Dialogic Reading is a form of participatory reading that encourages parents to share the reading process with their child. It focuses on verbal interactions between parents and children rather than the traditional way in which parents read aloud and children listen.

The Dialogic Reading process is carried out with a series of open questions from the adult, which allow children to broaden the interpretation of the text with comments and ideas about the book being shared.

The program is based on encouraging children’s participation, providing feedback on their comments and ideas, and regulating verbal interactions between adults and children based on the children’s abilities, as clarified by several researchers including Whitehurst, Arnold, Epstein, Angell, Smith, Fischel.

Stimulating children with a variety of interactions, as does Dialogic Reading, expands children’s vocabulary (Wilde & Sage, 2007), develops the ability to elaborate linguistic constructions, stimulates their ability to ask logical questions and offer consequential answers (Beals , DeTemple and Dickenson, 1994). This is particularly important for students, who not only have to develop their own vocabulary (Jalongo & Sobolak, 2011) but who also learn to process thought and build concepts around a shared theme.

Direct vocabulary expansion is particularly important for children and Dialogic Reading is one of the best ways to achieve this. Numerous studies, including that of Biemiller and Boote (2006) have shown that the expansion of vocabulary can lead to significant improvements in children learning.

In expanding their vocabulary, as a research by Jalongo and Sobolak (2011) shows, children need to receive questions, clarifications, repetitions, indications on the meaning of words, and examples of words using ‘child-friendly’ language. , that is, that children can understand. Dialogic Reading encourages parents to use all of these aspects.

A correct and adequate development of the child’s vocabulary not only actively contributes to his or her ability to reason and elaborate the story they reading together with the adult, but it effectively contributes to a consolidation of the child’s interpretative skills and to a development of his or her ability to manage, imagine and analyse a given situation using different points of view. The long-term benefit is very important because the child who develops a solid capacity for understanding, interpretation and dialogue around a theme, then has enormous opportunities for success in working life and beyond.

An adequate vocabulary and use of it also allows the child to affirm their position and role in society, correctly interpreting events and situations and therefore avoiding phenomena of anxiety or fear.