesdid not increase much from the beginningto the end of the year. Action researchconducted during the 7-monthimplementation of the pilot programindicated some limitations in the use ofstory books which could potentiallyincrease children's vocabularies. Inparticular, the paraprofessional teacherswere unable to talk about the events orcharacters in a way that went beyond thetext. Their questions required either ayes/no response or the repetition of aphrase from the story.

A number of new language activitieshave been successfully tried elsewherewith children from 2 to 7 years of age toimprove their vocabulary. The rationaleis that vocabulary is an important pre-

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in each school. Scientific and ethicalapproval of the protocol was provided bya review committee of academics andresearchers in this field convened byBRAC University's Institute ofEducational Development.

Preschool setting

Children were selected from 10preschools in the rural sub-district ofKaligong in Bangladesh. Out of 41preschools run by Village EducationResource Centre (VERC), five wererandomly selected to be interventionschools and five to be controls. Theorganization had been operating earlychildhood programs since 1988 andrecently began using the program andmaterials provided by Save the Children,US. Thus, all their current learningmaterials, operating costs, and teachertraining were provided by Save theChildren. In the usual program, teachershad a daily language time of 45 - 60minutes during which to read one of theprovided stories and talk with thechildren about the characters and events.They also used some of the time to havechildren present their "morning news",recite rhymes and learn the alphabet.

The education attainment of thepreschool teachers, who usually camefrom the village, ranged from Grade 10 toGrade 12. They received one week oftraining in early childhood education atthe beginning of the school year and oneday each month on how to implement thelesson plans for that month. Most hadless than one year's experience inpreschool teaching. Teachers received800 taka or about US$12 per month as anhonorarium provided by theorganization. The dialogic readingprogram was implemented in the sixthmonth of the school year.

questions, repeat the child's answers,praise and encourage the child, and havefun. Unlike the Whitehurst studies,Hargrave and Senechal read to largerpreschool groups of 8 and comparedthem with groups of preschoolers read toin the usual manner. The parents ofchildren in each group were also asked toread provided books five times weekly inthe same manner as the teacher (thoughthis was not always done). The dialogicreading group received higher scores onthe expressive vocabulary test especiallyone that tested vocabulary from the 10books. Expressive vocabulary wasmeasured by picture naming becausemany of the children were quite young.Still the scores were low and the effectsize was small.

The goal of the present study was toexamine improvements in expressivevocabulary of preschool children (5-6years) who participated in a teacher-implemented dialogic reading programusing eight books over 4 weeks. Thecontrol group of children attendedpreschools of the same organization andwere read the same books daily in theirusual manner. Because these childrenwere older than the Hargrave andSenechal students, they were required toprovide definitions of the tested wordswhich came from the storybooks. Weexpected the intervention group to showgreater gains than the control children.

MethodDesign and sample size estimation

The design was a pre-post assessment ofan intervention and control group. Usingan alpha of .05 and power of .80, thesample size was 80 per group to find adifference of .5 SD. Therefore there were5 preschools per group with 16 children

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created of words that fit two criteria: theyshould be known to grade 1 or 2 childrenbut unknown to preschoolers, and theyshould be used in the story books. A listof difficult words was first selected fromthe grade 1 and 2 readers and used to testthe expressive vocabulary of first andsecond graders. Words largely unknownto them were excluded from the test. Thisnew list was then administered tochildren of several preschools; wordsknown to most of them were excluded.The final list of 170 words constituted thevocabulary test. Using instructions fromexpressive vocabulary tests, researchassistants blind to the child's groupasked, What is ___? After a partialanswer, children were probed for more.Answers were scored 0, 1, or 2 accordingto the number of defining features orfunctions given. Two of the researcherscoded and scored the answers, and athird checked 20% of each group; nochanges were required.

Participants

Sixteen students from each of the 5intervention and 5 control preschoolswere randomly selected, from class listsof 20 - 25 children, to participate in thisstudy. Consent was obtained from theirparents to assess children's vocabularyand to interview mothers for informationon the child's age, her education andfamily assets. The other childrenattended classes as usual but were notinterviewed. Of the 80 children enrolledfor each group, 75 from the interventiongroup and 78 from the control groupwere present to take the posttest.Consequently data from 153 childrenwere analyzed.

Measures

The goal was to assess the acquisition ofnew expressive vocabulary learnedthrough story reading. In the absence ofany list of age-specific words for theseBengali-speaking children, a list was

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Development were used because theywere unfamiliar to the children. Thebooks were selected on the basis of thefollowing criteria: each book contained asufficient number of new words thatwere appropriate for 5-year-olds butunknown to most, story plot wasinteresting and the illustrations wereattractive to preschoolers and helpful forteachers explaining the story. Bookswere 11-14 pages in length and hadquarter a page of text with full pageillustrations in the background. Theywere created for Bangladeshipreschoolers and similar to age-appropriate story books currently usedby these preschools. The stories in thebooks were modified slightly to includewords from our list of 170 words.Altogether, the 8 books contained all the170 words on the vocabulary test. Bothintervention and control preschoolsreceived and used the same 8 books overthe 4-week period. However, only theintervention teachers were provided withand trained to use the sample open-ended questions to be described; only the

Testing procedure

A group of 10 female research assistants,with university degrees in differentdisciplines, conducted the pre- and post-tests as well as mother interviews. Fourassistants had prior extensive experienceassessing preschool children usingmeasures such as the WPPSI vocabularytest. For this study all received a half-daytraining before the pretest and againbefore the posttest on how to interactwith the children, how to ask fordefinitions, and how to record theresponses. Children were pretestedduring the few weeks before the readingintervention and posttested one-weekafter its completion, that is 6 - 7 weeksafter the pretest.

Preschool InterventionBooks and materials. The interventionstarted in mid-July 2006 and continuedfor 4 weeks. Eight fiction story books forpreschoolers recently created andpublished by the Early ChildhoodDevelopment Resources Center at theBRAC University Institute of Educational

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Teacher training and Supervision. Five-daytraining was provided to the 5 dialogicreading teachers as well as 5 programorganizers who supervised thepreschools. Because the teachers wereparaprofessionals, they were providedwith the sample questions and answersas well as intensive training on how toconduct the reading, formulate questions,use the illustrations of the book toelaborate the story, use the picture cards,give real life examples so that childrenunderstood better, and engage childrenin responsive talk. However, as trainingprogressed, teachers became confidentabout creating their own questions andnot relying on the sample questions-and-answers provided to them. This was alsoobserved during the actual classroomreading.

Training started by watching two videos:one showing a teacher reading a storybook to children in a traditional mannerand another in a dialogic manner. Afterwatching the first video, the teachersidentified many problems with herreading. After the second video, teachersnoticed the differences in both thereading and the children's responses.Then teachers watched a livedemonstration of how to read a storybook in a dialogic manner, use theillustrations and the picture cards,formulate questions and relate an answerto a real life example. Each of the teacherswas then asked to read a book in adialogic manner. The other participantsplayed the role of children. Problemswere corrected through discussion. Thispractice continued for 3 days to alloweach teacher to read each of the 8 booksindividually. Then they were taken to anearby preschool to practice withchildren. This experience helped a greatdeal.

Supervision was also provided to theteachers during the 4-week intervention.Each school was visited almost everyday

intervention schools received picturecards of the new words (see descriptionbelow).

Sample "wh" questions for each of thebooks were prepared to guide theteachers' dialogue when reading thestories in a dialogic manner. This wasconsidered necessary given the teachers'lack of extensive education in earlychildhood education and their inability inprevious programs to ask thought-provoking questions. Some questionsasked about the meaning of new words(e.g., What is a boat? What does a boatdo? Has anyone ridden in a boat?), andsome about the causes and consequencesof events (e.g., What happened whenKutus fell from the boat? How was herescued?). We provided about 10 samplequestions for each book but in practiceteachers added their own questionsparticularly for the vocabulary words.

Because some of the new words insertedin the books were not available in theillustrations, picture cards were preparedto illustrate most of the new words. Theywere used by the teachers to discusscertain words and were available duringplay time for children to handle anddiscuss with peers.

Dialogic story reading procedure. Bothdialogic and regular reading took placewith the whole class of 20 to 25 children.The initial plan was that the teacher wouldread each of the books over the course of 3days: reading the complete story on thefirst day, and again on the third day, withdiscussion on the second day. However, ina pilot run, children refused to listen to therepeated story, saying they already knewthe story and they wanted another. So thestory was read in thirds with open-endedquestions asked about the parts just read.This way, one book was covered in threedays with 30 - 40 minutes per day, and twobooks in a 6-day week.

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Variable

Child's age (months)Mother education (year)11 Household assets

Intervention

64.73 (8.34)4.49 (4.03)7.31 (2.37)

Control

66.15 (10.81)4.55 (4.10)7.13 (2.42)

t

.91

.09

.46

p-value

nsnsns

to ensure that classes were held regularlyand instructions followed. In thebeginning of the program, most of theteachers had problems ensuring childparticipation because this was unfamiliarto the children. However, they overcamethe problem in a few days.

Control story reading procedure. Teachers ofcontrol schools were given the same 8books. However, they read them in theusual manner. As usual, they receivedmonthly training in story reading as wellas the other activities to take place thatmonth. They were requested to spend 40minutes a day on story book reading, buttheir procedure usually took only 10-20minutes instead. They read each bookonly once, asking either yes-no questions

or a question that required children torepeat a phrase from the text. They usedthe book illustrations and local words tohelp explain the story. The sameprocedure was followed when the bookwas read a second time during thatmonth. The control schools were also

visited regularly to observe the wayteachers were reading the stories.

ResultsCharacteristics of the sampleAmong the intervention children, 34.7%were boys and 65.3% girls. Among thecontrol group this proportion was 51.3%boys and 48.7% girls. As seen in Table 1,ages of the children did not differ in the


Table 1Mean (S.D) and t-values comparing intervention and control preschool students.

0

50

100

150

200

MeanVocabularyScores

Control Intervention

Figure 1. Vocabulary Scores of Control and Interve ntion Children

PrePost

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Table 2Mother education

Control27 (34.6%)22 (28.2%)26 (33.3%)3 (3.9%)78 (100.0%)

Intervention25 (33.3%)22 (29.3%)25 (33.3%)3 (4.0%)75 (100.0%)

Mother education

No educationPrimarySecondaryHigher SecondaryTotal

Type of School Total

52 (34.0%)44 (28.8%)51 (33.3%)6 (3.9%)153 (100.0%)

scores were subjected to an analysis ofcovariance, covarying first the pretestscore, the child's age, mother's educationand assets. Only the pretest covariate wassignificant, as expected. The posttestscore yielded a significant effect forgroup, F(1, 152) = 220.87, p < .0001,partial η2 = .60. The control students hadan adjusted posttest mean of 80.00(SError = 4.64) and the interventionstudents an adjusted mean of 180.12(SError = 4.74), and an effect size d = 2.0.

The improvement as a result of thereading intervention was impressive.

Observations conducted at the dialogicschools indicated that within a week,teachers and children becameaccustomed to the participatoryprocedure. Teachers required practiceand experience in order to generate open-

two groups; at pretest they were 5.39years and 5.51 years respectively in theintervention and control groups. Neithermothers' education not family assets interms of 11 household items differedbetween groups. Land use and homeownership also did not differ.Table 2 shows that one-third of themothers had never gone to school. Alittle more than a quarter had primaryeducation, while about one third of themothers had secondary education.

VocabularyThe vocabulary test had 170 items thatwere scored from 0 to 2. The alphacoefficient on pretest scores was .96 andon posttest scores .99. Consequently eachchild's score was the sum of points acrossall 170 items. Pretest and posttest scoresare presented in Figure 1. The posttest


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preschools. Given the preschool teachers'paraprofessional status with mosttraining acquired in a short period oftime before the program, they werepreviously unable to adopt a moreresponsive and inferential question-and-answer repertoire. The training fordialogic reading was adapted to theseconditions by providing examples ofquestions on the back of books, a trainingvideo and coached practice. A similartraining procedure was found to be mosteffective with high-school educatedmothers of young American children(Huebner & Meltzoff, 2005). Withtraining and experience, the teachersbecame considerably more confident increating their own questions and elicitingchildren's expressive participation. Itshould be feasible to extend the programfor a full year with the help ofchallenging story books and enrichingvocabulary.

Previous studies have found that childrenwho participate in dialogic readingactivities show improvements invocabulary (e.g., Hargrave & Senechal,2000; Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998).Improvements are greater with childrenwhose vocabularies are below the normfor their age, and when parentssupplemented preschool reading withhome reading. The current studysupports previous research in showingthe short-term benefits of dialogicreading on expressive vocabularyacquisition. Unlike previous research, thedialogic reading was conducted with agroup of 20-25 children. So not allchildren were engaged in the dialogue atany one time. However, it appeared tobe sufficient to result in a significantimprovement in vocabulary. The regulargroup seems to have acquired very littlenew expressive vocabulary. Althoughthey spent less time on the story, they didspend the remaining time in spontaneousconversation (called "morning news"),repeating rhymes, and learning the

ended questions, engage the children,and respond to children's answers in aresponsive manner. Children alsorequired encouragement at first becausethey had been used to only repeating theteacher's phrases. Children in bothprograms paid full attention, but those inthe dialogic reading program were moreactively attentive. They answeredindividually and their answers weretherefore unique. Most eventuallyoffered answers and elaboratedextensively on their answers; howevereven the few who remained shy werealert. Teachers encouraged them toelaborate with experiences from theirown life, and they did. Control teachers,in contrast, asked questions in apredictable way, usually requiring thatchildren repeat the last phrase or simplyanswer "Yes". Typically all the childrenwould reply loudly in unison. Theircomprehension was thereby not tested.Children did not frequently ask theteacher for clarification so the teachershowed little responsiveness.

Discussion and implicationsThe hypothesis was that dialogic readingin this brief intervention would result inincreases in children's expressivevocabulary. This was strongly confirmedwith a large effect size. Children in theintervention group rose from a mean of26% to 54%, whereas control children didnot improve. Scores were intentionallylow at the pretest in order to assess theacquisition of new vocabulary. We useda measure of expressive vocabulary asthe children were of an age where bothexpression and comprehension wereimportant. It might be expected thatchildren's vocabularies would continue toimprove with a full year program andthat their reading skills would benefit inthe future.

The intervention was also intentionallybrief in order to examine the efficacy ofthis new technique in Bangladeshi


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significantly with benefits to the childrenif minimal but systematic efforts weremade to materials, training, andsupervision. In Bangladesh, theimportance of ECD programs has beenacknowledged by the government and bynon-government organizations. As aresult, more resources have beenchanneled and the program coverage hasalso been increasing every year.However, there is still a need to improvethe quality of the programs in terms ofliteracy, math and play. Dialogic readingof stories with challenging newvocabulary can become a regular featureof preschools in Bangladesh in order toraise language competencies.

alphabet. The style of story reading,however, did not clarify the meaning ofnew words for children, and they wereunable to derive meaning from the storyitself. Rather than explain new words tochildren, the regular teachers oftenavoided the new word in preference forusing a simpler phrase that they feltchildren would understand.Furthermore, their questions requiredpassive repetition of book phrases, and sogave children the impression thataccurate repetition rather thancomprehension mattered.

It is important to translate research topractice. This research proved that theongoing programs could be improved


Appendix 1:List of the books used in the research, produced by ECDRC, BU-IED

Akhter, M. (2006), Kossoper Golpo.Chakma, S., (2006) Ajob Juto.Faisal, M. K., (2006) Nouka Vromon.Hossain, I., (2006), Nijhum Bone Ganer Ashor.Islam, S., (2006), Doitter Deshe Onima.Khanam, M. (2006), Shopna O Mithur Sheyal Dekha.Rashed, M., (2006), Ripa O Picchi Vut.Shahabuddin, ABM. (2006), Khorgosher Jonmodin.

Appendix 2:Notes on Dialogic Reading

Dialogic reading is a form of shared storybook reading in which the adult readerengages the child(ren) in a verbal dialogue about a story. Children are activelyengaged in expressive language when the teacher asks open-ended "wh" questionsand pursues the child's answer with a further extension or question. After reading apiece of text, the teacher asks questions. Some questions may be about the meaning ofnew words, some may be about the causes and consequences of events.

Following is an example from the book, Kossoper Golpo (The story of a turtle):

Text (page 1)

"Tuni and Rupa lived near a spring. The spring water made a pool where manycolourful fish lived. Tuni and Rupa often went to the pool. They loved to watch thefish and throw stones to play with them."

Questions:

Where did Tuni and Rupa live?What is a spring?Has anyone ever seen a spring?What did Tuni and Rupa love?

Test (page 2)

"One day as they reached the pool, they saw something black under the water. Assoon as it floated up to the surface, they realized that it was a turtle. They were soexcited."

Questions:

What did Tuni and Rupa saw at the pool?How the turtle was look like?Why did they feel excited?

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References

Aboud, F. E. (2006). Evaluation of an early childhood preschool program in ruralBangladesh. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 21, 46-60.

Aboud F. E. (in press). Evaluation of an early childhood parenting program inBangladesh. Journal of Health, Population and Nutrition.

Britto, P.R. & Kohen, D. (2005). International perspectives on school readinessassessment. New York: Unicef.

ECDRC., (2006), Extent of early childhood development programs in Bangladesh: anactivities and resources map. BRAC University Institute of Educational Development,Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Evans, G.W. (2004). The environment of childhood poverty. American Psychologist,59, 77-92.

Hargrave A, C and Senechal M. (2000), A book reading intervention with preschoolchildren who have limited vocabularies: the benefits of regular reading and dialogicreading. Early Childhood Research Quarterly 15.

Hoff, E. (2006). Language experience and language milestones during earlychildhood. In McCartney, K. and Phillips, D (Eds.), Blackwell Handbook of EarlyChildhood Development. New York: Blackwell.

Huebner, C. E. & Meltzoff, A. N. (2005). Intervention to change parent-child readingstyle: a comparison of instructional methods. Applied Developmental Psychology,26, 296-313.

Lonigan C.J. & Whitehurst, G.J. (1998). Relative efficacy of parent and teacherinvolvement in a shrared-reading intervention for preschool children from low-income backgrounds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 13, 263-290.

Moore, A. C., Akhter, S., and Aboud, F. F., (2005), Evaluation of pilot preschoolprograms of Plan Bangladesh. Bangladesh Education Journal, 4, 32-39, Dhaka,Bangladesh.

Senechal, M. (2006). Testing the home literacy model: parent involvement inkindergarten is differentially related to Grade 4 reading comprehension, fluency,spelling, and reading for pleasure. Scientific Studies of Reading, 10, 59-87.

Snow, C. E., (2006), What counts as literacy in early childhood. In McCartney, K. andPhillips, D.(Eds.), Blackwell Handbook of Early Childhood Development, BlackwellPublishing.

Storch, S. A and Whitehurst G. J., (2002), Oral language and code-related precursorsto reading: evidence from a longitudinal structural model. Development Psychology,38, 934-947.

Whitehurst, G. J., Arnold, D. S., Epstein, J. N., Angell, A. L., Smith, M.,& Fischel, J.(1994). A picture book reading intervention in day care and home for children fromlow-income families. Developmental Psychology, 30, 679-689.

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