Research has shown that parent-child shared reading interactions in the preschool period can enhance children's early language and literacy skills, and it is acknowledged that the way parents read with their children is particularly important. This thesis explores the shared reading behaviours of parents and young children in order to identify and develop reading behaviours, especially those that may promote language and literacy skills. Two studies are reported. First, a short, intensive, techniques-based reading intervention programme, called 'dialogic reading' designed to enhance children's language skills was carried out using an experimental design. Programme group parents were shown a number of 'dialogic' techniques to use when reading with their children. Interviews showed that parents were implementing the techniques and that they valued the programme. The early literacy skills of the programme group were significantly enhanced by the intervention although there were no effects on their language skills. The second study explored in some depth how parents and children read together, and whether behaviours that promoted language and literacy development could be identified. Eight mothers with three-year-old children from varying socioeconomic backgrounds were videotaped reading together. Two methods of analysis were employed: a holistic and a more systematic approach. There were substantial differences in the ways mothers and children read, although all mothers used a wide variety of reading behaviours. There was evidence that referring to abstract events and situations, or high-level demand language, promoted language and literacy development. All mothers used some dialogic behaviours, particularly when supporting their children's attempts to read to them. Study 2 also demonstrated that the type of books read affected interactions, with expository books generating the most interaction. Dyads ranked higher on a measure of education and occupation, the educational occupational ranking (EOR), tended to engage in the highest levels of participation, high-level demand language and the longest episodes. The findings show that the range of shared reading behaviours used by parents is far more extensive than those promoted by dialogic reading; indeed, dialogic reading largely overlooks important behaviours, such as high-level demand language.

Although the necessity for the young child to become a confident reader in the early years of schooling is indisputable, we are less in agreement about the ways in which teachers might best achieve that. Approaching reading as part of subject matter knowledge, and providing a hierarchy of the concepts, understandings and skills that children need to acquire in order to read successfully, may be one way of facilitating practitioners’ ‘reflection in action’. (Schön, 1987). With this in mind, the project reported here studied the beliefs held by various types of early years teachers/workers about the teaching of reading and the relationships between these beliefs and their teaching practices. Through the use of one hundred and sixty questionnaires, nine interviews and nine observations, this thesis discusses the following questions: Do early years teachers use a theoretical framework in their instructional approach to teaching reading? If so, is there a relationship between their theoretical orientations toward reading development and their pedagogical practices? This study suggests that offering subject-matter related training to early years practitioners, that for the scope of this study includes an understanding of the reading process, could lead them to make informed decisions about curriculum content. This in turn could enable them to offer a clear rationale behind what they consider as developmentally appropriate practice and what they actually do in the classroom.

Η εργασία αυτή έχει αντικείμενό της την δραστηριότητα της ανάγνωσης βιβλίων στην ολομέλεια της τάξης του νηπιαγωγείου. Χωρίζεται σε ένα θεωρητικό και ένα ερευνητικό κομμάτι. Στο θεωρητικό πλαίσιο, στόχος της είναι να αναλύσει τους λόγους που η ανάγνωση βιβλίων είναι σημαντική στο νηπιαγωγείο. Σε μια βιβλιογραφική αναζήτηση αναλύονται οι τομείς μάθησης που επηρεάζονται θετικά και σχολιάζεται η θέση που έχει δώσει στην ανάγνωση το ελληνικό αναλυτικό πρόγραμμα. Επίσης, γίνεται αναφορά στην αξία των βιβλίων πληροφορίας και τη θέση που έχουν στο νηπιαγωγείο και στο «δικαίωμα» που έχουν τα παιδιά όλων των κοινωνικών στρωμάτων στην επαφή με τα βιβλία και την ανάγνωσή τους. Με βάση όλο το παραπάνω θεωρητικό πλαίσιο, στη συνέχεια, γίνεται μια πρόταση ανάγνωσης βιβλίων αφηγηματικών και πληροφοριών, η οποία προσπαθεί να στοχεύσει στους άξονες μάθησης που επηρεάζονται, με δραστηριότητες πριν, κατά τη διάρκεια και μετά το τέλος της ανάγνωσης. Τέλος, πραγματοποιείται μια έρευνα για να διαπιστωθεί πώς γίνεται η ανάγνωση στο νηπιαγωγείο, με ανοιχτές συνεντεύξεις από νηπιαγωγούς. Στην ανάλυση της συμπεραίνεται ότι υπάρχει έλλειψη ενημέρωσης από τις νηπιαγωγούς, αλλά αναγνώριση της σημαντικότητας του ρόλου του βιβλίου και της ανάγνωσης στις νηπιακές ηλικίες. / In this study, we examined the practice of reading books aloud to children in a kindergarten classroom. The study is devided in two parts. First is the literature search, in which the goal is to analyse all the reasons that reading aloud to children is important. In that chapter, we have found that read-alouds helps children’s vocabulary, spoken word and general knowledge. Also there is an examination of the part that the practice of reading books has in the Greek curriculum. There is a report on the use of informational books and their part in the kindergarten and on the right for all children of any economy status to have access to books. In the next chaprter, we made an example of a way to read books to children with the best practices to do before, during and after, keeping in mind to target the areas that are helped from read-alouds: vocabulary, spoken word and general knowledge. In the last chapter, we examined how the Greek teachers in kindergartens read aloud books to children. The research had fifteen participants answer openended questions in interviews. We found that most of the teachers recognized the importance of reading aloud books but there was lack of knowledge about why it is actually so important.