The home literacy model in a highly transparent orthography

ABSTRACT

We investigated the extent to which home literacy activities during the preschool year would predict the development of children’s language and literacy skills in primary school, in a highly transparent Finnish language. Also, the correlates of maternal literacy activities during preschool were examined. Literacy and language skills of 1,880 children (6-year-olds at the baseline) were tested at 5 time points from the beginning of preschool to the end of Year 2; mothers filled in questionnaires at the end of preschool. The results showed that home teaching of reading at preschool age predicted children’s emergent literacy (letter knowledge, word reading fluency) in primary school, while shared reading predicted oral language skills (vocabulary, listening comprehension). Moreover, early letter knowledge was related to both the maternal teaching of reading and shared reading, while maternal beliefs and expectations about their children’s schooling and competence were associated with more frequent engagement in the teaching of reading.

KEYWORDS:

• Home literacy
• teaching of reading
• shared reading
• parental beliefs
• literacy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Gintautas Silinskas, PhD, is a docent at the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. He is interested in the role of parents and teachers in children’s and adolescents’ developmental outcomes (learning, motivation, and adjustment).

Minna Torppa is an Associate Professor at the Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland. She is interested in reading and math development and learning difficulties. She focuses on longitudinal studies spanning from birth to adulthood and has examined the risk and protective factors in skill development, including cognitive development, motivation, home environment, and intergenerational transmission of learning difficulties. In addition, she examines the developmental mechanisms linking learning difficulties and well-being problems.

Marja-Kristiina Lerkkanen is Professor of Education at the Department of Teacher Education, University of Jyväskylä, Finland, and Visiting Professor of Educational Psychology, University of Stavanger, Norway. She is interested in developmental trajectories of young children’s reading and math skills and the effects of motivation, teacher–student interaction, and teacher–parents partnership on child’s learning. She is involved in interventions for supporting literacy skills development and teacher interventions supporting teacher–child interaction, motivation, and engagement in early year’s classrooms in Finland and several EU and African countries. She has developed and published a number of research-based tools for teachers in literacy learning.

Jari-Erik Nurmi (in memoriam) was a Professor and the head of the Department of Psychology, University of Jyväskylä, Finland.

Additional information

Funding

This study has been financed by the Academy of Finland under grant number [296082].