Does book genre matter? Boys' and girls' word learning from narrative and informational books in the preschool years

Background: The current study aims to address whether boys and girls learn words differently from shared reading of informational books, which are often perceived as ‘boys' books’. Methods: Forty-five mother-child dyads (Mean age = 60.4 months, SD = 6.84) were video recorded reading sets of informational and narrative trade books at home. Children's learning of 12 target words of varying difficulty from each book was tested, controlling for initial vocabulary levels. Results: Boys and girls learned target words from a single reading of both book genres, with no significant differences between the genders. However, gender and genre interacted with girls less likely to learn new words at the expressive level from the informational books. Conclusions: Book genre seems to matter for preschoolers learning new vocabulary at the expressive level from shared reading, with girls at a possible disadvantage. Because of this, additional support, such as direct explanation of words, can be added when reading these books.