The influence of home factors on young children's literacy knowledge

Abstract

This study investigates how factors related to the home environment and home background influence children in acquiring specific literacy knowledge. The home environment sought to obtain information about literacy material literacy practices, literacy models, parental assistance in literacy activities and child's knowledge and awareness about environmental print. The home background sought to obtain information about the parents' educational level, their occupational status and family size. Information about the home environment and background was obtained through a questionnaire distributed among forty-one parents whose children had an average age of 4 years 3 months. Six sections related to the daily literacy routines and family background were adopted from previous research to allow for correlations between the home environment questionnaire and children's literacy knowledge. Semi-structured interviews with ten of these parents were held to obtain further information of these daily literacy routines. Informal literacy tests were conducted with children to determine their literacy knowledge related to letter recognition, book and code knowledge and an understanding of the functions and purposes of literacy. The home interviews and children's performance in these literacy tests highlighted differences occurring in home environments of children who succeeded in the literacy tests and others who did not. Results indicated a moderate statistically correlation between two of the six questionnaire sections and children's performance in the literacy tests.