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The Relationship between Home Literacy Practices and Developmental Trajectories of Emergent Literacy and Conventional Literacy Skills for Korean Children
Young-Suk Kim
Florida State University & Florida Center for Reading Research
In press in Reading and Writing: An interdisciplinary Journal.
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Abstract
Previous studies with English-speaking families in the North American context
demonstrated that home literacy practices have positive influences on children’s literacy
acquisition. The present study expands previous studies by examining how home literacy
practices are related to growth trajectories of emergent literacy skills (i.e., vocabulary,
letter-name knowledge, and phonological awareness) and conventional literacy skills (i.e.,
word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling), and by using data from Korean children
and families (N = 192). The study revealed two dimensions of home literacy practices,
home reading and parent teaching. Frequent reading at home was positively associated with
children’s emergent literacy skills as well as conventional literacy skills in Korean.
However, children whose parents reported more frequent teaching tended to have low
scores in their phonological awareness, vocabulary, word reading and pseudoword reading
after accounting for home reading. These results suggest a bidirectional relationship
between home literacy practices, parent teaching in particular, and children’s literacy skills
such that parents adjust their teaching in response to their child’s literacy acquisition.
Furthermore, cultural variation in views on parent teaching may explain these results.
Word Count: 178
Key words: Emergent literacy skills, Home literacy practices, Korean, Literacy
development, Preschool
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Introduction
Numerous studies have established the importance of language skills (e.g.,
vocabulary), metalinguistic skills (e.g., phonological awareness), and emergent literacy
skills (e.g., letter-name knowledge) to children’s literacy acquisition (Adams, 1990; Hart &
Risley, 1995; Snow, Burns, & Griffin, 1998; Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). One of the
important sources of developing these skills is language and literacy environment at home.
The home provides the earliest learning environment for developing vocabulary (Hart &
Risley, 1995) and providing exposure to print and letters (Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998).
Thus, understanding how the home literacy environment contributes to the development of
important language and emergent literacy skills is critical in promoting successful literacy
acquisition as well as preventing reading failure.
One of the home literacy activities that has received much theoretical and empirical
attention is parental story book reading to children (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Ewers &
Brownson, 1999; Jordan, Snow, & Porche, 2000; Sénéchal, LeFevre, Hudson, & Lawson,
1996; Sénéchal, LeFevre, Thomas, & Daley, 1998; Sénéchal, 2006a). Despite its proven
positive effect on children’s language and literacy skills, however, its effect has shown to
be modest (Bus, van IJzendoorn, & Pellegrini, 1995). Thus, it has been suggested that, in
addition to book reading, overall home literacy orientation should be examined in order to
account for the influence of other literacy related activities in the home on children’s
language and literacy skills achievement. For instance, Sénéchal and her colleagues (1998)
investigated how parent book reading and parent teaching are differentially related to
children’s oral and written language skills.
These previous studies have provided us with a fairly good understanding of how
home literacy practices contribute to children’s language skills and literacy acquisition.
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However, little is understood about how home literacy practices are related to
developmental trajectories of children’s language and emergent literacy skills as well as
conventional literacy skills. Furthermore, our understanding of these relationships is
limited to the linguistic and cultural contexts in North America. The present study fills this
gap in the literature by using a longitudinal design with four waves of data on Korean-
speaking children and their families. This study expands on previous studies in two ways:
(1) it investigated the relationship of home literacy practices to growth trajectories of
important language and emergent literacy skills – vocabulary, letter name knowledge, and
phonological awareness – and three conventional literacy skills – word reading,
pseudoword reading, and spelling; and (2) it examined a non-English speaking population,
using data from Korean-speaking families. In this paper, vocabulary, phonological
awareness, and letter-name knowledge are referred as emergent literacy skills for
parsimony although theoretically they are distinctive skills (see Snow, 1983; Whitehurst,
Epstein, Angell, Payne, Crone, & Fischel, 1994).
Background and Context
Much evidence indicates that children’s exposure to literacy-related activities at
home is important for children’s literacy acquisition (Bus et al., 1995; Dickinson & Tabors,
2001; Scarborough & Dobrich, 1994; Scarborough, Dorich, & Hager, 2001). The
relationship between literacy practices at home and children’s literacy acquisition is
mediated by several important emergent literacy skills – phonological awareness,
vocabulary, and letter-name knowledge (Whitehurst et al., 1994; Sénéchal, 2006a;
Sénéchal et al., 1998). In particular, it is argued that phonological awareness, which is
enhanced through children’s vocabulary knowledge and letter-name knowledge, mediates
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the relationship between home literacy practices and literacy development (Foy & Mann,
2003). Studies provide some support for this hypothesis. First, language and literacy
environments at home influence development of children’s phonological awareness
(Burgess, 2002; Raz & Bryant, 1990; Sénéchal et al, 1998). Second, it has been
hypothesized that children’s vocabulary growth is responsible for children’s growth in
phonological representations. Thus, children who have a rich language environment
(through oral input or book reading) in preschool and at home are expected to develop
vocabulary, which in turn stimulates growth in phonological representations (Metsala &
Walley, 1998; Walley, Metsala, & Garlock, 2003). Indeed, studies with English-speaking
children have shown that children with larger vocabularies tended to have more highly
developed phonological awareness (Burgess & Lonigan 1998; Lonigan, Burgess, &
Anthony, 2000; McBride-Chang, Wagner, & Chang, 1997; Metsala, 1999).
It is also postulated that children’s development of phonological awareness can be
triggered by their exposure to print and literacy acquisition (Morais, Cary, Alegria, &
Bertelson, 1979; Morais, 1993; Tunmer & Hoover, 1992) such as letter-name knowledge.
Tunmer and Hoover (1992) suggested that in order for children to develop phonological
awareness, they must be exposed to certain language and print activities – rhyming and
sound analysis games, letter games, and shared reading interactions – that focus their
attention on the structural features of language. Exposure to print (through book reading)
and letter names provides children with an opportunity to connect spoken language to
printed words, promoting children’s sensitivity to individual sounds. In particular,
children’s knowledge of letter names may be critical for the development of phoneme
awareness (Bowey, 1994; Burgess, 2002; Burgess & Lonigan, 1998; Foulin, 2005;
Johnston, Anderson, & Holligan, 1996), and some suggested a reciprocal relationship
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between letter-name knowledge and phoneme awareness (Burgess & Lonigan, 1998; Foy
& Mann, 2003).
Although previous studies have revealed much information about precise
mechanisms for the relationship between home literacy practices and literacy development
(for example, Foy & Mann, 2003; Sénéchal et al., 1998; Sénéchal, 2006a), these studies
have been limited to cross-sectional examinations or prediction of changes from two data
points using longitudinal data. For example, the Home-School Study followed 83 English-
speaking low-income children longitudinally from 3 years old until their elementary school
years (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001). The Home-School Study showed that children’s home
language and literacy environment prior to school entry was strongly associated with their
literacy skills in kindergarten. Specifically, children’s vocabulary, emergent literacy skills
(e.g., writing concepts, letter recognition, print concepts, and sounds in words), and
narrative production were predicted by their exposure to rare words, extended discourse,
and literacy experiences at home and at preschool. Furthermore, Sénéchal (2006a) showed
that the two aspects of home literacy practices, parent teaching and home reading, in
kindergarten and grade one were related to different aspects of literacy skills in grade four,
respectively. Although informative, these longitudinal studies investigated how earlier
home language and literacy environment is related to children’s later literacy outcomes,
thus not examining how individual differences in home language and literacy environment
are related to initial/final level and rate of growth of various emergent literacy and
conventional literacy skills over time.
Furthermore, it is an open question to what extent these previous findings with
primarily English-speaking children and their families can be generalized to different
linguistic and cultural contexts. Some evidence from studies conducted with parents
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speaking a non-English language suggests cultural/linguistic variation in the frequency and
type of parent–child literacy activities (Bruck, Genesee, & Caravolas, 1997; LeFevre,
Clarke, & Stringer, 2002; Leseman & de Jong, 1998) as well as parent beliefs and
expectations about academic skills (Stevenson, Lee, Chen, Stigler, Hsu, & Kitamaura,
1990). For example, French-speaking parents in Canada tended to read to and teach their
children less frequently than English-speaking parents (LeFevre et al., 2002). Furthermore,
different interactional styles were observed during parent-child joint book reading among
immigrants from different linguistic and cultural backgrounds in the Netherlands (Leseman
& de Jong, 1998).
It is important to consider cultural variation in literacy-related activities at home in
the investigation of children’s literacy development because children’s home environment
is embedded in a larger social and cultural context (Leseman & de Jong, 1998). Social
beliefs, values, and attitudes determine many aspects of daily life, including differences in
interactional styles, characteristics of interpersonal instruction, and guidance by the parents
(Rogoff, 1990; Rogoff, Mistry, Gőncű, & Moiser, 1993). Furthermore, literacy events are
culture specific (Scollon & Scollon, 1981) such that variation in the types of home literacy
activities across cultural contexts is largely influenced by prevailing child-rearing beliefs
and literacy models. Therefore, aspects of previous findings from North America may
reflect particular cultural practices and beliefs in that region and may not extend to a
different cultural context. Thus, it is necessary to extend our understanding about the
relationship of home literacy practices to children’s emergent literacy and conventional
literacy skills in a linguistic/cultural context other than English-speaking families in North
America.
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Data from Korean-speaking families may offer unique insights into the relationship
of home literacy practices to emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills because of
some distinct linguistic characteristics of the Korean language and the cultural context of
Korea that differ from previously studied ones. The Korean language has an alphabetic
writing system, called Hangul, and its orthography is transparent. Furthermore, the
phonotactic and phonological structures of the Korean language is such that Korean-
speaking children tend to organize a syllable into body and coda units (e.g., segmenting cat
into ca-t) compared to English-speaking children’s tendency to organize a syllable into
onset and rime (e.g., segmenting cat into c-at) (Kim, Y.-S., 2007a; Yoon & Derwing, 2001).
The Korean letter names have highly consistent phonological patterning (i.e., the names
have CVVC patterns) and a transparent relationship with letter sounds, potentially
providing children with easy access and clear cues for inducing letter-sound relationships.
Culturally, the modern Korean society is highly influenced by Confucian thoughts
and values in many aspects of daily life (Chung, 1995). Because Confucian institution was
the primary locus for educating the elite group in the traditional Korean society and
education is viewed as the key pathway for social mobility in modern Korea, education has
been highly regarded in Korea. In particular, early childhood education has received much
attention in recent years and almost 95 percent of children receive some type of early
childhood education before formal schooling (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and
Development, 2004). Furthermore, according to the Confucian philosophy, teachers are
highly respected. Korean parents tend to believe that schools and teachers are primarily
responsible for children’s learning process and literacy acquisition (Kim, M. & Kwon,
2002) and teachers are the authorities in all matters related to the education of children
(Yang & McMullen, 2003). For example, Korean parents of primary school children in
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America tended to accept the teachers' opinions regarding their child’s academic or
classroom behavior issues without openly questioning them (Yang & McMullen, 2003).
In Korea literacy instruction usually begins in preschool and children are expected
to have acquired fundamental literacy skills before entering elementary school
(kindergarten is not part of formal education). The predominant approach to early literacy
instruction in Korea is whole language or whole word instruction in which a whole word is
presented to children as a unit (Kim, Y.-S., 2007a). The researcher’s informal observations
and consultation with teachers and directors of the preschools that participated in the
present research study confirmed this. No explicit and systematic instruction of the
alphabetic principle (phonics or phonological awareness) was observed in the classrooms
of the participating preschools.
Present Study
Building on previous studies with English-speaking children, this study investigated
how home literacy practices are related to developmental trajectories (i.e., children’s status
at the end of the study and rate of growth) of emergent literacy skills (i.e., vocabulary,
letter-name knowledge, and phonological awareness) and conventional literacy skills (i.e.,
word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling), using longitudinal data on Korean
children. The following questions guided this study.
Research Question 1. Do Korean children who are exposed to more frequent literacy
activities at home tend to have a higher final status and faster rate of change in their
emergent literacy skills such as vocabulary, letter-name knowledge, and phonological
awareness?
Research Question 2. Do Korean children who are exposed to more frequent literacy
activities at home tend to have a higher final status and faster rate of change in their
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conventional literacy skills (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling)? If so,
are Korean children’s home literacy environments positively related to the growth
trajectories of their conventional literacy skills even after accounting for the effects of
emergent literacy skills?
Research Design
Sites and Sample
Data were collected from five preschools in two metropolitan cities in South Korea,
two preschools in Seoul and three preschools in Daegu. The total sample was 215 four- and
five-year old children from low to low-mid socioeconomic family backgrounds1. In the
present article data from 192 children who had provided information on home literacy
practices were used. Among the 192 children, 110 children participated in the study from
the first wave of data collection and 82 children joined in the second wave. Teachers at
each site reported no hearing or visual difficulties for the sampled children. Table 1
displays the sample children’s average age and gender distribution at each wave. At first
wave, children were approximately 56 months old (ranging from 50 to 64 months), on
average, and 55% were boys. The overall attrition rate for the larger sample (N = 215) was
34% and attrition appears to be random (see Appendix A). The evident attrition was due
primarily to school transfers that took place during the change in academic year that
occurred between the third and fourth wave of data collection. Some children continued in
their existing preschool for a second year, while others transferred to another preschool or a
kindergarten.
<Insert Table 1 here>
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Procedures
Data were collected four times, each in the beginning, middle, end of the first year
of preschool, and three months into the second year of preschool. Because identical
instruments were administered for emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills in all
the four waves of data collection, the order of items and the order of options within items
were randomized on each occasion of measurement to minimize practice effects (the
exceptions were in the vocabulary and spelling measures). The assessment battery was
individually administered to each child in a quiet room in two sessions, each taking
approximately 30-35 minutes. The spelling task was group-administered. The home
literacy practices were measured on a single occasion (see below).
Measures
Because there were no standardized instruments that measure language and literacy
skills in Korean, instruments were developed and piloted with children of similar
background and age. The instruments include age-appropriate measures of emergent
literacy and conventional literacy measures. The internal-consistency reliability for each
measure was estimated by Cronbach’s alpha. Table 1 displays descriptive statistics for
each measure in the study.
Outcomes
Outcome measures included emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills in
Korean. In the first research question the emergent literacy skills were outcome variables.
In the second research question, conventional literacy skills were outcomes, while
emergent literacy skills were control predictors. All these variables were time-varying in
the analysis.
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Emergent Literacy Skills
Phonological awareness. Four oddity tasks were used to measure syllable, body,
rime, and phoneme awareness, respectively. Evidence indicates that Korean-speaking
children find the body (e.g., segmenting cat into ca-t) to be more accessible than the rime
(e.g., segmenting cat into c-at) (Kim, Y.-S., 2007a, 2007b; Yoon & Derwing, 2001).
Therefore, in this study both body awareness and rime awareness tasks were included. In
these tasks, children were asked to select odd words (words that have different sounds) in
the target phonological unit from among three words (see Kim, Y.-S., 2007b, for more
details about oddity tasks). For example, in the body awareness task, a child was asked to
select one word that has a different sound in the body unit among three words (e.g., /kaŋ/,
/kam/, /tul/). In order to reduce memory burden, corresponding pictures were presented
with each word. All the words in the oddity tasks were common Korean words that
students encounter in everyday interactions. Directions for the phonological awareness
tasks were presented orally. Children were asked to repeat each stimulus word to ensure
their correct perception of items. Each task had two practice items and 15 test items. The
students received feedback and explanations on their responses for the practice items. For
the first two test items, correct answers were provided without feedback. Each item was
scored dichotomously (i.e., right or wrong) to provide a total maximum score of 15 in each
task. The Cronbach’s alpha was estimated to be .90 for syllable awareness, .85 for rime
awareness, .89 for body awareness, and .87 for phoneme awareness, respectively.
Principal components analysis yielded clear one component for the four oddity
tasks in waves 1, 3, and 4, and two components in wave 2. Thus, the total score of
phonological awareness tasks (total maximum score = 60) was created for each wave and
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used in the analysis. Means and standard deviations of total scores are displayed for each
wave in Table 1. In fitting multilevel models for change, these phonological awareness
scores were logit-transformed (for more information see the description for conventional
literacy skills below).
Receptive vocabulary. The receptive vocabulary measure, the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R, Dunn & Dunn, 1981), was modified to suit the Korean
context based on the researcher’s pilot work. The instrument contains 66 vocabulary words
of increasing difficulty. The Cronbach’s alpha was .90. As Table 1 presents, children’s
average vocabulary increased over time steadily from 34 words in the first wave to 48
words in the last wave.
Letter-name knowledge. This measure contains 40 Korean letters (10 simple and
11 complex vowels, and 19 consonants) that are arranged in a random order. Children
were asked to say the name of each letter. The Cronbach’s alpha was .96. As Table 1
displays, children knew approximately 12 letter names in the beginning of the first year of
preschool, on average, which increased to 25 letter names approximately three months into
the second year of preschool. Exploratory analysis showed that there were a few children
whose letter-name knowledge was approaching a ceiling at the first wave. Therefore,
children’s scores on the letter-name knowledge task were also logit-transformed (see the
equation below).
Conventional Literacy Skills
Word recognition. This task measures children’s ability to read real words in
Korean. The measure contains 60 high frequency real words2 of increasing difficulty with
two practice items. The child is asked to read aloud each of the words. Each item was
scored dichotomously to provide a total maximum score of 60. Cronbach’s alpha was .98.
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Table 1 shows that children read about 12 words accurately at first wave, on average, with
large variation around the mean (SD = 18.14).
Pseudoword reading. This task measures children’s decoding skills. Fifty
pseudowords of increasing difficulty were created based on Korean phonotactic rules (rules
of allowable sound sequences). Children were told that the words in this task were not real.
It had two practice items. Each item was scored dichotomously to provide a total maximum
score of 50. Cronbach’s alpha was .98. As shown in Table 1, at first wave children were
able to read about five pseudowords correctly, on average, with large variation around the
mean (SD = 10.88).
Spelling. This task assesses child’s ability to spell words (encode sounds
graphically). It includes 16 real words and 4 pseudowords. Each item was scored
dichotomously to provide a total maximum score of 20. Cronbach’s alpha was .73. As
expected, spelling was difficult for children of this age such that there was a floor effect,
particularly at first wave (M = 1.09, SD = 2.28). Sixty-three percent of the children (n = 69)
scored zero at first wave.
Exploratory analysis to examine empirical growth trajectories of the sample
children over time suggested that there were a few children who approached the maximum
possible score in word reading even in the first wave, while many children floored at zero
in the pseudoword reading and spelling tasks at this wave. Therefore, the conventional
literacy skills outcomes were logit-transformed before fitting multilevel models for change
in order to prevent children’s predicted scores from lying outside their allowed minima and
maxima (see equations in Appendix C for example).
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Primary Question Predictors
Family literacy practices. A parental survey was developed, based on previous
studies in English, which contained questions on family literacy practices. This
questionnaire was distributed, on a single occasion, to parents just before the third wave of
data collection, approximately 10 months into the first year of preschool. Nine items were
used as indicators of family literacy practices (see Appendix B). These questions asked
parents to report how often they engaged in selected literacy practices, including (1) how
often they teach Hangul, the Korean alphabet/literacy, to their child, (2) how many
children’s books they own at home, (3) how often family members read books and
magazines, (4) how often family members read books with their children, (5) how often
family members read books to the child, (6) how often their child reads books at home, (7)
how many books (including picture books) their child reads on their own, (8) how often
they help their child with homework, and (9) how often they visit either a library or a
bookstore with their child. All the items were rated on a scale from 1 (e.g., not done at
home) to 5 (e.g., every day) except for one question which had a scale from 1 to 6
(question 6; see Table 2). Cronbach’s alpha was .79.
Table 2 shows that parents in the sample taught their children about Korean
alphabet letters and literacy once a week, on average, and helped their child with
homework, about three to four times a week. Families in the study owned an average of 60
to 100 children’s books, the number of books being distributed almost uniformly. Family
members read books with, and to, their child about once a week while they visited a library
or bookstore approximately once a month. Parents estimated that their child read about five
books (including picture books) per week, on average.
<Insert Table 2 about here>
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In order to find out how these nine indicators of home literacy practices were
interrelated, principal components analysis and cluster analysis of items were conducted,
which yielded two components: home reading and parent teaching. In the present study,
results from cluster analyses were used (variance explained = .50). The teaching
component included the frequency of parents’ teaching Hangul and helping with
homework while the home reading component included the rest. Thus, these two
components were included in subsequent analyses to describe home literacy practices and
these two composites were standardized (M = 0, SD = 1). These two components were
positively correlated (r = .32, p < .001).
Age. The child’s age in months was used as a time variable. This was centered at
77 months, the oldest age of any child in the final wave. Thus, the intercept was predicted
children’s performance at the final wave.
Control Variables
Parental education. Parents’ highest level of education was included because it
has been shown to be highly correlated with children’s literacy development for English-
speaking children (e.g., Bryant, MacLean, Bradley, & Crossland, 1990), for Korean-
speaking children (Kim, Y.-S., 2007a), and with book reading quality (Leseman & de Jong,
1998). Either parent’s highest level of education was classified in the following categories:
middle school education (6%), high school education (47%), junior college education
(31%), four-year college education (14%), and graduate level (3%). In the analysis,
parental education was represented by a set of dummies (high school completion was
omitted to provide the reference category).
Male. The child’s gender was represented by a dichotomous predictor that
indicated whether the child was male (1 = male; 0 = female).
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Cohort status. Because 110 children participated in the study in the first wave
while 82 children joined the study in the second wave, in all of the researcher’s analyses a
dichotomous control predictor was included to distinguish between the two cohorts (1 =
child participated from the first wave onwards; 0 = otherwise).
Preschool. A vector of dichotomous predictors was included to represent the fixed
effects of attendance at each of the five different preschools, in order to control for all
observed and unobserved differences in outcome due to site (Preschool A was omitted to
provide the reference category).
Data Analysis
Analyses were conducted by fitting multilevel models for change (Singer & Willett,
2003), using SAS PROC MIXED. Residuals were examined to confirm that the usual
linearity, normality, and homoscedasticity assumptions were adequately met at both level-1
and level-2.
In order to address the first research question, the following model was fitted for the
letter-name knowledge outcome, for example.
where ⎟⎟⎠
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⎡2110
0120
1
02 ,00
~),0(~σσσσ
ζζ
σε ε NandNi
iij
Notice that, in taking logits of Y, both the numerator and denominator “started” within the
logarithmic transformation to avoid infinities, by adding one sixth (1/6) in each case, as
recommended by Tukey (1977). The relationship between home literacy practices and
growth trajectories of each outcome was examined by the main effect of home reading and
( )ijijii
iji
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idaii
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ij
ijAge
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AgeadingHomeeschool
ationParentEducMaleCohort
hingParentTeacadingHomeAge
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+++
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18
parent teaching as well as their interactions with the time variable, Age. Specifically, the
growth parameters, 01γ and 02γ , represent differences in elevation in the letter-name
knowledge outcome for those who differ by one unit in time-invariant home reading and
parent teaching. The interaction terms between the time variable, Age, and home literacy
practices, 11γ and 12γ , examined whether the rate of change in the outcome differed by the
level of home reading or parent teaching. None of the interactions between home literacy
practice predictors (as well as control variables) and Age were statistically significant, thus
not retained in the final model. The level-1 residual, ijε , represents the portion of child i’s
outcome at age j that is not predicted by predictors in the model. The level-2 residuals, ζ0i
and ζ1i, represent the deviations of the individual growth parameters from their population
averages (final status and rate of change, respectively). Model specifications for the second
research questions are found in Appendix B.
Results
Research Question 1. Do Korean children who are exposed to more frequent literacy
activities at home tend to have a higher final status and faster rate of change in their
emergent literacy skills such as vocabulary, letter-name knowledge, and phonological
awareness?
Table 3 presents a taxonomy of fitted multilevel models for each emergent literacy
outcome (i.e., vocabulary, letter-name knowledge, and phonological awareness), predicted
by home reading and parent teaching after accounting for the effects of control variables.
The results showed that the reported frequencies of home reading and parent teaching were
indeed related to the final status of children’s emergent literacy skills. However, the
direction of the relationships differed for home reading and parent teaching. The frequency
19
of home reading was positively related to final status of all the three emergent literacy
skills (Models 1 for each outcome, ps < .05), indicating that children who were engaged in
reading activities at home more frequently had higher average scores at the end of the study
in their phonological awareness, letter-name knowledge, and vocabulary. The results
remained unchanged whether or not parent teaching was controlled for (see Models 1 and
3). In contrast, parent teaching was not related to any of the emergent literacy skills (see
Models 2), after controlling for background variables. However, when frequency of home
reading was controlled for (Models 3), the frequency of parent teaching was negatively
related to children’s final status in phonological awareness (p = 0.0005) and vocabulary (p
= 0.02) such that more frequent parent teaching was associated with lower scores at the end
of the study in phonological awareness and vocabulary. The rate of change in the three
emergent literacy outcomes did not differ as a function of the level of home reading and
parent teaching – interactions between age and home reading and parent teaching were not
statistically significant.
<Insert Table 3 about here>
Research Question 2. Do Korean children who are exposed to more frequent literacy
activities at home tend to have a higher final status and faster rate of change in their
conventional literacy skills (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling)? If so, is
Korean children’s home literacy environment positively related to the growth trajectories
of their conventional literacy skills even after accounting for the effects of the emergent
literacy skills?
The second question of interest is whether the two dimensions of home literacy
practices are positively associated with the three conventional literacy skills in Korean (i.e.,
word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling). Table 4 shows results for each
20
conventional literacy outcome (i.e., word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling). Both
home reading and parent teaching were related to children’s final status in word reading
and pseudoword reading skills (ps < 0.001). However, the direction of the relationships
were opposite such that while frequency of home reading was positively related to final
status in word reading and pseudoword reading, frequency of parent teaching was
negatively associated with them (see Models 1). In addition, neither home reading nor
parent teaching was related to spelling (ps > .14). Again, the rate of change in the three
conventional literacy outcomes did not differ as a function of the level of home reading and
parent teaching. The results remained the same when both home reading and parent
teaching were in the model jointly (Models 1, Table 4) or respectively (models not shown).
<Insert Table 4 here>
Furthermore, the relationships between home literacy practices and conventional
literacy skills remained statistically significant even after accounting for the effects of
children’s letter-name knowledge, vocabulary, and phonological awareness in addition to
the other control variables (see Models 2, Table 4). That is, while children whose parents
reported more frequent home reading tended to have higher/elevated scores in word
reading and pseudoword reading skills, children whose parents reported more frequent
teaching tended to have lower scores in word reading and pseudoword reading, after
controlling for children’s background characteristics and the three emergent literacy skills.
When the outcome was spelling, neither home reading nor parent teaching was statistically
significant after controlling for children’s background characteristics and the three
emergent literacy skills. Figure 1 graphically represents how home reading and parent
teaching were related to word reading (see Figure 1-a) and pseudoword reading (see Figure
1-b), after accounting for the other aspect of home literacy practice (i.e., home reading or
21
parent teaching), the three emergent literacy skills, and the control variables. Each line in
Figure 1 represents an average growth trajectory in word reading and pseudoword reading
for children who were engaged in home reading and parent teaching frequently (90th
percentile) vs. less frequently (10th percentile) across sites. Figure 1 shows the positive
relationship of home reading and the negative relationship of parent teaching to the fitted
growth trajectories in literacy skills; children who had more frequent home reading had
higher predicted scores in word reading and pseudoword reading across the times while
children whose parent taught more frequently had lower predicted scores in word reading
and pseudoword reading. In fact, the children who were engaged in frequent home reading
did not differ from those whose parent taught them less frequently in the predicted word
reading and pseudo word reading skills. Similarly, the predicted growth trajectories of
word reading and pseudoword reading were indistinguishable for children who were
engaged in less frequent home reading from those who had frequent parent teaching.
<Insert Figure 1 here>
Also notice that, as expected, all the three emergent literacy skills were positively
related to each literacy outcome (ps < 0.05) after accounting for control variables, home
reading, and parent teaching. However, phonological awareness was not related to spelling
once both letter-name knowledge and vocabulary were in the model. Finally, it appears
that home reading covaried with the three emergent literacy skills in predicting literacy
outcomes such that the coefficients of home reading became about half in size once
phonological awareness, letter-name knowledge, and vocabulary are in the model (Models
3) while the coefficients of parent teaching remained relatively unchanged.
22
Discussion
The primary goal of the present study was to investigate the relationship of home
literacy practices to trajectories of growth in emergent literacy and conventional literacy
skills in Korean. This study showed that home literacy practices in the Korean context are
multi-dimensional; two primary dimensions, home reading and parent teaching, were
positively related (r = .32). These two dimensions also have been identified from English-
families (Sénéchal, 2006a; Sénéchal et al., 1998; Teale, 1986) although these previous
studies reported that home teaching and parent reading were not related (Sénéchal, 2006a;
Sénéchal et al., 1998). The discrepant results may be attributed to different measures used
for home reading. Sénéchal’s study (1998) used parents’ familiarity with children’s
literature (i.e., Title Recognition Test) as a measure of home reading whereas this study
used parents’ report of frequency of reading-related activities at home. Sénéchal et al.
(1996) reported that parents’ reports of frequency of home literacy practices are not robust
predictors of child outcomes and thus cautioned that parents’ responses to questions
regarding home reading activities may be biased, particularly given that story book reading
is a highly valued activity. However, it is not clear how this may have affected the findings
in this study because little is known about how storybook reading is valued in the Korean
context. Overall, the results of the present study suggest the importance of a future study in
order to provide an accurate picture of home literacy practices and children’s literacy
development in the Korean context using multiple instruments.
This study was one of the first to examine the relationship between home literacy
practices and growth trajectories of important emergent literacy and conventional literacy
skills. The results showed that the two aspects of home literacy practices, home reading
and parent teaching, were related to children’s achievement in emergent literacy and
23
conventional literacy skills at the end of the study, but were not related to the rate of
growth in the emergent and conventional literacy skills. These findings of the present
study confirm the importance of home reading for emergent literacy skills – vocabulary
(Ewers & Brownson, 1999; Jordan et al., 2000; Sénéchal, 2006a; Sénéchal, LeFevre,
Hudson, & Lawson, 1996), letter-name knowledge (Frijters, Barron, & Brunello, 2000),
phonological awareness (Foy & Mann, 2003; Sénéchal et al., 1998) – and conventional
literacy skills (i.e., word reading and pseudoword reading) in Korean. The positive
association of the frequency of home reading with children’s vocabulary, letter-name
knowledge, and phonological awareness confirms that children’s exposure to and
experiences with print may enhance these important language and emergent literacy skills
(Sénéchal, 2006a). Previous studies with English-speaking families in the United States
and French-speaking Canadian families demonstrated that shared book reading in particular
can be a source of vocabulary learning (Ewers & Brownson, 1999; Sénéchal, 2006a)
because children’s books in English tended to contain more rare, academic words than
those found in television or conversations (Hayes & Ahrens, 1988). Furthermore, mothers
may use richer and more varied vocabulary during shared reading (Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;
Snow & Ninio, 1986). Children’s experience with print also provides opportunities for a
child to recognize letters, thus enhancing their letter-name knowledge. The positive
relationship between home reading and phonological awareness replicates what has been
found with English-speaking parents (Foy & Mann, 2003), suggesting that exposure to
print may enhance children’s phonological awareness. This relationship appears to be
moderated by vocabulary and letter-name knowledge to some extent as vocabulary and
letter-name knowledge were positively related to phonological awareness (models not
shown) while home reading still remained positively associated with phonological
24
awareness after controlling for vocabulary and letter-name knowledge. Thus, reading-
related activities at home enhance phonological awareness, vocabulary, and letter-name
knowledge, building the foundation for conventional literacy skills.
It appears that the three emergent literacy skills moderate, but do not completely
mediate, the relationship between home reading and literacy skills as home reading was
positively related to Korean children’s word reading and decoding skills even after
accounting for the effects of the three important emergent literacy skills (i.e., letter name
knowledge, vocabulary, and phonological awareness). This indicates that frequent exposure
to book reading and print at home may help children with their literacy acquisition, beyond
the effects of the three emergent literacy skills, by promoting their understanding of letter-
sound relationship, familiarizing them with its orthographic representations, and facilitating
children’s acquisition of the decontextualized nature of written language (Purcell-Gates,
1991; Snow, 1983). These findings support benefits of reading at home for children’s
literacy development in Korean, implicating the importance of encouraging Korean parents
to engage in reading-related activities with their children frequently.
The findings of this study also suggest that phonological awareness does not
completely mediate the relationship between home literacy practices and literacy
acquisition, because both children’s letter-name knowledge and vocabulary size predicted
the three conventional literacy skills in Korean after controlling for children’s phonological
awareness. This suggests that, although letter-name knowledge and vocabulary are related
to phonological awareness (see also Kim, Y.-S., 2007c), each of them makes a unique
positive contribution to literacy development beyond phonological awareness. In particular,
due to the consistent phonological patterning of Korean letter names and the transparent
relationship between letter names and letter sounds in Korean (Kim, Y.-S., 2007c), frequent
25
experience with print at home may critically facilitate Korean children’s induction of letter
sounds from letter names beyond phonological awareness.
The null effect of home reading on children’s spelling skills was unexpected given
previous findings with English-speaking kindergarteners (Sénéchal et al., 1998). This may
have been a consequence of the difficulty of spelling for the young children in the sample
and the effects may have been thus obscured due to reduced variability in the spelling task.
Furthermore, the dichotomous measurement of children’s spelling skills may not have been
sensitive enough to capture the children's emergent spelling skills. Given that young
children go through continual developmental progression in spelling skills (Ehri, 2000), a
future study should use a more fine-grained multiple scale for assessing children’s spelling
skills (see, for example, Sénéchal et al., 1998).
In contrast to the results of home reading and despite a positive association with
home reading, the frequency of parent teaching was negatively associated with children’s
phonological awareness, vocabulary, and reading skills in Korean (i.e., word reading and
pseudoword reading), once home reading was controlled for. In other words, once the
frequency of home reading and children’s background characteristics were held constant,
children whose parents taught them more frequently at home tended to have lower average
scores at the end of the study in phonological awareness, vocabulary, word reading, and
pseudoword reading in Korean. These results differ from previous findings with English-
speaking and French-speaking families (Evans, Shaw, & Bell, 2000; Sénéchal 2006a;
Sénéchal et al., 1998) and from the results of a meta-analysis of home teaching intervention
studies, which revealed positive effects of parent teaching on children’s emergent literacy
and conventional literacy skills (Sénéchal, 2006b).
26
However, the negative associations may not suggest the actual negative effects of
parent teaching on children’s development of vocabulary, phonological awareness, and
literacy skills in Korean. Instead, the results in the present study may indicate those
children whose parents tended to engage in explicit teaching at home. Specifically, Korean
parents in the sample may have adjusted their teaching according to their child’s progress
in literacy acquisition and tended to teach their children more frequently when they deemed
that their child was struggling with literacy acquisition, thus requiring additional help at
home. Therefore, although parents who read to and with their children more frequently also
tended to teach their children more frequently, once home reading was held constant, those
children who received more frequent parent teaching may be lagging behind in important
emergent and conventional literacy skills. This suggests a potential bidirectional
relationship between home literacy practices, frequency of parent teaching in particular,
and children’s literacy acquisition. For example, a previous study reported that middle-
class English-speaking mothers tended to adjust their teaching strategies and interaction
patterns in joint book-reading to children’s level of language and literacy competence
(Pellegrini, Brody, & Siegel, 1985).
There are two potential related support/explanations for this speculation. The first
potential explanation is the timing of data collection on home literacy practices.
Information on home literacy practices was collected nearly 9-10 months (just before the
third wave of data collection) after these children had been exposed to systematic literacy
instruction. Thus, by this time, children’s progress or struggles with literacy acquisition
must have been evident to parents and teachers. For example, in the third wave children
were able to read 36 words correctly, on average, with large variation. In order to test the
plausibility of children’s progress in literacy acquisition influencing parental teaching, it
27
was examined whether the frequency of parent teaching is predicted by the level of
children’s literacy skills prior to the measurement of home literacy practices (waves 1 and
2). The results showed that children’s word reading and pseudoword reading skills prior to
the measurement of home literacy practices was negatively associated with parent teaching,
after controlling for home reading (models not shown) such that children who had lower
word reading and pseudoword reading scores in waves 1 and 2 tended to have parents who
reported more frequent teaching at home. These results provide some support that indeed
the parents in the sample may have been adjusting the frequency of their teaching at home
according to their child’s literacy achievement.
In addition, the cultural model of literacy acquisition in Korea may explain this
speculation. As Korean parents tend to believe that children’s learning process and literacy
acquisition are primarily schools’ and teachers’ responsibility (Kim, M. & Kwon, 2002),
parents may be less likely to engage in explicit instruction on literacy per se at home,
unless they are informed by the teacher about or realize their child’s needs for extra
attention in literacy acquisition. In particular, as achieving fundamental literacy skills
before entrance to elementary school is critical in Korea and teachers are believed to be the
authorities in all matters related to the education of children (Yang & McMullen, 2003),
Korean parents may pay close attention to teachers’ feedback on their child’s progress in
literacy acquisition. Teachers who participated in the study noted that they communicated
with children’s parents frequently, particularly with those whose children appear to
struggle with the curriculum, thus are in need of extra help for their literacy skills and
homework. In addition, Korean mothers tended to seek frequent contact with their child's
teachers to request advice from teachers and inquire about their child’s homework (Yang &
McMullen, 2003).
28
Therefore, the findings in the present study may have resulted from qualitatively
different attitudes towards (or views on) parent teaching between Korean parents and
English-speaking parents in North America. English-speaking parents in North America
may engage in teaching alphabet letters and literacy skills, and help with homework
without an apparent sign of their child’s struggle while Korean parents may see their
teaching responsibility primarily for remediative help. Teale (1986) showed that many of
low-income American parents engaged in teaching literacy regularly without an apparent
sign or explicit information of their child’s struggle with literacy acquisition.
The results of the present study suggest the importance of expanding our knowledge
base about the relationship between home literacy environment and literacy acquisition.
First, the relationship between home literacy practices and children’s literacy acquisition
may be bidirectional such that while literacy practices at home influence children’s literacy
skills achievement, children’s progress in literacy skills may in turn influence literacy
activities at home. In order to confirm this, future studies should measure literacy-related
activities at home, explicit teaching in particular, on multiple occasions over time starting
before children’s exposure to systematic instruction in literacy, and continuing into
children’s literacy acquisition. It should be noted that in the present study although
children’s emergent literacy and conventional literacy skills were assessed on multiple
occasions, home literacy practices were surveyed only on a single occasion. Thus home
literacy environment was treated to be time-invariant. Furthermore, we cannot disentangle
whether the negative relationship between frequency of parent teaching and children’s
literacy skills is due to different cultural expectations on teaching and/or due to the time
when the data were collected. It could very well be that these two factors conduced the
results in this study.
29
Second, it is also important to expand the investigation of the relationship between
home literacy practices and literacy skills to a variety of linguistic and cultural contexts. As
parental engagements in literacy-related activities at home are largely influenced by
discourse and culture of a larger society, it will be critical to incorporate culture-specific
characteristics in home literacy models. For example, a future study should investigate
Korean parents’ beliefs on and attitudes toward home literacy practices and children’s
literacy acquisition, and specific home reading and teaching activities they engage in.
Furthermore, a future study should investigate whether the findings from this study can be
expanded to families from middle or upper socio-economic backgrounds in Korea.
30
End notes: 1 It should be noted that the statement on children’s socioeconomic backgrounds was based on preschool directors’ knowledge of the neighborhoods that the children lived in, and parents’ education level. The information on parents’ income level and occupation was not collected in this research due to its sensitive nature in the Korean context. 2 The words on the word recognition task included various syllable type combinations of 11
one-syllable words, 22 two-syllable words, 19 three-syllable words, and 8 four-syllable words. The number of letters ranged from two to 12. In oral Korean four syllable types are allowed (V, CV, VC, CVC) while additional CVCC syllable structure is allowed in written
language.
31
Appendix A Sample means, standard deviations, and t statistics for testing differences in selected outcome and predictor variables at study onset for participants who contributed all four waves of data (n = 87) versus those who contributed only the first wave of data (n = 8).
Mean (SD) Those
contributing four waves of
data
Those contributing first wave of
data
t-statistic (p-value)
Parent education 3.52 (0.92) 4.25 (1.5) -1.51 (.14) Vocabulary 34.02 (7.00) 30.63 (8.73) 1.29 (.40) Letter-name knowledge 11.24 (8.99) 13.13 (10.27) -.56 (.58) Phonological awareness 16.59 (10.05) 18.25 (12.58) -.44 (.66) Word recognition 11.33 (17.75) 15.63 (17.83) -.65 (.51) Pseudoword reading 5.15 (10.86) 8.13 (13.17) -.73 (.47) Spelling .98 (1.91) .88 (1.13) .15 (.88)
32
Appendix B: Questions used to measure home literacy practices in the study
• How often do you teach your children Hangul?
(1) do not teach Hangul at home (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4 times a
week (5) everyday
• Approximately how many children’s books are there in your home?
(1) less than 10 (2) 20-50 (3) 60-100 (4) 100-150 (5) more than 200
• How often do your family members read books, newspapers, and magazines?
(1) do not read at home (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4 times a week (5)
everyday
• How often do your family members read books, newspapers, and magazines with
your child?
(1) do not read at home (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4 times a week (5)
everyday
• How often do your family members read books to your child?
(1) do not read to child at home (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4 times a
week (5) everyday
• How often does your child read at home on his/her own?
(1) does not read at home (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4 times a week (5)
everyday
• Approximately how many books (including picture books) do you estimate your
child reads in a typical week?
(1) S/he does not read at home (2) one book (3) about 5 books (4) about 10 books (5) about
15 books (6) more than 20 books
33
• How often do you help your child with his/her homework?
(1) do not help with homework (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4 times a
week (5) everyday
• How often do you take your child to a library or a bookstore?
(1) do not go to a library or a bookstore (2) once or twice a month (3) once a week (4) 3-4
times a week (5) everyday
34
Appendix C: Equations for the second research question The first part of the second research question was addressed by fitting the following
model, for word reading outcome, for example;
where ⎟⎟⎠
⎞⎜⎜⎝
⎛⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡2110
0120
1
02 ,00
~),0(~σσσσ
ζζ
σε ε NandNi
iij
The second part of the second research question addressed the relationship between
home literacy practices and each conventional literacy outcome after controlling for the
three emergent literacy skills. The following model was fitted for word reading outcome,
for example;
where ⎟⎟⎠
⎞⎜⎜⎝
⎛⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡⎥⎦
⎤⎢⎣
⎡2110
0120
1
02 ,00
~),0(~σσσσ
ζζ
σε ε NandNi
iij
Note that while constant 1/6 remained constant for each outcome (on the
recommendation of Tukey, 1977), the maximum score in the denominator change for each
logit-transformed outcome. For example, for word reading, the value in the denominator is
60, for pseudoword reading 50, and spelling 20.
The growth parameters, 20γ , 30γ , 40γ , represent differences in elevation in each
outcome for those who differ by one unit in phonological awareness, vocabulary, and
letter-name knowledge after accounting for the effects of home literacy practices and
( )ijijii
iji
ijiida
idaii
iiij
ij
ijAge
AgehingParentTeac
AgeadingHomeeschool
ationParentEducMaleCohort
hingParentTeacadingHomeAge
Y
YLog εζζ
γ
γγ
γγγ
γγγγ
+++
⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟
⎠
⎞
⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜
⎝
⎛
+
++
+++
+++
=⎟⎟⎟⎟
⎠
⎞
⎜⎜⎜⎜
⎝
⎛
−+
+
−
−10
12
1106
050403
02011000
*
*RePr
Re
6160
61
( )ijijii
ijijijij
ijijiji
ijiida
idaii
iiij
ijijij
ij
ijAge
AgeledgeLetterKnowAgeVocabulary
AgeessicalAwarenPhonoAgehingParentTeac
AgeadingHomeeschool
ationParentEducMaleCohort
hingParentTeacadingHomeledgeLetterKnow
VocabularyAwarenessicalPhonoAge
Y
YLog εζζ
γγ
γγ
γγ
γγγ
γγγ
γγγγ
+++
⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟⎟
⎠
⎞
⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜⎜
⎝
⎛
++
++
++
+++
+++
++++
=⎟⎟⎟⎟
⎠
⎞
⎜⎜⎜⎜
⎝
⎛
−+
+
−
−10
7060
5012
1106
050403
020140
30201000
**
*log*
*RePr
Re
log
6160
61
35
control variables. The growth parameters, 01γ and 02γ , represent differences in elevation
in the literacy outcome for those who differ by one unit in time-invariant home reading and
parent teaching, after controlling for the three emergent literacy skills and control variables.
11γ and 12γ , the interaction terms between the time variable – Age – and home literacy
practices, examined whether the rate of change differed by the level of home reading or
parent teaching. 50γ , 60γ , and 70γ represent interactions terms between the time variable –
Age – and three emergent literacy skills, respectively, in order to examine whether the rate
of change differ by the level of each emergent literacy skill. The residual, ijε , represents the
portion of child i’s outcome at age j that is not predicted by predictors in the model. The
level-2 residuals ζ0i and ζ1i represent the deviations of the individual growth parameters
from their population averages (final status and rate of change, respectively). Interactions
between predictors and Age were not statistically significant, thus not retained in the model.
36
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Table 1. Number of children (by gender) and sample means (standard deviations) of children’s age, emergent literacy skills, and conventional literacy skills, by wave.
Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3 Wave 4 Number of children (number of boys)
110 (61) 189 (97) 167 (86) 134 (75)
Variable Mean (SD) Min - Max Wave 1 Wave 2 Wave 3 Wave 4 Children’s age 56.59 (3.61) 61.76 (3.61) 65.65 (3.64) 69.57 (3.69) Emergent literacy skills Phonological awareness 17.23 (10.68) 21.02 (10.74) 22.34 (11.66) 26.33 (11.30) 0-56 Letter-name knowledge 11.46 (9.71) 15.70 (11.56) 18.04 (11.04) 24.49 (10.92) 0-40 Vocabulary 33.80 (7.73) 41.31 (9.17) 44.41 (8.34) 47.58 (8.36) 11-63 Literacy Skills Word Reading 11.96 (18.14) 25.11 (21.82) 36.18 (21.93) 42.75 (19.56) 0-60 Pseudoword reading 5.05 (10.88) 10.82 (16.13) 18.33 (18.52) 26.73 (19.73) 0-50 Spelling 1.09 (2.28) 2.68 (3.17) 4.62 (4.21) 6.35 (4.41) 0-17
44
Table 2. Sample means and standard deviations of family literacy practices indicators
Family literacy practices Mean (SD) Min-Max Frequency of teaching Hangul 3.31 (1.35) 1-5 Number of children’s booksa 3.45 (1.22) 1-5 Frequency of family reading 3.72 (1.29) 1-5 Frequency of reading with child 2.94 (1.31) 1-5 Frequency of reading to child 3.31 (1.16) 1-5 Number of books child reads a weekb 2.98 (1.11) 1-6 Frequency of child’s own book reading 3.40 (1.20) 1-5 Frequency of helping homework 3.80 (1.32) 1-5 Frequency of visiting library or bookstore 1.87 (0.69) 1-4
Unless otherwise noted, the categories for frequency were as follows: (1) this activity does
not occur at home, (2) once a month, (3) once a week, (4) three to four times a week, (5)
everyday
a The categories for the number of children’s books were as follows: (1) less than 10, (2)
20-50, (3) 60-100, (4) 100-150, (5) more than 200
b The categories for the estimation of the number of books (including picture books) that
child read a week were as follows: (1) The child does not read at home, (2) 1, (3) 5, (4) 10,
(5) 15, (6) more than 20
45
Table 3. Fitted multilevel models for change in which phonological awareness, vocabulary, and letter-name knowledge are predicted by home reading, parent teaching, and age (in months), controlling for gender, parent education, entering cohort, and fixed effects of preschool
Note. ~ p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001
Outcome Logit phonological awareness Logit letter-name knowledge Vocabulary Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Fixed effects Final status Intercept 0.05 -0.008*** 0.09 1.72** 1.61** 1.72** 54.81*** 54.46*** 55.02*** Home reading 0.34*** 0.46*** 0.45* 0.44* 2.70** 3.42*** Parent teaching -0.12 -0.24*** 0.17 0.03 -0.57 -1.51* Control variables Entering cohort 0.43* 0.37 0.39~ 0.12 0.12 0.13 1.28 1.27 1.09 Male -0.31** -0.32** -0.31** -0.34 -0.37 -0.34 -0.35 -0.50 -0.37 Middle school -0.47 -0.50~ -0.43 -1.76** -1.83** -1.76** -2.03 -2.54 -1.88 Junior college -0.02 0.10 0.02 -0.29 -0.18 -0.29 -0.06 0.95 0.16 Four year college 0.12 0.28 0.02 0.64 0.92* 0.65 -0.11 1.28 -0.72 Graduate school 0.73 0.85* 0.67~ 0.38 0.65 0.39 1.10 2.29 0.73 Preschool B 0.06 0.10 0.05 0.08 0.13 0.08 0.01 0.05 -0.06 Preschool C 0.14 0.13 0.13 -0.01 0.02 -0.01 0.15 0.29 0.16 Preschool D 0.23 0.28 0.06 -0.34 -0.15 -0.32 0.71 0.64 -0.34 Preschool E -0.38~ -0.33 -0.46* -0.52 -0.40 -0.51 1.33 1.36 0.83 Rate of change Age 0.06*** 0.06*** 0.06*** 0.14*** 0.14*** 0.14*** 1.01*** 1.02*** 1.00** Variance components Level 1 Within-person 0.50*** 0.56*** 0.50*** 1.35*** 1.33*** 1.35*** 29.48*** 29.39*** 29.51*** Level 2 Final status 0.63** 0.50* 0.57** 3.46*** 3.39*** 3.46** 42.07*** 40.99*** 40.81*** Rate of change 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.04 0.05 0.00 0.00 0.00 Covariance 0.01 0.001 0.01 0.05 0.00 0.01 0.07 -0.04 0.08 Goodness-of-fit -2LL 1500.9 1561.9 1489.0 2218.2 2243.8 2218.2 3985.0 4037.5 3979.8
46
Table 4. Fitted multilevel models for change in which word reading, pseudoword reading, and spelling are predicted by home reading, parent teaching, and age (in months), controlling for phonological awareness, vocabulary, and letter-name knowledge in addition to gender, parental education, entering cohort, and the fixed effects of preschool.
Note. ~ p < .10, * p < .05, ** p < .01, *** p < .001
Outcome Logit word reading Logit pseudoword
reading Logit spelling
Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Fixed effects Final status Intercept 5.83*** 1.84*** 2.65*** -0.37 0.55*** -1.69*** Home reading 1.11*** 0.59** 1.17*** 0.67*** 0.25 0.01 Parent teaching -0.63** -0.48** -0.53** -0.42** -0.15 -0.08 Phonological
awareness 0.26** 0.19* 0.08
Letter-name knowledge
0.50*** 0.58*** 0.21***
Vocabulary 0.05*** 0.03** 0.03*** Initial cohort -0.32 -0.52 0.39 0.13 0.39 0.27 Male -1.35*** -1.03*** -1.28*** -0.91*** -0.94*** -0.77*** Middle school -2.08* -0.93 -1.65* -0.67 -1.07* -0.71 Junior college -0.26 -0.07 -0.32 -0.09 -0.03 0.04 Four year college 0.72 0.59 0.70 0.40 0.39 0.31 Graduate school 0.62 0.20 1.06 0.65 -0.33 -0.19 Preschool B -0.00 0.06 -0.05 -0.05 -0.01 -0.06 Preschool C 0.29 0.31 1.32 1.25** 0.54 0.44 Preschool D -0.76 -0.59 -0.52 -0.29 -1.00** -0.95** Preschool E -1.31~ -0.78~ -0.85 -0.38 -1.02** -0.89*** Rate of change Age 0.35*** 0.20*** 0.29*** 0.15*** 0.18*** 0.11*** Variance components Level 1 Within-person 1.40*** 1.65*** 1.86*** 1.75*** 0.61*** 0.66*** Level 2 Final status 8.38*** 4.55*** 8.67*** 5.75*** 3.61*** 2.27** Rate of change 0.02*** 0.01** 0.01* 0.01** 0.01*** 0.01** Covariance 0.21** 0.16** 0.22** 0.22** 0.13*** 0.09*** Goodness-of-fit -2LL 2462.4 2325.5 2469.5 2293.6 1870.3 1768.7
47
Figure 1. Predicted age-trajectories of word reading and pseudoword reading for prototypical students with high (90th percentile) and low frequency (10th percentile) of home reading and parent teaching (all emergent literacy skills and control variables, including the fixed effects of site, have been set to their respective sample means). (a) Word reading outcome (b) Pseudoword reading outcome
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
Age in months
Pred
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ord
read
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High home reading Low home readingHigh parent teaching Low parent teaching
0
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50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77
Age in months
Pred
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High home reading Low home readingHigh parent teaching Low parent teaching
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