SEVECEN Sayı: 28 - 2019

57 EnhancIng ESL Young Learners’ Vocabulary Development through Read-alouds Developing children’s vocabulary skills play a significant role in their language development not only because it allows for a more effective communication but also helps develop their reading skills. Children need multiple exposures to target vocabulary in a meaningful context to personalize the use of new concepts. Book reading, which is a widely used strategy in preschool and kindergarten classrooms, has long been recognized as a powerful strategy that provides a meaningful context for introducing novel vocabulary to children. There are many ways that children benefit from book reading to develop their vocabulary knowledge. First, books provide a more diverse and advanced language and vocabulary than children encounter in their daily conversations with peers and family at school or at home. Second, books are rich with pictures and illustrations that will help children grasp the meaning and ease their process of decoding the text. Using different strategies and various interaction patterns, adults help learners create connections between the visual and the written content. Finally, visually rich content helps captivate children’s attention and boost their engagement. Although book-reading is a widely acknowledged effective strategy used in enhancing vocabulary skills, mere exposure remains inadequate to boost children’s vocabulary knowledge. Language and literacy development occurs when children are placed in environments in which they have the opportunity to interact with peers and adults. During these social interactions, adults help children explore new concepts providing guidance and support. At SEV Kindergarten, for example, we use a specific strategy in our lessons called dialogic reading. Dialogic reading includes a set of techniques used by the teacher: a) prompting the child to say something about the book, b) evaluating the child’s response, c) expanding on the child’s response by rephrasing or adding information, d) repeating the prompt and e) follow-up with additional prompts. Using this strategy during our reading sessions and encouraging adult-child engagement through discussion significantly and positively impacts child’s vocabulary development compared to readings with less interaction. Gözde Durgut Sinan DAĞISTAN “I love reading books. I have a lot of books at home.” Su ÇELİKLER “This is my favourite scene in the book!” Lodos AKARTEPE I like books about animals.” Emir KULOĞLU “I liked the ending of the story!” Nehir ÇİM “This is my favourite character!” Levent GÜNEL “I liked all of the characters in this book!”