| Summary: | This study explored relationships among parents' literacy beliefs, parents' selfreported
literacy behaviors, parent-child storybook interactions, and children's language
and literacy achievement. Trends in parent-child interactions and children's language and
literacy achievement were identified based on the grouping of parents' beliefs. The
sample for this study consisted of 35 parents and 38 children from diverse cultural
backgrounds and represented low SES to upper middle-class families involved in a larger
multiple literacies project.
Four instruments were used in the study. The Parents' Perception of Literacy
Learning Interview Schedule (PPLLIS) (Anderson, 1995a) was used to determine parents'
beliefs about early literacy. Children's achievement was measured by the Test of Early
Reading Ability-2 (TERA-2) (Reid, Hresko, & Hammill, 1989), the Kindergarten
Language Screening Test-2 (KLST-2) (Gauthier & Madison, 1998), and a letter
identification task (Clay, 1979a). Parent-child interactions were videotaped and coded
using a modified scaled developed by Shapiro, Anderson, and Anderson (1997). Partial
correlations, controlling for children's age in months, and Mests were used to determine
relationships in the data and to identify significant differences in scores on the PPLLIS
based on selected demographic factors. The description of parent-child interactions and
children's achievement was examined based on the grouping of parents' beliefs.
Findings from this study suggested that the more holistic were parents' beliefs, the
more parents focused on print in storybook interactions, and the higher was children's
language and literacy achievement. Parents' with more holistic beliefs were more likely
to engage in encouragement activities and less direct teaching of literacy. Types of
interactions that were more cognitively demanding (Haden, Reese, & Fivush, 1996)
related positively to children's achievement. Parents who were more educated had more
holistic beliefs. Trends in the descriptive data supported the statistical analysis.
Based on the results of this study, it can be inferred that parent-child interactions
in storybook reading are related to young children's literacy achievement in families from
diverse cultural backgrounds. It is necessary to understand parents' beliefs about literacy
to gain insight as to why parents interact with children in literacy events in particular
ways. This study provides a basis for understanding factors related to young children's
literacy achievement.
|
|---|
