Shared book reading, home visit processes, and the relation with low-income infants' language development

Language is important for children to succeed in school. Language development begins early in a child's life and can be facilitated by a supportive language environment. Shared book reading is an important aspect of the language environment a child experiences.;This study utilized data from twenty children living in low-income families. These children are part of the Rural Utah Child Development Head Start and receive weekly visits from home visitors. Two home visits were videotaped and coded for parental and home visitor language facilitation behaviors. A parent interview was also completed to obtain participant demographic information and measure child and parent language ability. Relations between parental language facilitation, home visitor language facilitation, and child language ability were examined.