Teacher and Emergent Bilingual Student Read-Aloud Mediations

Abstract

We explored (a) emergent bilingual students’ talk-turns during read-alouds, (b) how earlier talk-turns were related to later talk-turns, and (c) how talk-turns varied across more versus less culturally relevant books. One teacher and her four students’ read-alouds across two sessions each were video-recorded and transcribed. Emergent coding was used to identify talk-turn codes. Codes were categorized using Zone Theory constructs (Zone of Free Movement, Zone of Promoted Action, Zone of Proximal Development, Zone of Actual Development). Statistical discourse analysis showed that several Zone of Free Movement mediations (book/lesson/off-task) predicted comprehension talk-turns (developed connections/comparisons/contrasts). Zone of Promoted Action mediations predicted subsequent talk-turns: (a) reiteration/modeling were related to children expressing developed factual knowledge, (b) clarification/extension were related to children expressing developed opinions, (c) clarification/agreement were related to children expressing developed inferences, and (d) 11 talk-turns supported children expressing vocabulary knowledge.