The Home Environment and Asian Immigrant Children’s Early Literacy Skills

Objective. The current study examines how aspects of the home literacy environment were related to Asian immigrant children’s early literacy skills. Design. One hundred and thirty-nine Asian immigrant families and their children (69 girls; mean age = 62.93 months; standard deviation = 3.82) were recruited from kindergarten classrooms at seven public elementary schools in Honolulu, Hawai?i. Trained research assistants assessed children’s early literacy skills in English at the beginning (T1) and end of kindergarten (T2). Parents (16% fathers; 84% mothers) rated their involvement in literacy-related activities in English and in their native language at T1, and classroom teachers rated children’s interest in literacy at T2. Results. Our results showed that parents’ literacy activities in English at T1 were positively related to children’s English literacy skills at T1. Parents’ literacy activities in English and in their native language at T1 were both related to children’s interest in literacy at T2, which in turn was associated with children’s English oral language skills at T2. Conclusion. These findings highlight the importance of examining the languages immigrant parents use during literacy-related activities.     

The Home Literacy Environment Is a Correlate,but Perhaps Not a Cause,of Variations in Children’s Language and Literacy Development

The home literacy environment is a well-established predictor of children’s language and literacy development. We investigated whether formal, informal, and indirect measures of the home literacy environment predict children’s reading and language skills once maternal language abilities are taken into account. Data come from a longitudinal study of children at high risk of dyslexia (N = 251) followed from preschool years. Latent factors describing maternal language were significant predictors of storybook exposure but not of direct literacy instruction. Maternal language and phonological skills respectively predicted children’s language and reading/spelling skills. However, after accounting for variations in maternal language, storybook exposure was not a significant predictor of children’s outcomes. In contrast, direct literacy instruction remained a predictor of children’s reading/spelling skills. We argue that the relationship between early informal home literacy activities and children’s language and reading skills is largely accounted for by maternal skills and may reflect genetic influences.     

The Role of Parents in Adolescents’ Reading Motivation and Activity

Parent support for reading is one of the many elements that may play a role in the development and sustainment of children’s reading motivation; to date, however, research has focused much more on the role that parents play in their preschool and primary-grade children’s reading than in their older children’s reading. Thus, this paper examines the findings and methodology of empirical studies concerning the ways and extent to which parent support for reading relates to the reading motivations and habits of students in the fourth through 12th grades. The review includes discussion of extant quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method studies, theoretical models from the reading domain applicable to the socialization of reading practices, and extensive recommendations for future research. The dual purpose of this review is to present a sketch of the role of parents’ in adolescents’ reading motivation based on extant work and to encourage research that will help develop this sketch into a fuller portrait.     

Preschoolers’ Emergent Literacy Skills: The Mediating Role of Maternal Reading Beliefs

Research Findings: The purpose of this paper is to explore the association between maternal reading beliefs and children's emergent literacy outcomes in light of maternal education. Furthermore, I consider whether maternal reading beliefs may mediate the association between maternal education level and children's print knowledge and phonological awareness while classroom quality, maternal literacy practices, gender, and ethnicity are controlled. Data were collected from a socioeconomically diverse population of 92 mothers and their preschool children from 2 demographically different counties in a Mid-Atlantic state. Correlations among all measures were moderate and positive, with higher levels of maternal education associated with higher scores on a maternal beliefs measure and higher child scores on a print knowledge and phonological awareness measure. Maternal reading beliefs mediated the effects of maternal education level on children's print knowledge and phonological awareness. This pathway remained in the presence of the 4 covariates for print knowledge only. Practice or Policy: These findings have important implications for practitioners as they work to involve parents in students’ literacy development by creating parent training programs that not only integrate but also highlight and even shape maternal reading beliefs.     

Depression and Anxiety in the Postnatal Period: An Examination of Infants’ Home Language Environment,Vocalizations, and Expressive Language Abilities

This longitudinal study investigated the effects of maternal emotional health concerns, on infants’ home language environment, vocalization quantity, and expressive language skills. Mothers and their infants (at 6 and 12 months; 21 mothers with depression and or anxiety and 21 controls) provided day-long home-language recordings. Compared with controls, risk group recordings contained fewer mother–infant conversational turns and infant vocalizations, but daily number of adult word counts showed no group difference. Furthermore, conversational turns and infant vocalizations were stronger predictors of infants’ 18-month vocabulary size than depression and anxiety measures. However, anxiety levels moderated the effect of conversational turns on vocabulary size. These results suggest that variability in mothers’ emotional health influences infants’ language environment and later language ability.     

Turkish‐speaking First Graders in Norway Acquiring Second Language Vocabulary,Listening Comprehension and Literacy Skills

This study explored relationships between characteristics of classroom talk exposure and immigrant first graders' acquisition of second language oral skills (vocabulary and listening comprehension) and literacy skills. Twenty‐six children (mean age = 6.10 years) with Turkish as their first language and Norwegian as their second, attending various multilingual and ethnically diverse classrooms in Norway, were videotaped during classroom conversations. Classroom talk was coded for vocabulary richness, discursive complexity and emergent phonics talk and the children's oral language and literacy skills were assessed. Classroom vocabulary richness and discursive complexity predicted the children's second language vocabulary skills and listening comprehension after controlling for maternal education, but did not predict their literacy skills. The density of emergent phonics talk did not predict target children's code‐related skills in this sample. Applied perspectives related to second language learning in multiparty settings are discussed.     

Individual Differences in Fifth Graders’ Literacy and Academic Language Predict Comprehension Monitoring Development: An Eye-Movement Study

In this study, we investigated fifth graders’ (n = 52) fall literacy, academic language, and motivation and how these skills predicted fall and spring comprehension monitoring on an eye movement task. Comprehension monitoring was defined as the identification and repair of misunderstandings when reading text. In the eye movement task, children read two sentences; the second included either a plausible or implausible word in the context of the first sentence. Stronger readers had shorter reading times overall suggesting faster processing of text. Generally fifth graders reacted to the implausible word (i.e., longer gaze duration on the implausible vs. the plausible word, which reflects lexical access). Students with stronger academic language, compared to those with weaker academic language, generally spent more time rereading the implausible target compared to the plausible target. This difference increased from fall to spring. Results support the centrality of academic language for meaning integration, setting standards of coherence, and utilizing comprehension repair strategies.     

The Impact of Congruency Between Preferred and Actual Learning Environments on Tenth Graders’ Science Literacy in Taiwan

This study explored the effects of congruency between preferred and actual learning environment (PLE & ALE) perceptions on students’ science literacy in terms of science concepts, attitudes toward science, and the understanding of the nature of science in an innovative curriculum of High Scope Project, namely Sci-Tech Mind and Humane Heart (STMHH). A pre-/post-treatment experiment was conducted with 34 Taiwanese tenth graders involved in this study. Participating students’ preferred learning environment perception and pre-instruction scientific literacy were evaluated before the STMHH curriculum. Their perceptions toward the actual STMHH learning environment and post-instruction scientific literacy were also examined after the STMHH. Students were categorized into two groups; “preferred alignment with actual learning environment” (PAA) and “preferred discordant with actual learning environment” (PDA), according to their PLEI and ALEI scores. The results of this study revealed that most of the students in this study preferred learning in a classroom environment where student-centered and teacher-centered learning environments coexisted. Furthermore, the ANCOVA analysis showed marginally statistically significant difference between groups in terms of students’ post-test scores on scientific literacy with the students’ pre-test scores as the covariate. As a pilot study with a small sample size aiming to probe the research direction of this problem, the result of marginally statistically significant and approaching large sized effect magnitude is likely to implicate that the congruency between preferred and actual learning environments on students’ scientific literacy is noteworthy. Future study of this nature appears to merit further replications and investigations.     

The Impact of Differentiated Instruction on Students’ Reading Comprehension Attainment in Mixed-Ability Classrooms

Interchange - This explanatory sequential quasi-experimental study investigated the impact of differentiated instruction on reading comprehension attainment in mixed-ability classrooms. Fifty-four...     

The Effects of Grade Level and Reading Ability on Children’s Miscue Patterns

Abstract

This study investigated the miscue patterns of 120 high and low ability readers in Grades 2, 4, and 6. The subjects’ miscues were analyzed with the Qualitative Analysis System, yielding percentages for the following variables: (a) graphic similarity, (b) acceptability in context, and (c) contextually unacceptable miscues, self-corrected. Results revealed that the percentage of miscues acceptable in context increased as a function of both grade level and reading ability. In addition, there were statistically significant grade X ability interactions for the other two miscue variables. It was concluded that both grade level and reading ability should be taken into consideration when interpreting children’s miscue patterns. The instructional implications of these findings are discussed.     

The Role of Students’ Home Language in Science Achievement: A multilevel approach

The present study aimed to identify the role of both student- and school-level characteristics in primary school students’ achievement in the science curriculum. As societies become more culturally and linguistically diverse, many students enter the classroom with a home language that is different from the language of instruction used at school. This study takes into account both the home language and literacy in the language of instruction in relation to student achievement in science subjects. Questionnaires, reading performance tests, and science achievement tests were administered to 1,761 fourth-grade students from 67 schools across Flanders (Belgium). Multilevel hierarchical regression analyses show that the home language and literacy in the language of instruction play an important role in science achievement at the student level, next to gender and socioeconomic status. Students with a home language that is different from the language of instruction experience difficulties with science subjects. Moreover, the higher students’ performance on reading comprehension and self-assessed proficiency in the language of instruction, the higher their score on science achievement tests. At the school level, a school's teachability expectations are one of the key factors related to students’ science achievement. Limitations of this study and future directions for research are discussed.     

Long-Term Relations Between Children’s Language,the Home Literacy Environment,and Socioemotional Development From Ages 3 to 8

Research Findings: This study investigated the long-term interrelations among children’s language competencies, their home literacy environment (HLE), and 3 aspects of socioemotional development from ages 3 to 8, controlling for characteristics of the child and family. For this sample of 547 typically developing German children, parents and teachers reported on cooperative behavior, physical aggression, and emotional self-regulation. Language was assessed using established test instruments. HLE was operationalized by the number of books in the household, the frequency of shared book reading, and an observation during shared book reading. Path analyses supported effects of language and HLE at age 3 on all 3 indicators of socioemotional development over the 5-year period. An additional mediational analysis revealed different patterns of results depending on the aspect of socioemotional competency under study. Although the effect of early language and HLE at age 3 on cooperative and (low) aggressive behavior at age 8 was partially mediated by language at age 5, children’s early language at age 3 was the best predictor of the development of emotional self-regulation. Practice or Policy: Findings identify a rich HLE and proper language skills as protective factors for socioemotional development in not-at-risk children; these factors should be further established in social skills training.     

The Relationship of Self-Concept and Reading Achievement in First Grade Children’

Abstract

This investigation of 133 first grade Ss (25 percent Ilispano-75 percent Anglo and 50 percent male-50 percent female), found no significant correlations between objective scores of young children’s self-concept (SC) and their first or second grade reading achievement (RA). Moreover, SC correlations with other predictor variables, ethnic background (E), intelligence (IQ), and reading readiness (RR), were essentially zero. Only IQ, RR, and E were related to RA in a highly significant manner. At this age, RA, and possibly school in general, may not greatly influence the SC. Future investigation might profitably examine the change of SC as a function of age, mood, and stress.     

The Efficacy of Multimedia Stories in Preschoolers’ Explicit and Implicit Story Comprehension

Oral language provides a foundation for reading comprehension. Story comprehension is a fundamental oral language skill; it covers making inferences, identifying main ideas, monitoring, perspective-taking, and applying working memory capacity. Complex reasoning and perspective-taking are key factors in deep reading comprehension. Preliterate children’s deeper story comprehension skills can be initial indicators of their later reading comprehension. Thus, the purpose of this research is to investigate preliterate preschool children’s story comprehension skills in detail. This study focuses on the additional multimedia features of digital storybooks and whether they hinder or promote young children’s explicit and implicit comprehension in a small group reading activity. The findings revealed that (a) children in the multimedia-enhanced storybook group outperformed the print storybook group in terms of both explicit and implicit story comprehension, (b) explicit story comprehension was higher than implicit story comprehension for both groups, and (c) the children recalled significantly more story elements and the length of the story retellings was greater with the aid of animated illustrations. The findings indicate that a digital storybook provides close temporal contiguity of text and visuals and may enhance story understanding by concretizing the narration. The study provides evidence that multimedia stories can foster children’s implicit story comprehension and inferential thinking about the content of the story.     

The Role of Universities in a Multi‐Ethnic,Multicultural Environment‐‐Strategies and Implementation Mechanisms

International universities have a responsibility to provide students in a multi‐ethnic, multicultural environment with appropriate education. Bringing about understanding, tolerance, and liberal education to students of such backgrounds requires a common language of instruction, a good orientation, a liberal curriculum, special settings, and wise guidance. The experience of the Lebanese American University in this respect is cited as a unique example because of the nature of the institution and the uniqueness of Lebanon as a country with a long history of integration. The citizens of the Twenty‐First Century will need to learn how to deal with issues of diversity, of co‐habitation of different cultures, and of tolerance in order to fit into a global society.     

Fathers’ Role in Play: Enhancing Early Language and Literacy of Children with Developmental Delays

Fathers and paternal role models make a unique contribution to children’s development. There is some research to suggest that the types of play males engage in with children is typically more active and thus offers unique possibilities for embedding activities for language and literacy development. In this article, we offer suggestions for how preschool special education teachers can assist fathers and paternal role models as they work and play to enhance the language and literacy skills of their children through reading activities, dramatic play, and pretend or free play.     

The Role of Child Interests and Collaborative Parent–Child Interactions in Fostering Numeracy and Literacy Development in Canadian Homes

Children’s involvement in home literacy and numeracy activities has been linked to school achievement, but the subtleties in the home environment responsible for these gains have yet to be thoroughly investigated. The purpose of this study was to determine how children’s interests and collaborative parent–child interactions affect exposure to home literacy and numeracy activities. Parents of 170 four-to-five year old children completed a survey about their child’s home learning environment. They rated their children’s interests in 14 activities, and the extent of parent–child collaboration on a cooking and card-making task. Follow up interviews were also initiated with four mothers to provide validation of the survey data in numeracy. Factor analyses reduced the number of survey items. Parents whose children preferred exploratory, active or crafts activities reported frequent engagement in literacy and numeracy activities. Parents seeking a collaborative approach during activities reported increased exposure to home literacy and numeracy activities than families with less collaborative involvement. Interview data confirmed that parents of children with high numeracy scores were exposing their children to rich numeracy activities during play. The findings suggest that children’s interests and collaborative parent–child involvement impact literacy and numeracy exposure in the home.     

Distinct Influences of Mothers and Fathers on Kindergartners’ Numeracy Performance: The Role of Math Anxiety,Home Numeracy Practices,and Numeracy Expectations

The current study analyzed maternal and paternal differential influences on numeracy performance in kindergarten children. Participants were 180 Chilean children from backgrounds of low and high socioeconomic status (SES), their mothers, and their fathers. A path analysis was used to explore the influences of both maternal and paternal numeracy practices on children’s numeracy performance and the influences of maternal and paternal expectations and anxiety on those activities. Research Findings: Results showed that mothers and fathers who endorse higher numeracy expectations for their children and who report lower levels of math anxiety also report engaging more frequently in advanced numeracy practices with their children. Mothers’—but not fathers’—engagement in numeracy practices at home predicted children’s numeracy performance. Also, low-SES mothers engaged more frequently in numeracy practices with their children, and mothers in general engaged more often in numeracy activities with girls than with boys. Practice or Policy: These findings improve understanding of how maternal and paternal processes relate differently to numeracy performance in kindergarten children. Moreover, these results highlight the need to take into account parents’ numeracy attitudes and practices, as well as their SES, when designing interventions directed at increasing family support for math achievement.