Tender Shoots: A Randomized Controlled Trial of Two Shared-reading Approaches for Enhancing Parent-child Interactions and Children’s Oral Language and Literacy Skills

ABSTRACT Tender Shoots compared two book-reading and conversation approaches for parents and preschoolers to an activity-based control group. The Rich Reading and Reminiscing (RRR) condition taught parents to converse about the storyline; the Strengthening Sound Sensitivity (SSS) condition taught parents to converse about word sounds. A total of 69 families with preschool children (M = 50 months) were randomly assigned to one of the three conditions for a 6-week training period. At pretest and posttest, parent-child book-reading and reminiscing were observed and children’s story comprehension, letter recognition, and phonological awareness assessed. RRR increased parents’ and children’s meaning-focused talk during book-reading and elaborative talk during reminiscing; SSS increased parents’ and children’s sound- and print-focused talk during book-reading. Moderator analyses revealed significant benefits of SSS for older children’s letter recognition and phonological awareness skills. Tender Shoots is a promising tool for enhancing the quality of parent-child conversations and children’s early literacy skills.