Caregiver Oral Reading Prosody Is Associated With Preschoolers' Storybook Listening Comprehension

Shared reading is one of the most language-enriched contexts in children's home environments. A salient, understudied characteristic of shared reading is caregiver oral reading prosody. While caregiver prosody in conversational contexts is linked to children's understanding of spoken language, it remains unclear whether caregivers' oral reading prosody relates to preschoolers' storybook listening comprehension.

The present study examined caregiver oral reading prosody in relation to preschool-age children's listening comprehension of book text. Thirty-eight caregivers read a children's book to their child (ages: 4-5 years) without extratextual discussion. Children then answered cued recall questions about the story and were assessed on broader listening comprehension skills via standardized assessment. The caregivers' reading prosody, including intonation/pitch (fundamental frequency [f_o] mean, range, standard deviation) and timing (speech rate, appropriate and inappropriate pauses) features, were quantified from audio recordings of the interactions.

Findings revealed that caregiver f_o range and appropriate pause duration were both positively associated with children's cued recall accuracy scores. Furthermore, the prosody measures significantly predicted unique variance in children's cued recall accuracy when controlling for child age, broader listening comprehension skills, attention, and caregiver education.

Considering that listening comprehension is a well-established predictor of children's long-term academic success, this study carries implications for identifying factors that relate to children's comprehension of linguistic input prior to the start of formal schooling. Overall, results provide foundational insight about one specific, understudied caregiver reading technique that may help facilitate positive language outcomes for children.