Picture book selection behaviors of emergent readers: Influence of genre, familiarity, and book attributes

Abstract Empirical studies with school‐aged children have led to assumptions that emergent readers do not have specific reading preferences or demonstrate patterns in their book selections. This study was designed to determine whether emergent readers demonstrate reading preferences based upon genre, familiarity and four other book attributes. Over a seven‐week period, 53 preschoolers and 49 kindergartners from two socioeconomic levels were given the opportunity each school day to select a picture book to take home from a set of 40 books with equal representation in five genres. Children's familiarity with the 40 picture books was assessed through a parent survey at the beginning of the study and teachers recorded the titles that were chosen by each child each day during the study. Children's book choices were analyzed by genre, familiarity and four book attributes. Findings demonstrated that emergent readers appear to demonstrate genre preferences (both ages preferred modern and traditional fantasy over realistic fiction, informational and alphabet‐number books). Additionally, the study found that children select familiar books more often and that especially in the case of kindergartners, familiarity influences reselection. Finally, emergent readers most frequently selected books with a simple text (one to five lines of text per page). The findings of this study counter previously‐held assumptions that emergent readers select books randomly or choose them based on convenience of their display. Implications for the role of genre preferences, familiarity and book attributes are discussed.