Mothers’ mental-state discourse with preschoolers during storybook reading and wordless storybook telling

Recent research has shown that parents, through conversations during shared book reading, play a pivotal role in promoting children's social cognition, particularly their theory of mind (ToM). This study compared mothers’ mental-state discourse during two kinds of interactions with their children – storybook reading and wordless storybook telling. In both contexts, mothers were familiar with the books’ texts but relied to a different extent on the texts during the mother–child interactions. Participants were 72 Israeli mothers and their 4- to 6-year-old children, from an upper–middle socioeconomic level. Mothers were instructed to read or tell two stories as they normally would. Two books were used, similar in several major characteristics – author, illustrator, characters, story length, and false belief as a central theme. Main findings revealed that mothers referred to mental states in both situations, but during storytelling, mothers elaborated more, referring to characters’ cognitive states and false beliefs, than during storybook reading. Findings suggest that storytelling encourages rich discussions on important sociocognitive elements. Educators and parents should be aware of the contribution of storybook reading and storybook telling to mental-state talk and of the unique potential of storybook telling to encourage conversation on ToM-related topics.

► Parent–child conversations on books elicit rich mental-state talk.
► In wordless storybook telling mothers elaborate more on mental themes than during storybook reading.
► Wordless storybook telling encourages discussions on socio-cognitive topics.
► Parents and educators should integrate reading – and telling of books with children.