Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Picture book reading is a common activity in the lives of many children. This work describes the frequency andcharacter of picture book reading in American homes. Seventy-seven monolingual English-speaking families with childrenbetween the ages of 18-30 months took part in a 5-day diary study in which caregivers recorded details about picture book read-ing activities. This sample is characteristic of some laboratory samples but less nationally representative; 92.2% of caregiversheld a college degree. Relative to previously reported averages, caregivers reported reading to children more often (6.8x/day),reported beginning reading at a younger age (2.2 months) and reported more books in the home (111.1 books). Caregiversreported both reading the book text and discussing the pictures with their children. These numbers suggest an extremely highupper-limit to the amount of language input some children receive from picture book reading. Consequences for languageenvironments and language development will be discussed.