'What does an O say when there's no E at the end?' Parents' reading-related knowledge and feedback during child-to-parent reading

Background Although a large body of research has investigated teachers' reading-related knowledge and associated pedagogical practices, comparatively little is known about these factors in parents. Therefore, the present study examined the association between parental reading-related knowledge and feedback during child-to-parent reading. Methods Seventy parents completed a reading-related knowledge questionnaire (phonological segmentation, knowledge of written syllable patterns, identification of regular and irregular word spellings) while their 6 and 7-year-old children were administered the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test and the reading subtest of the Wide Range Achievement Test-Fourth Edition. Based on children's Wide Range Achievement Test-Fourth Edition reading performances, they were assigned one of five adapted passages from the Gray Oral Reading Test-Fifth Edition to read aloud to their parents; parents were asked to help as they normally would. Reading sessions were videotaped; the content was transcribed and coded for evidence of verbal and nonverbal parental feedback (evaluative feedback: praise and criticism; miscue feedback: graphophonemic, context cues, try again, terminal and ignoring miscues). Results Consistent with the teacher and parent literature, reading-related knowledge was positively associated with children's reading scores. Parents' reading-related knowledge additionally accounted for unique variance in praise and graphophonemic feedback during child-to-parent reading beyond the variance already explained by children's reading scores. Conclusions These findings suggest that even after accounting for children's reading abilities, reading-related knowledge contributes to a positive affective atmosphere for teaching key literacy skills to young readers. Implications are discussed in terms of enhancing parents' reading-related knowledge and associated practices in hopes of positively contributing to children's literacy outcomes.