From BookStart to BookSmart: about the importance of an early start with parent-child reading

Abstract

BookStart has been developed to enhance parent-child verbal

interactions in early childhood by promoting book sharing. Parents

receive a voucher for a baby book and free access to baby books in the

library. In a large-scale research, we found that if parents complied with the BookStart suggestion to start in the first year with book sharing, their children’s language scores in the second year were higher than those of a similar group of children not exposed to BookStart. In addition we found that book reading was a better predictor of language skills at 22 months than at 15 months, which may indicate a snowball effect. A reactive temperament proved a risk factor for language development, due to low verbal stimulation from parents in the first years, but an asset when parents increased verbal parent–child interaction under influence of BookStart. Lastly, we found that parents from children with a difficult temperament participated more frequently in BookStart, possibly because they felt that the quality of verbal interaction in their family needed improvement. Parents with a low educational background appeared to be less attracted to BookStart, probably because they do not realize the importance of early book sharing for child language development.