ABSTRACT
Which skills appear to provide preschoolers with important foundations for their later development of print literacy? How important is sharing books with preliterate children to their development of those skills? After nearly three decades of research, including a fair amount of controversy regarding the relative importance of book sharing to later literacy (Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995; Dunning, Mason, & Stewart, 1994; Lonigan, 1994; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994), research has made it increasingly clear that many of the different skills fostered during book sharing facilitate the later development of print literacy. Nonetheless, a number of conceptual and methodological problems have not been addressed to date. The goal of this chapter is to discuss persistent problems in this body of research, and to point to potential solutions for future research.
