Mediating Learning in the Zones of Development: Role of Teacher and Kindergartner Talk-Turns During Read-Aloud Discussions

We explored how teacher and child talk-turns were related to children’s subsequent comprehension responses during read-alouds. Data included three kindergarten teachers’ interactive read-alouds (736 talk-turns across six video-recorded and transcribed sessions). Talk-turns were coded using a priori and emergent codes. Statistical discourse analysis, which analyzes how previous talk-turns in a conversation are related to later talk-turns in the conversation, was used to identify how specific teacher an d child talk-turns within a read-aloud were related to a child’s later comprehension expressions during that same read-aloud. Findings show how specific talk-turns in which teachers mediate children’s behavior by (a) promoting particular child actions related to the read-aloud content or (b) restricting or expanding ways that children can participate, predict children’s subsequent comprehension responses during the read-aloud. Further, findings show how children’s talk-turns that mediate other children’s action related to the read-aloud content predict those children’s subsequent comprehension responses. These findings suggest new and more fine-grained ways that teachers and children can support children’s listening comprehension and vocabulary responses during read-aloud discussions.