Native American Caregiver-Child Shared Book Reading Interactions: A Descriptive Study and Integrative Review

Abstract

Purpose: This study included two parts: a descriptive study followed by an integrative review. The purpose of the study was to converge finding from the descriptive study and summarize relevant findings from existent literature to identify potential culturally responsive early language and literacy intervention strategies for Native American caregivers and their children.

Method: This study included a nonexperimental descriptive design and integrative review. The descriptive study analyzed the language behaviors and shared book interactions of Native American caregivers with their young children (N = 21) and included results from a caregiver teaching questionnaire. The integrative review evaluated relevant literature and identified strategies that were described in these sources. These findings were combined with the descriptive study findings to identify promising culturally consistent language and literacy strategies.

Results: Caregivers' shared book behaviors were associated with caregivers' vocabulary usage and children's shared book behaviors. Caregivers reported a number of language and teaching strategies they frequently employed; this information was integrated with other sources to identify promising approaches. A total of 20 potential strategies were identified.

Conclusions: The purpose of this study was to describe potential early language and literacy strategies for Native American families. It would be impossible to develop early language interventions to meet the needs of all Native American families and children; thus, this study is a preliminary step in identifying strategies that may be culturally responsive for some families. The integrative review supported the use of shared book reading with young Native American children. Promising language and early literacy strategies included play-based strategies, teaching new words, questioning strategies, using descriptive language, and other language and interaction enhancements. The effectiveness of these strategies should be further evaluated in future research or treatment studies.