This study compares interactions during joint book reading of 14 Taiwanese and 15 American mother–child pairs from low-income families. All mother–child pairs read the same book, ‘The very hungry caterpillar’, at home and their interactions were recorded. Taiwanese and American mothers demonstrated both similarities and differences during joint book reading. Taiwanese mothers talked more, gave and requested more information, but requested and received fewer evaluations from their children. These cross-cultural differences reveal that joint book reading is not just for entertainment; instead, it is a means for transmission of moral values and proper conduct as well as for the socialization of appropriate parent–child conversation styles in the Taiwanese and American families studied.

This paper aims to understand mother–child book-reading interactions in different socioeconomic classes in Taiwan. Two groups of 16 mothers and their 3-year-old children, one from upper-middle socioeconomic backgrounds and the other from low-income families, participated in this study. Each dyad was visited at home, and mothers were asked to read a book with their children. Interactions during joint book reading were tape-recorded, transcribed, coded, and analyzed using the Child Data Exchange System. The results showed that mothers from the upper middle class tended to encourage children to narrate the story, ask open-ended questions, and discuss nonimmediate information, while the low-income mothers tended to take book reading as their responsibility and required their children to be attentive. Educational implications and suggestions for further research were discussed.

This longitudinal study examines change in maternal interaction strategies in Taiwanese mothers across time, and the synchronic and diachronic relationships between maternal interaction strategies and children's language and early literacy skills. Forty-two mother–child dyads participated in this study. Their interactions during joint book-reading were tape-recorded, transcribed, and analyzed when the children were fourteen, twenty-six, and thirty-six months of age. The children received a battery of language and early literacy tests when they were thirty-six months old. Findings showed that Taiwanese mothers adjusted their use of interaction strategies as their children grew. Maternal use of description, performance, prediction inference, and print-related talk were positively correlated with their children's language and literacy skills. Significant negative correlations were found between use of task-behavioral regulation strategy and text reading in mothers and their children's language performance. This study suggests that age-appropriate interaction strategies are important for children's language and early literacy development.

Parental psychological well-being is essential to the wellness of the family. However, longitudinal investigations into fathers’ postpartum depressed mood are limited. This study aimed to identify the typologies of depressed mood trajectories over the first year postpartum among Taiwanese fathers and to examine the factors associated with such typologies. We retrieved data from a nationwide longitudinal study on child development and care in Taiwan. A total of 396 fathers, who completed at least one of the three interviews when their children were 3, 6, and 12 months old between 2016 and 2017, were included in this analysis. Conditional latent class growth analysis was conducted to identify the classifications of the fathers’ depressed mood trajectories in the first year postpartum and to estimate the effects of covariates on individuals’ membership of a trajectory class. Three classes of depressed mood trajectories were identified. The high increasing group consisted of 11% of the participants; the moderate increasing and the low decreasing groups consisted of 28% and 61% of the participants, respectively. Financial stress was associated with the fathers’ likelihood of being in the high increasing group compared with their likelihood of being in the low decreasing group (OR = 2.28, CI = 1.16–4.47). The result may be related to the difference in gender roles and social expectations.

Research Findings: This study examines the amount of attention to print paid by Taiwanese mothers and children during joint book reading over time and the relationship between the use of print referencing by Taiwanese mothers and the print concepts skills of their children measured at age 3;0. A total of 42 Taiwanese mother–child pairs from middle-class families participated in this study. Mother–child interactions during joint book reading were video recorded and analyzed when the children were 1;2, 2;2, and 3;0. The mothers’ use of print referencing strategies correlated positively and significantly with children’s use of print referencing both synchronically and diachronically during joint book reading. Significant positive correlations were also found between children’s performance on a print concepts test at 3;0 and print referencing strategies used by their mothers when the children were 2;2 and 3;0. Practice or Policy: It is suggested that parents and preschool and kindergarten teachers increase their use of print referencing strategies when they read books to young children.