Effects of emergent bilingual students’ and their teacher’s talk-turns on students’ comprehension during read-aloud discussions

This article explores the unique contributions of 2nd-grade emergent bilingual (EB) students’ talk-turns vs. those of their teacher on students’ expressions of comprehension during interactive read-aloud discussions in a pull-out classroom. They engaged in eight video-recorded, interactive read-aloud discussions across four books. This mixed methods study used emergent coding and constant comparative analysis to identify codes that reflected each talk-turn in the discussion. Then, statistical discourse analysis determined how previous talk-turns (3,419 in all) impacted subsequent talk-turns in which students expressed comprehension (i.e. providing information, a connection/comparison/contrast, inference, or opinion). Findings show that EB students more often engaged in several talk-turns that predicted students’ subsequent expressions of comprehension as compared to their teacher. Likewise, the teacher also engaged more often in certain talk-turns that predicted students’ subsequent expressions of comprehension as compared to students. Further, teachers sometimes engaged in talk-turns that reduced students’ likelihood of expressing comprehension. Thus, teachers should explicitly create space for student-initiated participation during interactive read-alouds. Copyright © 2024 Childhood Education International.