Are the effects of exposure to ‘lexically rich’ book language moderated by language ability in children?

Written language is more diverse and sophisticated than spoken language; reading books aloud to children provides them with exposure to this more complex language before they can read themselves. This may be one reason why shared reading experience is linked to language and literacy outcomes in children (Hart & Risley, 1995). Children with lower language ability, however, exhibit deficits in one or more dimensions of language processing (Language and Reading Research Consortium, 2015). This present study investigates whether the benefits (if any) of focused exposure to lexically rich book language is moderated by language ability in children and whether these putative benefits improve as a function of number of exposures.