ABSTRACT

This study aims to investigate the role of joint book reading activities on language skills, story comprehension, and causal reasoning abilities of young children. The joint book reading activity in this research used two approaches, namely the traditional dialogic reading approach and the dialogic reading of mind maps. The method used in this research was a quasi-experiment by dividing groups between children who received traditional dialogic reading intervention and interactive reading mind maps. The research method used in this research is a quasi-experimental method with a pretest-intervention-posttest design. The participants in this research were 350 kindergarten children and 100 teachers spread across several early childhood education institutions. Research findings showed that children's language competence (vocabulary, critical listening), story comprehension, and causal reasoning improved better in the group of children who received intervention with traditional dialogic shared reading activities rather than dialogic reading activities with mind maps. Dialogic scaffolding is able to encourage children to continue thinking and actively express their ideas. The implication of this research is that dialogic scaffolding in both traditional dialogic shared book reading activities and mind maps is a very important component and determines children's success in improving their language competence.

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