Examining the effects of gender and genre on interactions in shared book reading

Abstract

Abstract The purpose of this study was to investigate whether fathers and mothers read differently to their four‐year‐old sons and daughters and to examine the effect of genre on the interactions that occurred in parent‐child, shared book reading. Twenty‐five dyads shared two narrative texts and two non‐narrative texts. Results indicated that overall, fathers were more interactive than mothers. Fathers and mothers also differed in terms of the types of interactions and there was some gender/genre interaction effect. As well, parents engaged in more interactions in non‐narrative texts than in narrative texts. The child's gender also affected the number and types of interactions. Implications for practice, theory and future research are proposed.