Interactive parent–child reading in a dialect: Its effects on children's language abilities and language transfer

Abstract Background Dialogic reading (DR) is an interactive book reading method in which parents use scaffolded questions and responses by reading picture books to their children to foster their language ability development, enhance their reading interest and reduce their reading anxiety. However, little is known about the effects of parent–child reading and interaction in a dialect on children's language skills and language transfer across dialects. Methods This study investigated the effects of interactive parent–child reading in Hakka, a Chinese dialect, on Hakka and Mandarin language abilities in Chinese children. This study recruited 99 Chinese typically developing kindergarteners and their parents who had Hakka as their mother tongue and spoke Mandarin. They were randomly assigned to either the intervention or the control conditions. Parents in the intervention group were trained and supported to engage in dialogic reading with their children. All children were tested on receptive vocabulary, expressive vocabulary, character reading, listening comprehension and reading anxiety in Mandarin and Hakka before and after the intervention. Results After a 12‐week parent–child reading intervention, the children in the intervention group showed better Hakka and Mandarin language abilities than the control group, thereby suggesting language transfer of skills across dialects. Also, the intervention group had lower reading anxiety than the control group. Conclusions The results of this study have extended the positive effects of dialogic reading to reading in Hakka and support the bilingual interactive activation model by showing the language transfer from the vernacular language to the official language in Chinese. The findings highlight the importance of engaging children in literacy activities using their mother tongue in promoting the development of skills in different languages that they are learning.