COVIEWING PRESCHOOL TELEVISION IN THE US

Abstract

Past studies have shown that naturalistic parentchild coviewing of television provides a context for interactions that promote comprehension and more general language development. To determine whether onscreen text can facilitate such interactions, 58 parentchild dyads (with children aged 3 to 5 years) were observed while viewing a preschool video in which the narrative was accompanied by either: (1) an onscreen Mommy bar of subtitles including jokes and general parenting tips targeted at parents; (2) a parentdirected educationally enhanced bar that modeled the sorts of educationally valuable comments observed in past research (e.g. discussing characters' emotions, tying onscreen events to the child's own experience); or (3) no onscreen subtitles for parents. Results indicated that, during viewing, parents who watched the educationally enhanced version were significantly more likely to make comments involving inferences about characters' emotions, tying onscreen events to children's own experiences, and encouraging children to engage in viewer participation. Thus, onscreen prompts can successfully elicit the types of parentchild interactions that can contribute to story comprehension, language development, and literacy.