Long-term and domain-specific relations between the early years home learning environment and students’ academic outcomes in secondary school

ABSTRACT

The present study examines the longitudinal and differential impact of different dimensions of the early years home learning environment (HLE) on children’s reading and mathematical competencies in secondary school, while taking early developmental outcomes and HLE during secondary school into account. During the preschool years, 554 three-year-old children were tested and have been followed up to the age of 13. The results show that book exposure and the quality of verbal interactions regarding mathematics both predicted mathematical outcomes in secondary school and that those effects were mediated through early language and arithmetic skills. Reading outcomes in secondary school were not directly predicted by early HLE but indirectly via early language and literacy skills. Path models reveal that the different dimensions of the early HLE were differentially associated with preschoolers’ early competencies. All effects remained significant when including the concurrent HLE during secondary school which predicted reading outcomes directly.

KEYWORDS:

• Home literacy environment
• home numeracy environment
• reading
• language
• mathematical competencies
• early childhood education

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to all participating children, their parents, and their teachers engaged in data collection for their most active cooperation.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Simone Lehrl is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Bamberg in Germany. Her research focuses on the concept of quality in children’s home learning and institutional environments and the (long-term) effects on children’s outcomes.

Susanne Ebert is a postdoctoral researcher at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway. Her research focuses on executive functioning, theory of mind, and language development.

Sabine Blaurock is a researcher at the University of Bamberg in Germany. Her research interests are educational activities inside and outside the family.

Hans-Günther Rossbach is professor of early childhood education at the University of Bamberg in Germany. His research focuses on early childhood education, especially on long-term effects of institutional education and care.

Sabine Weinert is professor of developmental psychology at the University of Bamberg in Germany. Her research focuses on developmental and educational psychology and specifically on the development of language, cognition, and learning including issues of developmental disorders, developmental diagnosis, promotion, and intervention.

ORCID

Simone Lehrl http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2720-122X

Susanne Ebert http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5320-5665

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by German Research Foundation (DFG) under Grant [FOR 543]. The study was conducted within two subprojects (grant to H.-G. Rossbach and S. Weinert) of the larger interdisciplinary research group BiKS.