Young children's development of literacy and home literacy environments.

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine home literacy environments of kindergartners and first graders as well as the relationships between the environments and children's literacy development. Home literacy environments of 45 kindergartners and 40 first graders were compared through parents' retrospective answers to a survey. The kindergartners and first graders did not differ with regard to family background except with mothers' educational level. Parents seemed to provide different support for kindergartners and first graders based on their grade level but not based on their children's ability to read conventionally. Children also were active in creating their literacy environments. When children were divided into two groups based on their reading scores, parents of more advanced readers for both grades seemed to provide more support for their children than parents of less advanced readers. Home literacy environments correlated differently with kindergartners and first graders' reading and writing scores. Kindergartners who read well were more likely to be read to by a number of people and at an early age, have plentiful reading and writing materials, and have parents who listened to them read, enjoyed reading with them, and did not strongly believe in direct teaching. First graders who read well were more likely to have high levels of interest in literacy and parents who listened to them read frequently, asked appropriate questions often, and had high levels of education. Home literacy environments had different influences on children's literacy development. For kindergartners' reading, the significant predictors were fathers' educational level, frequency of writing at home, interest in literacy, and amount of reading to children. For kindergartners' writing, they were frequency of writing high-level forms, number of questions from parents, mothers' educational level, and interest in literacy. For first graders' reading, parental satisfaction, frequency of fathers' writing at home and of listening to children's reading were the positive predictors while frequency of teaching reading was the negative predictor. For their writing, frequency of writing words and stories at home, parental enjoyment of reading together, and parental satisfaction were the positive predictors, and frequency of teaching reading was the negative predictor.