Young Children’s Approaches
to Books: The Emergence
of Comprehension
Caitlin McMunn Dooley
Comprehension emerges in young
children alongside other literacy
skills and should not be ignored
by early childhood educators.
The beginnings of reading often go unnoticed in the
young child...this lack of sensitivity occurs because
the reading process is misunderstood. (Goodman &
Goodman, 1979, p. 149)
E
mergent comprehension is different than con-
ventional comprehension because the end
goal is not necessarily to derive adult-like
meanings from texts. Emergent comprehension af-
fords flexible, child-driven meaning making. More
attention needs to be paid to comprehension as an
all-important aspect of early reading development.
It is one of a few “unconstrained skills” (Paris, 2005)
that emerges early and persists throughout a lifetime
of reading development (Alexander, 2005; Paris &
Hamilton, 2009).
What We Know and Want
to Know About Young
Children’s Comprehension
Teachers can use information about the beginnings
of comprehension as they design high-quality read-
ing instruction for preschool and school-aged chil-
dren. This article helps literacy educators understand
how young children’s comprehension, or meaning
making, begins prior to conventional reading and
emerges over time.
The Reading Teacher, 64(2), pp. 120–130 © 2010 International Reading Association
120 DOI:10.1598/RT.64.2.4 ISSN: 0034-0561 print / 1936-2714 online
Defining Emergent Comprehension
For years, researchers and educators have disagreed
about when reading comprehension instruction
should begin with young children. For instance, some
researchers (e.g., Chall, 1996; Gough & Tunmer, 1986;
Invernizzi, 2003; National Institute of Child Health
and Human Development [NICHD], 2000) focused
on decoding skills suggesting that, once those skills
were mastered, comprehension could ensue. Others
(e.g., Doake, 1985; Dooley & Matthews, 2009; Dooley,
Matthews, Matthews, & Champion, 2009; Ferreiro &
Teberosky, 1982; Goodman & Goodman, 1979, 2009;
Siegel, 2006) believed that comprehension, or mean-
ing making, develops before schooling begins.
Perhaps the most divisive issue is whether com-
prehension is viewed as conventional print reading
or as a process that allows for unconventional textual
cues (e.g., images, layout of print, social interactions)
to shape meaning. An emergent literacy framework
(Clay, 2001) suggests the latter. Emergent literacy
refers to the beginning behaviors and concepts
that bolster and develop into conventional literacy.
Accordingly, elements of comprehension stem from
interactions with texts, such as story books, song
charts, and computer games, prior to conventional
print reading. From early interactions children de-
velop knowledge about how to comprehend in ways
that are essential to conventional reading compre-
hension development.
Conventional reading comprehension is charac-
terized by the RAND Reading Study Group (2002)
as the transaction between the reader, the text, and
the activity (or purpose) that exists within a socio-
cultural context. From this perspective, meanings are
made as readers (with background knowledge and
strategic approaches to texts) enter into situations
(or activities with particular implicit or explicit pur-
poses) and transact with a text to create meanings.
This takes place within a sociocultural context that
influences everything from what texts are available
to what approaches a reader may use.
Dooley and Matthews (2009) adapted the RAND
heuristic to account for young children’s unconven-
tional approaches to reading but warned that edu-
cators must understand that young children have
unique cognitive, social, and emotional develop-
mental characteristics that need to be accounted for
to understand what comprehension looks like at this
young age. From this adaptation, the following three
principles arose for understanding preconventional,
emergent comprehension:
1. Young children interact with texts in ways dif-
ferent from those of older children and adults.
2. Young children’s symbolic understanding de-
velops across time via interactions with signifi-
cant others.
3. Young children’s meaning construction begins
at birth via experience with primary caregivers
and other important adults.
Using this definition of emergent comprehension, we
examined how young children approach books and
what these approaches might tell about the begin-
nings of comprehension.
Emergent Literacy Model:
Comprehension Begins
Before Decoding
Beginning in the 1970s, emergent literacy research fo-
cused on early comprehension; it was called “mean-
ing making” at that time. Although synonymous with
comprehension, the term meaning making seems to
have waned in the past 30 years, and the term compre-
hension seems to be more prevalent—perhaps due
to the labeling of the “five essentials” (comprehen-
sion, fluency, vocabulary, phonics, and phonological
awareness) by the National Reading Panel (NICHD,
2000). Few researchers have applied the term com-
prehension to our youngest learners. Nonetheless,
both terms, comprehension and meaning mak-
ing, describe the same thing: making meaning
with printed text.
Many studies of meaning making demonstrate
children’s emerging ability to make sense with texts.
Young Children’s Approaches to Books: The Emergence of Comprehension
In 1982, Ferreiro and Teberosky detailed how chil-
dren ages 3–5 move from indiscriminate referencing
of print as image toward more discriminate labeling
of print as a separate representation. In other words,
over time these young children conceptualized differ-
ent meanings for print and image. Children’s ability to
differentiate print and image is important because it
shows a critical point at which a child attends to print
as a symbol for written language.
Sulzby (1985, 1991) studied young children’s
storybook reading by looking at how younger chil-
dren (ages 2–4) responded to an adult’s invitation to
“read to me.” She found that at age 2, most children
refused to read but would talk about the stories in an
oral language-like form. At age 3, the children used
more and more oral language to narrate the story-
book. Eventually, around age 4, the children narrat-
ed with more written language-like inflections and
storybook wording (e.g., “once upon a time...,” “there
once was...”). Sulzby also observed kindergartners
as they responded to an adult’s invitation to “read to
me.” Sulzby concluded that at age 5, most children
move from treating individual pages of a storybook
as if they were discrete units to treating the whole
book as a unit (or whole story).
Doake (1985) observed “reading-like behaviors”
(p. 82) of two children, 2 and 5 years old, and discov-
ered the following four participatory strategies that
emerged as children have increasing experience
with books:
1. Mumble reading, in which certain keywords
are recognizable
2. Cooperative reading, in which the child reads
in semiunison with an adult reader
3. Completion reading, in which the reader paus-
es to allow the child to complete phrasing
4. E cho reading, in which the child repeats full
sentences after the reader has read them
Likewise, Strommen and Mates (1997) reported
findings from a three-year longitudinal study in which
they asked children (ages 3–6) about what readers
do. The children’s responses indicated an increasing
awareness of print as the primary carrier of mean-
ing in texts. Goodman and Goodman (2009) pro-
posed that observational studies such as these show
that “from the earliest interactions...literacy events
121
 always involve comprehension and serve purposes
important to [children’s] lives” (p. 99).
These early studies provide ample evidence of
children’s emergent meaning making; however, be-
cause of theoretical limits the researchers were not
able to tie early attempts at meaning making to specif-
ic comprehension skill development. We know more
now. First, we know that literacy emerges throughout
a lifespan in a seamless process as opposed to the
stage-by-stage model that gave way to the learning
to read/reading to learn dichotomy (Alexander, 2005;
Clay, 2001; Lancaster, 2003). Second, we know that
literacy is inherently social and cultural (Lancaster,
2003). And third, we know that literacy is, at its core,
a semiotic activity based in language (written, spo-
ken) and image (Kress, 2003; Siegel, 2006). Emerging
theories are useful to support a more robust and
developmental understanding of comprehension so
that educators and researchers may better address
this all-important aspect of reading development
throughout childhood.
Semiotics: A Lens for Examining
Emergent Comprehension
Semiotics has often been used as a theoretical
lens for understanding meaning making with text
(Gee, 2003; Kress, 2003; Siegel, 2006; Tierney, 2009;
Wohlwend, 2008), especially with complex and
multimodal texts. Siegel’s (2006) literature review
on semiotics in early literacy research emphasized
that “moving across sign systems [writing, reading,
image making, talking, music making, etc.] could
serve a generative and reflective purpose for learn-
ers” (p. 67). Our study dug deeper to examine the
ways that children made meanings with texts using
different semiotic systems to elicit concepts related
to comprehension.
Semiotic systems are symbol systems (signs) that
represent concepts. One example of a symbol sys-
tem is the alphabet. Each symbol (a, b, c) represents
meanings. To some, the letter a might represent a
sound or a lowercase version of A or the beginning
of a seriated list. Symbols, and what they represent,
change according to context, background knowl-
edge, and social conventions.
Kress (1997) presented semiotics as a lens by
which we can view paths to literacy. He stated that
“signs are motivated relations of form and mean-
ing, or to use semiotic terminology, of signifiers and
122 The Reading Teacher      Vol. 64, No. 2      October 2010
signifieds” (p. 12). Signifiers are the form. Signifieds
are the meanings derived from the forms. Kress con-
tinued, “Makers of signs use those forms for the ex-
pression of their meaning which best suggest or carry
the meaning, and they do so in any medium in which
they make signs” (p. 12). In other words, as humans
communicate, we are careful to select symbols that
represent our meaning. Media for symbols include
visual, textual, auditory, and tactile, among others—
these are called symbol systems or modes. Symbolic
representations are determined not simply by mode,
but by function within a social environment (Namy,
2005). Therefore, when a child encounters the letter
a, his or her view of what that letter represents will
have been shaped by the child’s social interactions.
Children are natural sign makers: A child who
makes a boat from a box is eliciting boat-like charac-
teristics (mobility, containment) and assigning them
to the box. Likewise, when a child uses a book in
play, he or she assigns characteristics to the book—
sometimes in conventional ways (like storytelling)
and sometimes in unconventional ways (like vroom-
ing a book across the floor; Namy, 2005). Young
children are freer to signify in these ways because
they are not yet hampered by social expectations. At
times, children (and adults) may haggle over what
meanings are acceptable to the group—Harste,
Woodward, and Burke (1984) called these “border
skirmishes.” But, as the child interacts more and
more with adults and peers, the child is likely to con-
form to socially conventional principles for meaning
making: searching for more socially plausible means
for representation and discovering converging mean-
ings when presented with a multidimensional signi-
fier (such as a box or a book).
In this article, I use the term tool to refer to so-
ciocultural and Vygotskian theories (Cole, 1996;
Wertsch, 1998) that consider tools as socially con-
structed signs. Consistent with semiotic theory, what
tools are created and used for is not predetermined
by their form but rather by social rules and conven-
tions over time. For example, when a child encoun-
ters a box (a signifier), it may be used as a car, bed,
hiding space, container, and so on (these are signi-
fieds). The box is a tool for many purposes. Similarly,
a book is a tool for many purposes—a leisure activity,
storytelling, a sleep aid—yet as literacy educators, we
often think of books as tools for learning literacy. This
study focuses on children’s book-related interactions
to demonstrate how children learn to comprehend;
however, reading comprehension of print occurs in Table 1
many contexts and with many tools, not just books. Demographic Information for Participants Referenced
in the Data Presented

Methods: A Study Child pseudonym Sex Demographic group

of Emergent Comprehension Deron M European American

Catalina F European
My partner, Mona Matthews, and I completed a three-
Janice F African American
year longitudinal study of emergent literacy in chil-
Emma F European American
dren from age 2.0 to age 5.6. We entered two early
Aliesha F African American
childhood classrooms looking broadly at social, cul-
tural, and developmental aspects of literate meaning Major M African American

making. This article reports on data from one class
over three years.
Context and Participants
The class is part of a university-sponsored child
development center located in the heart of a large
downtown area. The children’s families are univer-
sity affiliated as staff, faculty, and students (many of
whom are first-generation college students). Family
incomes range from less than US$10,000 to more
than $150,000, and tuition is based on a sliding scale.
The center is recognized as a Center of Distinction by
the National Association for the Education of Young
Children and would be considered high quality by
any standard. Each year, the class consisted of 18
children, a lead teacher, and two assistants. Twelve
children were selected from the group for close anal-
ysis because they were present and their families par-
ticipated in interviews across all three years of the
study. All names are pseudonyms. Table 1 presents
demographic information for these 12 children.
Data Collection
Data for this article include observational field notes
and parent and teacher interviews. We spent about
2–4 hours weekly in the children’s classroom each
school year for three years. During the final year, five
video cameras were installed in this classroom, pro-
ducing over 30 hours of video. Field note data are
from video and in-person observations of classroom
activities that occurred during “free center time,” a
time in the morning after snack time and before the
children went outside to play. The children usually
had about 75 minutes of free center time (e.g., blocks,
pretend play, art, writing, books, puzzles) and had ac-
cess to a wide variety of playthings.
Havana F African American
Calvin M European American
Nettie F African/Caribbean/
Hispanic American
Otis M European American
Lorie F European American
Davie M European American
Parent and teacher interviews about home rou-
tines were conducted twice annually for three years.
Through the interviews, we identified events that
parents described as routine that could support lit-
eracy (in the broadest sense) and asked the parents
to video record or report about these routines. Of
the 12 families, 5 agreed to videotape interactions
during home routines twice during the three years.
Then, in follow-up interviews, we asked the parents
to elaborate about their recorded home routines.
Parents who chose not to videotape events were sim-
ply asked to describe home routines and follow-up
questions were designed to investigate how these
routines changed over time and which routines may
contribute to literacy development.
Note that the data presented are from parents’ ac-
counts of what their children do at home with books
and witnessed in the classroom. These accounts
are about child-initiated interactions with books—
therefore, the data are significantly different from tra-
ditional research on early storybook reading initiat-
ed by adults (e.g., Sulzby, 1985, 1991). Recounted are
times when children chose to pick up books (similar
to the accounts of when children chose to pick up
writing tools (Dyson, 1983; Kress, 1997).

Young Children’s Approaches to Books: The Emergence of Comprehension 123

 Analysis
Data analysis took place in several steps. First, I coded
classroom data (field notes and video), then data from
home videos and parent interviews. Consistent with
constant comparative analysis (Miles & Huberman,
1994), the analysis process was inductive, and, as
more data were coded, categories emerged to de-
scribe how the children approached texts.
I began by reviewing classroom data to isolate
events in which children chose to play with or read
printed material (e.g., books, charts, menus, lists).
I coded each event, indicating who was involved,
and what printed materials were used. During most
events, children were using books as tools (or signi-
fiers) for many purposes (e.g., playing, convening,
reading). Therefore, I chose to examine book-related
events as a way to examine how children’s use of this
tool changed over time. Thus, book-related events
became units for analysis.
Videos were footnoted to identify events, and
field notes were segmented into vignettes that pre-
sented an event as a whole (from when a child ini-
tiated book-related interactions to when the child
stopped). I sorted these events into categories that
would show how the children were using the books.
In other words, if a child was reading a book aloud,
that was one code. If a child was pushing a book
across the floor, that was another code.
I then added data from parent and teacher inter-
views to extend the coding system. For the most part,
these interviews only extended the categories that
were developed from classroom data; however, the
interviews were helpful interpretations of why a child
may have behaved in a certain way (especially when
the child in question was very young and was not
able to explicitly indicate why he or she was doing
something). The interviews also provided important
explanations of the sociocultural context in which
these children were interacting at home and school.
In what follows I present four broad categories to
illustrate how children learned to make meaning
(comprehend) with books.
Findings: Four Phases
Characterizing Children’s
Approaches to Books
I reviewed the data to trace what the children did with
books, from ages 2 through 5, and present those data
124 The Reading Teacher      Vol. 64, No. 2      October 2010
here as four phases in chronological order. But please
note that these phases are not isolated; they overlap
and are often an indication of familiarity with books
as they are an indication of developmental progress.
Familiarity grows from multiple interactions with be-
ing read to, routinely handling books, and having ac-
cess to books in multiple contexts and across time.
Therefore, any developmental trend that may be in-
ferred from findings is as much a social trend due
to routines that build familiarity. Descriptions of the
four phases are presented in Table 2.
Book as Prop
This phase was the earliest, stretching from prior to
age 2 into early age 3. The number of incidences di-
minished significantly as the children turned 3 years
old. When selecting books, these young children
paid little attention to the topical content of the book
(as exemplified by talk about a topic different from
the book’s content) or, if they attended to the book’s
content, the topic was as a stand-in for the real thing
(as exemplified by a child who used a book about
trains as a toy train, vrooming it along wooden
tracks). In all cases, these children used books as
props for play. And books were treated similarly to
other playthings such as plastic figures, dolls, and
vehicles; they were thrown, cradled, propped, or
vroomed.
Books used in play scenarios were not read as
much as they were simply used as props to indicate
story time or bedtime. For example, Catalina (age
2.5) sat on the floor near the “circle rug” at the cen-
ter of her classroom. The book, Machines at Work by
Byron Barton, was resting on her legs as two friends
played with their dolls nearby. Catalina turned the
pages and talked to her friends as they patted the
baby dolls’ backs (a common practice that mim-
icked the way that the teachers patted the children’s
backs at naptime). Her talk was not about machines.
Rather, it was about putting babies to sleep. She
seemed to mimic the practice she had so often wit-
nessed during naptime at school: one person reads
while the others put the “babies” to sleep by patting
their backs. For her, a book was a prop for bedtime/
naptime pretend play.
Books were also used for play props based on
the book’s topic. For example, Major (age 2.11) car-
ried a Thomas the Train book for several weeks in his
classroom and used it as a train. In another example,
Table 2
Phases of Child-Initiated Book Interactions

Phase Characteristics Approximate age range

Book as Prop n  ooks treated similarly to other playthings such as plastic figures,
B Prior to age 2 through
dolls, vehicles (e.g., thrown, cradled, pushed, propped up) early age 3
n Books integrated into play as a toy
n Little attention to topical content (e.g., book = book) or topical

content seen as the same thing as the book (e.g., book = train)

Book as n Attention to content (topic related) Late age 2 through age 3
Invitation n Attention to images
n Limited recognition of print

Book as Script n Attention to content Mid age 3 through age 4

n Attention to image
n Echo and mimic read-aloud gestures, intonations, and inflections

(e.g., playing teacher)

n Recognition of print, but isolated text would be unreadable
n Image used as a prompt for guessing at script

Book as Text n Attention to content Late age 3 through age 5

n Attention to image and print
n Concept of print beginning (i.e., some indication of word-by-word

recall or evidence of approximated word-by-word pointing)

n Approximated reading of print (i.e., unlikely to be read without

image/print scaffolding, but some recognition of beginning

sounds of print to allow for corrections of approximations)

Otis’s parents mentioned that Otis (age 3.0) often car-
ried a book about cars, used it as a car, and pulled
it out when playing with his toy cars. These books
seemed to become toy stand-ins for their topic.
In this early phase, books, like toys, were often
mistreated. Notably, Ferreiro and Teberosky (1982)
found similar behaviors among young children in
their study. And others (e.g., Mason, 1981) have noted
children’s early tendencies to chew, throw, and oth-
erwise mutilate books until they learn more about
how to use them in socially conventional ways. In the
2-year-olds’ classroom, books were tossed, dropped,
and kicked. Once, when I walked in to observe, the
bookshelf was facing backward and all of the books
had been removed. When I asked why, the assistant
teacher told me that the children had been throwing
the books and that she had warned them that if they
continued, the books would go away until they treat-
ed the books right. I was a little taken aback by the
finality of her solution, but as a mother, I also sympa-
thized with that desperate need for children to expe-
rience consequences for their actions. Nonetheless,
the school director overheard the assistant teacher’s
words and overruled her, saying, “How can they
learn how to use books if we take them away?” The
books were replaced and the shelf turned around. I
appreciated this wise advice and reconsidered my
own need for “natural consequences”—recognizing
the need for redirecting behaviors at this young age.
Book as Invitation
Starting late into age 2 and stretching well into age 3,
children began to look at the books holistically, that
is, as a whole unit of meaning and use them to invite
social interactions. This phase was different from the
prop phase in that books were identified not only as
physical objects but also as representing some ab-
stract meaning. They seemed to recognize the book’s
topical content via images, shapes, and colors, some-
times calling books by their topic rather than their
title; e.g., “the bug book” or “the jeep book.” Their
limited recognition of print was evidenced by the
lack of correspondence between their talk and the
actual printed text. But at this age, the children of-
ten brought books to adults and peers to invite social

Young Children’s Approaches to Books: The Emergence of Comprehension 125

 interactions. Many of the children began to volunteer
to read familiar books to their parents, their teach-
ers, and other adults. In most of these instances, the
children did not know the words of the book, but
they would flip through the pages and talk in a book-
reading-like voice. The print on the pages and the talk
did not correspond, but they were topically related.
For example, Emma (age 3.4) pulled a chair next
to one of the participant-observers in our study and
said, “I will read a book to you.” She was reading a
book about butterflies. She said, “I will read a but-
terfly book. We call this the butterfly book.” The
book was indeed about butterflies, but the title was
Caterpillars, Bugs, and Butterflies by Mel Boring. She
turned the pages and told about each picture, but her
talk did not align with the text on the pages.
In another example that took place in the class-
room, Aliesha (age 3.6) showed Havana (age 3.3) a
book with colors. The book’s text named each item
and its color in English. “Look, look, Havana. It’s am-
arillo!” (The children had been learning Spanish col-
or names over the past few months.) Havana replied,
“You want me to look at the book? Oh. [She looked at
the page Aliesha was showing.] It’s not amarillo. It’s
azul.” They were looking at a blue bug in the book.
Havana turned to me (the researcher observing this
dialogue) and mentioned a song that I sang about col-
ors. Nettie (age 3.3) came over to the two girls. They
looked at the book together as Havana pointed to the
pictures and said the colors (“This is azul.”). Aliesha
and Nettie walked around the small “housekeeping”
area looking at the book as they walked, and Havana
held up items from the “kitchen” or pointed to them
as she said the color in Spanish. Nettie carried a plas-
tic carrot to Havana and said, “Orange, amarillo.”
Havana chuckled, “That’s anaranjado!”
Interestingly, this phase contrasts with Sulzby’s
(1985) depiction of development in picture storybook
reading. Sulzby indicated that children read parts
of books prior to taking on a book as a whole story
(in each case, the children are not yet governed by
print; their readings reflect the images within books).
However, children in the current study seemed to ap-
proach the book as a whole unit that elicited count-
ing, matching Spanish/English colors, and naming
a book by its topic (e.g., the “Butterfly Book”). This
difference may be simply contextual (e.g., different
classroom, different children) or due to the method
of elicitation. Or the difference may be indicative of a
change between the 1980s and 2009 in how children
126 The Reading Teacher      Vol. 64, No. 2      October 2010
approach texts. Nonetheless, noting that children
approach texts as holistic units indicates that they
recognize books as tools that contain printed text—
one tool among many (e.g., computers, newspapers,
charts). Yet, at this phase, printed text is not a focus,
but meaning is.
Book as Script
As children turned 3 and became more verbally flu-
ent and familiar with favorite books, they also began
to treat books more like scripts, memorizing and call-
ing out the texts in books like scripts. In this phase,
children attended to topical content, image, and
the sound (voice intonations and inflections com-
mon to adult-led read-alouds) of reading a particu-
lar text. There seemed to be recognition of print (as
evidenced by pointing to print), but if it was isolated
from the book they would be unlikely to be able to
read it. Images in picture books seemed to be used
as a prompt for guessing at the script.
For example, Lorie’s mother (Lorie, age 3.3) said,
“At night Lorie usually likes us to read it but there
are definitely books where she’s like, ‘I’ll read them
to you. I wanna tell the story.’ There are some [sto-
ries] that she knows almost word for word.” Aliesha’s
mother (Aliesha, age 3.5) said,
Aliesha does like interacting with books. She thinks
that she’s reading, particularly stories that I’ve read.
And she’ll remember words in the book and show the
pictures and go through it like she’s reading the whole
book. She’ll go through it like she’s reading the book.
I bought them [Aliesha and her sister] two of the read-
aloud books and they know when to turn the page. It’s
like a person talking and they read what’s on the page.
In the classroom, children often mimicked teacher
read-alouds. In one field note entry, Major (age 3.10)
narrated a storybook to an audience of semiattentive
classmates:
He’s holding the pictures up like the teachers do, with
the book facing outward, and Janice [a classmate,
age 3.3] is sitting crisscross in front of him, listening,
and staring at the pictures. I doubt she can make out
much of what he’s saying because of Major’s quiet
tone.... Carla and Enice sit nearby now, pretending to
read books to one another. I don’t know how either of
them could be listening because they’re both holding
up their books, turning the pages, and speaking dra-
matically. Janice is still in front of Major but is becom-
ing more interested in Enice and Carla…. Meanwhile,
Major is finishing up his book and now Janice has taken
 an interest in the nearby
Legos. Suddenly, Major
closes the book and an-
nounces with a smile,
“The end!” He turns to
the cover of the book and
tells me with a smile as he
points to the title, “Playing
Leaves.” There is a picture
of a boy, a girl, and a dog
playing in a pile of leaves.
The title of the book is actually
The Leaves Are Falling One by
One by Steve Metzger.
In each scenario, whether
witnessed in the classroom or
reported by parents, the children
seemed to recognize that print is part
of the book’s meaning, but they were not yet
concerned with one-to-one matching of word to
print—rather, they were more attentive to the sound
(intonation, voice inflection, rhythms) of reading
aloud. At this phase, children had had multiple ex-
periences with the same texts over time. These expe-
riences, both classroom- and home-based, provided
contexts that built familiarity with authors, texts, and
the sound of reading aloud.
Book as Text
As the children turned four, they still attended to topi-
cal content, recognized images, echoed the intona-
tions and inflections of reading aloud, and attended
more to the printed text within picture books. They
indicated attention to print by pointing at the words
or recalling word-by-word what was on a page and
they would get frustrated when the picture clues and
print clues did not match their word-by-word recall.
In several instances, children approximated read-
ing of print. When approximations failed (or when
a child recognized a roadblock to approximation)
the child would point to the words and seem to use
beginning sounds to make corrections, indicating a
movement toward conventional reading.
An excerpt from field notes taken from Aliesha’s
classroom exemplifies this phase. In this excerpt,
Aliesha was 4.0 years old:
It’s 9:50 and the kids were transitioning from breakfast
to center time. A large group of kids were playing Legos
on the carpet, and I noticed Aliesha sitting criss-cross
on the back of the carpet, reading the book Molly Lou
Mellon [Stand Tall, Molly Lou Mellon by Patty Lovell]
Young Children’s Approaches to Books: The Emergence of Comprehension
aloud to herself. Aliesha was pointing word-to-word
saying exactly what is printed on the page. She read
just the first two lines (of five or six) before turning the
page: “On the third day of school, Ronald Durkin said,
you look like a sick duck—Honk, Honk.” Aliesha ap-
peared to be contemplating what the text actually says,
which is, “On the fourth day of school....” I assume she
memorized the text but had some clue of what should
come next because she was pointing word-by-word.
She never seemed content with her interpretations and
swept her finger across the words seemingly trying to
locate a clue. “On the fifth day of school...” She got to
the last page and was reciting the letter from Grandma
to Molly Lou Mellon: “Everything’s all right...Love,
Molly Lou Mellon.” She closed the book, returned it to
the bookshelf, and was off.
Likewise, Aliesha’s classmate, Calvin (age 5.4),
was also attending to print within the books. His fa-
ther explained that “he hoards books,” adding,
He is starting to read now. He is still not recognizing let-
ters but he wants to. There is some motivation for read-
ing. He says, “Well daddy, that starts with an S.” And I
say, “Well, yes it does.” This morning we were loung-
ing in, and he came up and said, “This is a wonderful
game,” and he started telling me about the game. Then
he brings it over and says, “See, this one starts with an
S.” And I said, “Well what’s the other one?” And he said,
“this one’s an I and another O and an S.”
Like four other classmates, Aliesha and Calvin’s
conventional reading took off around this time. They
were able to decode novel print with short (3–5 letter)
words fluently. But I believe they also gained valuable
lessons beyond decoding from these interactions.
How Early Approaches
Evidence Emergent
Comprehension
This study investigated what meanings children
construct as they encounter books. These mean-
ings demonstrate their emerging comprehension of
print materials. Emergent comprehension in young
children, like other emergent literacy skills (e.g., con-
cept of word, alphabet recognition), is not the same
as conventional literacy. Characteristics of emergent
comprehension are unique to this early developmen-
tal phase of literacy learning.
Emergent comprehension is based on an adapta-
tion of the RAND Reading Study Group (2002) heuris-
tic for conventional comprehension. If likened to the
127
 RAND heuristic (recall the activity, text, and reader
framework), these phases that characterize emer-
gent comprehension readily map on to conventional
comprehension.
One could say that the activity (or purpose) for
reading comprehension at these young ages is social-
ly defined by routines and social invitations. Early
phases described in this study (e.g., Book as Prop
and Book as Invitation) demonstrate how young chil-
dren use books for play and to initiate social interac-
tions. Playful book interactions were unconventional
(if we accept adult conceptions of conventional book
reading), yet were consistent for all children. As in
other studies (Doake, 1985; Strommen & Mates, 1997;
Sulzby, 1985), the Book as Script and Book as Text
phases demonstrate how children’s
verbal responses to books
were increasingly aligned
to adult-like oral reading
intonations represent-
ing a growing aware-
ness of print. These
pha s e s r e pr e s e nt
children’s growing
awarene s s of pur-
poses for books that
are socially accepted.
The children’s relation-
ships w it h impor tant
adults shaped their un-
derstandings of purpose as
did the routines experienced in
their homes and classrooms (Dooley
& Matthews, 2009). Children’s movement toward
convention particularly affects their understandings
of text.
The children’s view of text changed dramatically.
The book was not initially seen as holding a story
in the Book as Prop phase. But over time, the book
moved from being an object separate from story,
to the object that holds stories. The Book as Script
phase demonstrated knowledge of text as something
to be told, said, spoken. The Book as Text phase dem-
onstrated knowledge of text as more print governed.
As children in this study learned how to use
books as tools for literacy, they appropriated social
conventions and rules that shape understandings
about what a book is for. Perhaps the most prominent
example of this was when the teacher in the 2-year-
olds’ class reprimanded the children for mistreating
128 The Reading Teacher      Vol. 64, No. 2      October 2010
the books. Their initial “scribbles of reading” (to use
a metaphor from emergent writing) took the shape
of tossing, throwing, and using books as play props.
Over time, as adults and peers interacted, books were
routinely presented as meaningful and, therefore, as
the medium for potential signifiers (Kress, 1997). The
children’s book-related interactions were shaped to
look more and more like conventional reading be-
cause they were routinely presented with books as
meaningful tools for storytelling and information
gathering.
The importance of child developmental theory
cannot be understated when we consider the reader
in emergent literacy. Emergent comprehension is,
at its core, affected by children’s cognitive develop-
ment from concrete toward abstract thinking and
their social development as they learn to use tools
(like books) to invite social interaction (Dooley
& Matthews, 2009; Piaget, 1952, 1985; Tomasello,
Carpenter, Call, Behne, & Moll, 2005).
As in previous studies (Doake, 1985; Strommen &
Mates, 1997), children in this study began with a ho-
listic approach to books. In the Book as Prop phase,
children attended to books as physical objects (e.g.,
train-shaped book was a toy train), eliciting charac-
teristics of form and shape, as well as attending to
books as part of routines, eliciting characteristics
such as when to read (e.g., bedtime, naptime, quiet
times). The child’s idea of text in these early phases
moves from toylike, concrete representations based
on the form of the object toward more abstract
representations.
Over time the children became more attuned
to abstract representations of meaning in multiple
sign systems (image, oral language, print) within the
books. One of the most interesting shifts was when
a child moved between Book as Prop and Book as
Invitation. In the Book as Invitation phase, children
elicited social characteristics by using the books as
tools to invite others in as readers (e.g., “read to me”)
and as audience (e.g., “I read to you”). In these invita-
tions, the children began to represent books in ways
that were consistent with images (e.g., the butterfly
book) within the book, but not necessarily the print in
the books. In other words, they were attuned to only
a few of the meaning systems (image, shape, oral lan-
guage). They also learned to invite social interactions
with the books—something most had witnessed in
their classrooms and at home and learned through
these routine practices. As children’s meanings
became more attuned to abstract representations,
they also became more attuned to various sign sys-
tems. They did not leave behind knowledge of one
system and replace it with other.
In this study, children’s coordination of signifiers
moved toward a more unified understanding of how
object, image, language, and print work together to
create a text. Kress (1997) calls this coordination be-
tween signs (or representational factors) “synaesthe-
sia” (p. 38). Synaesthetic activity emerges from the
ability to work across modes (e.g., language, image,
print). And, as Kress pointed out, children learning
literacy are less likely at this point to heighten the
importance of one sign system over another. That
will come with schooling, when printed text begins
to carry more social importance. Yet, this coordi-
nation is similar to the active monitoring, regula-
tion, and orchestration of strategies in conventional
comprehension.
Emergent Comprehension:
Possibilities for New
Discoveries
This study evidences that comprehension—or mean-
ing making with text—emerges with other literacy
skills and should not be ignored in the early years
(Alexander, 2005; Clay, 2001; RAND Reading Study
Group, 2000). Current theories that depict compre-
hension as something that happens after decoding,
or simply a set of strategies, are unequipped to in-
form a lifelong theory of comprehension. The RAND
definition of comprehension is perhaps a more flex-
ible theory but lacks sufficient applicability for our
youngest learners (Dooley & Matthews, 2009; Dooley
et al., 2009).
Using a semiotic lens to understand comprehen-
sion might provide a means of exploring how mean-
ings are shaped from various forms of printed texts,
from Kindles to newspapers to websites. We might
also inquire how the ability for electronic texts to talk
back and talk to readers, animation, and interactive
stories or texts might shape depictions of emergent
(and conventional) comprehension development.
Note
This research was generously funded by the Thomas Family
Foundation and Georgia State University.
Young Children’s Approaches to Books: The Emergence of Comprehension
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