ABSTRACT
Sharing books with very young children is associated with enhanced progress in literacy when those children reach school age. Central to the process is language, and the role of books in developing a child’s linguistic knowledge. The intention in this chapter is therefore to evaluate the linguistic component of picturebook reading and particularly to examine the contribution of such reading to these children’s understanding of word meaning. The lexemes of adult speech are considered both as isolated units and as interrelated within an organised system, governed by a set of specifiable relationships which together form part of the semantic structure of English. Word meaning, I shall suggest, arises from the network of meaning relations which a given lexeme contracts with other forms in the language.
