Promoting Early Literacy by Shared Reading: The Example of the German Prateritum Use

The use of the German past tense Prateritum depends on literal language contexts. From an ontogenetic perspective this literal use demands protoliteral skills from preschool children acquiring German as their first language. It has often been argued, that picture books can promote these protoliteral skills as they provide children with Prateritum forms in an appropriate, i.E. literal context. The present contribution points out that even picture books that are accommodated to the children's tasks in the acquisition of the Prateritum use, cannot display their special potentials in situations of shared reading without the support of the adult reader. It is shown in how far readers could make use of the accommodated picture books to provide children with a specific input that can promote protoliteral skills in situations of shared reading.