Children’s trust in print: what is the impact of late exposure to reading instruction?

Abstract

Prior research in England has indicated that, unlike pre-readers, young children who have learned to decode simple words view print-based information as a more authoritative source of knowledge than purely oral information. We predicted that children in Norway – who start to receive formal reading instruction at a relatively late age – would be slower to display this bias toward print-based information. Accordingly, we tested 4-6 year-olds (N = 96) in Norway. As expected, these children showed a delayed emergence of the bias toward print over speech. Unexpectedly, however, children who had successfully gained a basic reading ability prior to any exposure to formal reading instruction in school were no more trusting of print than their pre-reading peers. These results suggest that the ability to decode simple words is an important condition for selective trust in print-based information but that exposure to formal reading instruction in school may also be necessary.

Citation

Einav, S., Rydland, V., Grøver, V., Robinson, E. J., & Harris, P. L. (2018). Children’s trust in print: what is the impact of late exposure to reading instruction?. Infant and Child Development, 27(6), Article e2102. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2102

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 22, 2018
• Online Publication Date: Jun 29, 2018
• Publication Date: Nov 29, 2018
• Deposit Date: May 24, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Jun 30, 2019
• Journal: Infant and Child Development
• Print ISSN: 1522-7227
• Electronic ISSN: 1522-7219
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 27
• Issue: 6
• Article Number: e2102
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2102
• Keywords: Testimony; Selective trust; Print; Literacy
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/942546
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/icd.2102
• Additional Information: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article Einav S, Rydland V, Grøver V, Robinson EJ, Harris PL. Children's trust in print: What is the impact of late exposure to reading instruction?. Inf Child Dev. 2018;e2102. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2102,which has been published in final form at https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2102. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Use of Self-Archived Versions.