The DOI matches its Crossref record; 3 of the 3 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Book Language and Its Implications for Children’s Language, Literacy, and Development
Open accessAbstract
The onset of literacy marks a significant change in children’s development. Written language is more complex than everyday conversation, and even books targeted at preschoolers contain more varied words and more complex syntax than child-directed speech does. We review the nature and content of children’s book language, focusing on recent large-scale corpus analyses that systematically compared written and spoken language. We argue that exposure to book language provides opportunities for learning words and syntactic constructions that are only rarely encountered in speech and that, in turn, this rich experience drives further developments in language and literacy. Moreover, we speculate that the range, variety, depth, and sophistication of book language provide key input that promotes children’s social and emotional development. Becoming literate changes things, and researchers need to better understand how and why reading experience shapes people’s minds and becomes associated with a range of skills and abilities across the life span.
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Adolescents felt that fiction reading provided opportunities to develop their academic skills in addition to their general knowledge and knowledge of the wider world.
“Finally, adolescents felt that fiction reading provided opportunities to develop their academic skills in addition to their general knowledge (Martin-Chang et al., 2020; Nation et al., 2022; Torppa et al., 2020) and knowledge of the wider world (Howard, 2011).”
From How Does Reading Fiction Support Adolescents’ Wellbeing? A Qualitative Study Examining Positive Affect, Connection and Personal Growth (2025) · cites this paper as Nation et al., 2022
Citations
Cites
To read or not to read: a meta-analysis of print exposure from infancy to early adulthood
Mol, S. E., & Bus, A. G. (2011) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/a0021890 · Cited by 1,299
Illiterate to literate: behavioural and cerebral changes induced by reading acquisition
Dehaene, S., Cohen, L., Morais, J., & Kolinsky, R. (2015) · Nature Reviews Neuroscience · doi:10.1038/nrn3924 · Cited by 716
The Words Children Hear: Picture Books and the Statistics for Language Learning
Montag, J. L., Jones, M. N., & Smith, L. B. (2015) · Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/0956797615594361 · Cited by 324 · cited 1×
“Montag et al. (2015) examined the vocabulary content of picture books targeted at preschoolers and found that books have greater lexical density and diversity than child-directed speech does; that is, they contain more words and more unique words.”
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Research works printed but not linked: 30
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- Dawson N., Hsiao Y., Tan A. W. M., Banerji N., Nation K. (2021). Features of lexical richness in children’s books: Comparisons with child-directed speech. Language Development Research, 1(1), 9–53. https://doi.org/10.34842/5we1-yk94 · DOI
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
Currie, N., Webber, C., Wilkinson, K., Clark, C., Moss, G., & McGeown, S. (2025) · Reading Psychology · doi:10.1080/02702711.2025.2504974 · Cited by 12
“Finally, adolescents felt that fiction reading provided opportunities to develop their academic skills in addition to their general knowledge (Martin-Chang et al., 2020; Nation et al., 2022; Torppa et al., 2020) and knowledge of the wider world (Howard, 2011).”
Metadata
- Authors
- Nation, K., Dawson, N. J., & Hsiao, Y.
- Affiliations
- University of Oxford (GB)
- Corresponding author
- Nation, Kate
- Venue
- Current Directions in Psychological Science
- Publisher
- SAGE Publications
- Published
- 2022-07-14
- Volume
- 31
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 375-380
- ISSN
- 0963-7214 (ISSN-L)
- 1467-8721
- OpenAlex
- W4285386637
- Cited by
- 89
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 30 · 2025: 24 · 2024: 26 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 1
- FWCI
- 22.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Update notices
- correction (2022-08-22)
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Current Directions in Psychological Science (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- University of Birmingham Research Portal (University of Birmingham) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc)
- Funders
- British Academy (PF2/180013)
- nuffield foundation (EDO/43392)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Language Development and Disorders
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Reading and Literacy Development
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Child and Animal Learning Development
- Keywords
- children's literature, book language, written language, spoken language, child-directed speech, literacy development, vocabulary acquisition, syntactic development, reading experience, social-emotional development, preschool children, corpus analysis
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