Parental Styles in Reading Episodes with Young Children.

AN EXTENSIVE body of normative literature suggests that reading to young children enhances their language develop ment (Templin, 1957; MacKinnon, 1959; Durkin, 1972; Department of Education and Science?Bullock, 1975) and is related to reading success (Almy, 1958; Durkin, 1972, 1974). Educators have urged frequent oral reading to young children in the belief that "language is as much caught as it is taught" (Durkin, 1972). Several methodological texts on the teaching of reading urge parents to read to young children because books and stories provide children with "models of book language"-an extremely important concept for young children (Durkin, 1972). Few educators will disagree with the need for reading to young children, but even fewer educational researchers have investigated the most efficacious ways in which this reading should be done. Sir Allan Bullock's report, A Language for Life (1975) addresses the how of reading to young children by stressing the importance of the emotional implications of the child's first contacts with books. The report advised: "The best way to prepare the very young child for reading is to hold him on your lap and read aloud to him stories he likes?over and over again." One of the few empirical studies on the effects of style of reading to young children upon the child's cognitive growth was reported by Swift (1970). His parent training program, a component of the Get Set Program in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, enabled mothers of preschool age children to lengthen thoughts, elaborate upon ideas, and