Mother-child play at 36 months and mother-child narratives at pre-kindergarten: Relations to children's school readiness

Preparing children to meet the demands of Kindergarten is among our nation's foremost concerns. Research suggests that, despite enormous individual variation, children from economically disadvantaged families tend to lag behind their more advantaged peers. This study emphasized mothers' and children's language and maternal responsiveness at 36 months and Pre-Kindergarten and mother-child narratives at Pre-Kindergarten as predictors of children's school readiness just prior to Kindergarten entry.;The language of 75 ethnically diverse mothers and their children from the New York site of the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Project was described. At 36 months, mothers' and children's lexical diversity or word forms, mothers' wh-questions and responsiveness, and children's scores on the PPVT-III (Dunn & Dunn, 1997) were examined during 10 minutes of play. Mother-child personal narratives at Pre-Kindergarten were explained in terms of their use and diversity of six traditional narrative elements. Maternal responsiveness at Pre-Kindergarten was also examined. Exploratory factor analysis was conducted on children's four standardized assessments to obtain an overall school readiness score.;Mothers' and children's variables at both ages were characterized by substantial variation. Mothers' 36-month word forms were related to their children's narrative diversity. Mothers' narrative prompts related to children's narrative diversity. Mothers' responsiveness was also related to children's prompted narrative diversity. Children's 36-month PPVT score was related to their school readiness at Pre-Kindergarten. Children's independent narrative diversity was related to their prompted narrative diversity and school readiness.;Structural equation modeling determined that at 36 months, mothers who asked more questions and who had different word forms had children with higher scores on the PPVT. At Pre-Kindergarten, mothers who prompted for more narrative elements had children with higher scores on independent narrative diversity. Mothers who varied in their word forms at 36 months prompted for more narrative elements at Pre-Kindergarten. Children's independent contributions to their narratives were related to their school readiness scores.;In summary, this investigation examined mother-child narratives and maternal verbal and non-verbal supports in ways that highlighted the unique styles of shared interactions between preschool children and their mothers.