Shared reading for the improvement of cognitive processes in preschool age

Abstract

Reading is considered a 'gymnasium' for training cognitive processes such as memory, language and Executive Functions. In preschool, when reading skills have not yet been acquired, a common parent-child activity is shared reading. Shared reading aims at encouraging children to talk while reading books through strategies such as child-centredness, processing the child's expressions, providing feedback and pauses, and evaluating the child's responses. Shared reading has long been considered a way to promote emergent literacy skills in preschoolers. One form of shared reading is dialogic reading, in which the child plays an active role by becoming co-narrator of the story. The child and adult focus on the same object, the story, which offers emotions, desires, and reflections. Recently, dialogic reading has been shown to be effective in promoting higher-level cognitive processes, such as the so-called Executive Functions (Howard et al., 2017; Ruffini et al., 2021). Taking into account the results of the Italian pilot study conducted with the illustrated book Quincey Quokka's Quest (Ruffini et al., 2021) and modelled on it, four books were developed to improve the basic executive components and the pre-requisites of learning mathematics (Umberto il gufetto, dei numeri il maghetto), reading (La giraffa Mimì e la sciarpa dell'ABC), writing (Il tucano Gilberto, uno scrittore un po' incerto) and socio-emotional competences (Lupo Selvaggio, il burlone del villaggio).