Sibling readers’ joint reading practices and multimodal responses to picturebook reading events in home settings.
type: CreativeWork
description: This research explores a gap in family reading practices using a multiliteracies perspective. The predominant focus within family reading practices is how parents help their children to read with noticeable benefits such as language development, social bonding and literacy skills. Less attention has been given to siblings engaging with texts independently of parental guidance. This empirical study investigated how siblings aged three to eight from seven families responded to high-quality picturebooks during home-based reading events. Siblings were offered a range of print and digital picturebooks to read. Although parents filmed the reading events (in adherence to Covid-19 safety guidelines) the reading was led by siblings themselves with minimal adult intervention. Adopting a collective case study methodology, data was collected between 2021 and 2022 through purposive and convenience sampling. Sixteen children participated in dyad or triad groups. There was equal gender representation. Multimodal and reflexive thematic data analysis was employed to examine the siblings’ participation, social, literary and embodied multimodal responses. Parent diary logs provided additional insight, confirming that their children benefitted from the autonomy of reading together. Findings revealed a preference for the adoption of traditional role models during print reading events, with older siblings often acting in loco parentis. During digital picturebook reading events, gestures were significant in enabling siblings to exert control at times. It became clear that some parts of reading events could be categorised as ‘engaged’. Engaged reading events featured familiar easy-to-read stories; clearly defined roles (reader, listener or book handler), and flexible role distribution, whereas tensions arose when the lexical difficulty of the text was too challenging, or when no role was afforded to the younger sibling. The sibling reading events also fostered social bonding and relational…
abstract: This research explores a gap in family reading practices using a multiliteracies perspective. The predominant focus within family reading practices is how parents help their children to read with noticeable benefits such as language development, social bonding and literacy skills. Less attention has been given to siblings engaging with texts independently of parental guidance. This empirical study investigated how siblings aged three to eight from seven families responded to high-quality picturebooks during home-based reading events. Siblings were offered a range of print and digital picturebooks to read. Although parents filmed the reading events (in adherence to Covid-19 safety guidelines) the reading was led by siblings themselves with minimal adult intervention. Adopting a collective case study methodology, data was collected between 2021 and 2022 through purposive and convenience sampling. Sixteen children participated in dyad or triad groups. There was equal gender representation. Multimodal and reflexive thematic data analysis was employed to examine the siblings’ participation, social, literary and embodied multimodal responses. Parent diary logs provided additional insight, confirming that their children benefitted from the autonomy of reading together. Findings revealed a preference for the adoption of traditional role models during print reading events, with older siblings often acting in loco parentis. During digital picturebook reading events, gestures were significant in enabling siblings to exert control at times. It became clear that some parts of reading events could be categorised as ‘engaged’. Engaged reading events featured familiar easy-to-read stories; clearly defined roles (reader, listener or book handler), and flexible role distribution, whereas tensions arose when the lexical difficulty of the text was too challenging, or when no role was afforded to the younger sibling. The sibling reading events also fostered social bonding and relational…
author: Harrison, Anna
language: eng
keywords: sibling readers, family reading practices, picturebook, multiliteracies, socio-material reading practices, multimodal, reflexive thematic data analysis
license: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/a611ae4c-04bf-436c-addd-4296088afb54/download
license: http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved
date published: 2025-09-26
date modified: 2026-07-24T01:33:18Z
provider: Cambridge University
publisher: Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations
type: WebPage
source organization: University of Cambridge

PropertyValue
property ID: DOI
value: 10.17863/CAM.128618