Home  Bonding With Baby Program
The Bonding with Baby Program Description
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Learning to read and write is essential for school success. Children who read early and well read a lot more than children who are slow to learn to read, or who are having reading difficulties. As a result, successful readers become smarter, not just about how to read, but also about all those things that can be learned from books. In contrast, children who lag behind in reading receive less practice in reading than other children, miss out on opportunities to develop strategies for understanding what they read, often encounter reading material that is too hard, and may come to dislike reading and school assignments that require reading.
Several studies point to a relationship between shared book reading and the emotional development of young children. For instance, Bus & vanIjzendoorn (1997) found that infant-mother responding during shared book reading was affected by the attachment status of infants, with mothers of less securely attached infants engaging in more discipline during shared reading than mothers of infants who were securely attached. In a study with older preschoolers, Bus & vanIjzendoorn (1995) found that less securely attached mother-child pairs engaged in less shared book reading than securely attached mother-child pairs.
Interestingly, age at which shared reading begins has consistently been shown to be a strong predictor of individual differences in young children's language abilities. For instance, Payne, Whitehurst, & Angell (1994) found a significant correlation between reported age of onset of shared reading and language scores at four years of age. Moreover, the age at which parents started to read to their child is associated with their child's interest in and enjoyment of reading activities. In turn, a child's interest in reading activities is an important predictor of his or her later reading achievement.
The goals of the Bonding with Baby program are twofold. First, this program aims to introduce book sharing between parents and their infants at an earlier age than it might otherwise occur, consistent with the research that shows that age of onset of shared reading is important. A second goal of this program is to have parents and their infants experience interactions around books as pleasurable, consistent with the research that shows that a strong, positive bond between mother and infant leads not only to positive experiences around books, but also to a higher frequency of such interactions. Thus, by increasing the degree to which mothers and infants experience book sharing as pleasurable, the Bonding with Baby program also aims to increase the frequency and regularity with which book sharing occurs. Furthermore, when the affective experience of book sharing is positive, mothers are more inclined to initiate interactions around pictures, and infants are more likely to remain interested and to respond to their mothers. Thus, a positive social-emotional climate can also lead to more optimal learning experiences during book sharing.
The Bonding with Baby program consists of a series of 12 picture books and a training video for parents. The picture books are filled with colorful images of interactions between parents and babies. The books contain no words; rather, the scenes depicted are designed to encourage parents to create their own dialogue. The training video provides information for parents about sharing these books with their infants, with advice on how to pick to best time to share a book, how to get baby's attention, and how to talk about the pictures. Research by Whitehurst (2000) has shown that the Bonding with Baby intervention increases the frequency of book sharing and the pleasure that parents and infants derive from the experience. The size of these effects ranged between moderate and large and were consistent across a variety of measures. Parents in the Bonding with Baby intervention indicated that they liked the books and video, would continue sharing the books with their infant, and would like to have access to more of these types of books.
List of Relevant Research
Bus, A. G., & van IJzendorn, M. H. (1988). Mother-child interaction, attachment, and emergent literacy: A cross-sectional study. Child Development, 59, 1262-1272.
Bus, A. G., & van IJzendorn, M. H. (1997). Affective dimension of mother-infant picturebook reading. Journal of School Psychology, 35, 47-60.
Bus, A. G., van IJzendorn, M. H. & Crnic, K. (1997). Attachment and bookreading patterns: A study of mothers, fathers and their toddlers. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 12, 81-98.
High, P., Hopmann, M., LaGasse, L., & Linn, H. (1998). Evaluation of a clinic-based program to promote book sharing and bedtime routines among low-income urban families with young children. Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine, 5, 459-465
High, P., LaGasse, L., Becker, S., Ahlgren, L., & Gardner, A. (2000). Literacy Promotion in Primary Care Pediatrics: Can We Make a Difference? Pediatrics, 105, 927-933 (Supplement).
Whitehurst, G.J. (2000). Developing Heart's Bonding with Baby Books: A randomized trial. Available on-line at http://www.appliedresearchpartners.com
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