This meta-analysis examines the effects of family literacy programs on children's literacy development. It analyzes the results of 30 recent effect studies , covering 47 samples, and distinguishes between effects in two domains: comprehension-related skills and code-related skills. A small but significant mean effect emerged (d = 0.18). There was only a minor difference between comprehension-and code-related effect measures (d = 0.22 vs. d = 0.17). Moderator analyses revealed no statistically significant effects of the program, sample, and study characteristics inferred from the reviewed publications. The results highlight the need for further research into how programs are carried out by parents and children, how program activities are incorporated into existing family literacy practices, and how program contents are transferred to parents.

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The current study examined academic language (AL) input of mothers and teachers to 15 monolingual Dutch and 15 bilingual Turkish-Dutch 4-to 6-year-old children and its relationships with the children's language development. At two times, shared book reading was videotaped and analyzed for academic features: lexical diversity, syntactic complexity, and abstractness. The AL features in the input of mothers varied considerably among individuals, were strongly intercorrelated and stable over time, and were positively related to children's language skills. For Turkish children, input in Turkish was related to vocabulary in Dutch as well. Compared to mothers, teachers provided input that was more academic. The teachers of the Turkish group used more abstract language but relatively less lexically diverse and syntactically complex talk than the teachers of the Dutch group. By simplifying their language lexically and syntactically, teachers might provide impoverished input to children learning Dutch as a second language.Keywords academic language; shared reading; bilingual development; caretakers' input The research reported here is part of the Development of Academic Language in School and at Home (DASH) project, a joint research project of the Universities of Utrecht, Amsterdam, and Tilburg. The project was coordinated by Paul Leseman (Utrecht University) and funded by the Programme for Educational Research of the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (dossier number 411-03-060). We are grateful to the teachers, parents, and children who participated in this research and to our coworkers in the project: Paul Leseman, Ton Vallen, Rob Schoonen, Aziza Mayo, Anna Scheele, and Mohammadi Laghzaoui.Correspondence IntroductionWhen children enter primary school (kindergarten) at the age of 4 (as is the case in the Netherlands), they have to get acquainted with a new language register: academic language (AL), that is, the language register that is highly valued in school contexts and that shares many linguistic features with the language in instruction situations and textbooks in education (Aarts, Demir, & Vallen, 2011;Cummins, 1984;Schleppegrell, 2004; Snow & Uccelli, 2009). Though AL is a register specific to school contexts, early traces or precursors of the academic register can be found in preschool caregiver-child interaction. The emergence of AL can be seen as a mediating link between home language and literacy practices and (later) school achievement (Leseman, Scheele, Mayo, & Messer, 2007). Children from immigrant minority groups, like Turkish children in the Netherlands, are facing a double challenge here. First, they need to learn the specific AL register and, second, they are expected to do so in a language that is not their native one. Thus, one of the explanations for the problems children frequently encounter in school can be found in a lack of experience with the language register that is needed for school success (Aarts et al., 2011;Bernstein, 1971;Cummins, 1991;Heath, 1983;Hoff-Ginsberg, 1991;Lacroi...

The study investigated reading in four African languages that use either syllabic Ge'ez (Tigrinya and Tigre languages) or alphabetic Latin scripts (Kunama and Saho). A sample of 385 Grade 1 children were given letter knowledge, word reading, and spelling tasks to investigate differences at the script and language levels. Results showed that the syllable based Ge'ez script was easier to learn than the phoneme-based Latin despite the bigger number of basic units in Ge'ez. Moreover, the syllable based teaching of alphabetic Saho produced better results than alphabetic teaching of Kunama. These findings are discussed using the psycholinguistic grain size theory. The outcomes confirm the importance of the availability of phonological units in learning to read.

In this study the print awareness of 25 unschooled adult illiterates in the Netherlands was compared with that of 24 pre-reading children and of 23 loweducated literate adults with approximately four years of primary schooling. The illiterates were interviewed about their experiences with writing and all participants completed six assessments of print awareness in the language they preferred (first or second language). The outcomes revealed that the three groups did not differ in distinguishing conventional written signs from other visual signs, that both groups of non-readers differed significantly from low educated readers but not from each other in knowledge of logos, inscriptions and knowledge of the written register, while the adult illiterates performed significantly better than the children on grapheme knowledge. Adult illiterates in literate societies seem to be well informed about the uses and functions of written language and about what writing looks like, but like young children they are not good at reading environmental print out of context and in explaining what exactly is represented in writing. The variation in reactions within the group of illiterate adults could be related to existing models of emergent literacy. Implications for adult literacy education are discussed.