Intimate culture of families in the early socialization of literacy.

Abstract

The intimate family culture for early literacy socialization was documented for a socioculturally heterogeneous sample of 66 children enrolled in pre-kindergarten through third grade at public elementary schools in a large U.S. city. Parents were interviewed about 3 types of indexes of their family's intimate culture: the child's engagement in various literacy-related activities at home, the parents' orientation towards the significance of literacy for early child development, and the family's routines of dinnertime, reading aloud, and doing homework for school. Basic reading competencies were assessed with the Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery--Tests of Achievement, Revised (1989). Multiple regression analysis found that a significant proportion of variance in the children's literacy development was predicted by each of the quantitative indexes of intimate family culture, leaving little or no additional variance that was due to family income or ethnicity.

Literacy From Educators Perspetives

“…Both Ms. Jones and Ms. Turner believed parental involvement and support motivate children. This claim is supported in the literature (Entwisle et al, 2005;Judge, 2005;Räty, 2006;Serpell et al, 2002 Parents' educational support also includes providing a literacy-rich environment and participating in literacy activities with their children, which as Ms. King, Mr. Hill, and Ms. Baker claimed, not only exposes children to literacy but also motivates them and provides them with opportunities to practice their literacy skills.…”

“…Not mentioned were parenting styles and parents' self-efficacy beliefs, also prominent in the literature (Judge, 2005;Lynch, 2002;McClelland et al, 2000;Räty, 2006;Serpell et al, 2002). Family income and children's home life were brought up in relation to children's academic performance more frequently by the teachers at Lincoln than by those at Douglas, reflecting the greater variation in school composition and community characteristics at Douglas.…”

“…I think that that affects success" (Ms. Smith). Serpell et al (2002) suggest that family intimate culture is a stronger predictor for children's school performance than over-generalized family features like income level. McDonald et al (2005) found that family socio-economic status does have an impact, but operates indirectly, on children's success/failure through other factors, for example, school socio-economic status, instructional practices, and teachers' educational level.…”

Routines of Riparian Women of the Amazon Region: Activities and Roles in the Family, at Work and in the Community

“…The notion that routine activities are organized accordingly to roles and responsibilities structured in each cultural context and each family's culture (Serpell, Sonnenschein, Baker, & Ganapathy, 2002) allows the investigation of routines to unravel how the roles performed by women are articulated within the bigger systems in which they take part, especially the parental and communitarian ones.…”

Home literacy activities: Accounting for differences in early grade literacy outcomes in low-income families in Zambia

“…Ensuring success for a literate people means understanding that literacy is deep rooted in historical culture and cannot be divorced from social contexts like family, schools and communities (Bruner 1991;Serpell et al 2002). The family offers children the earliest literacy interactions that support early literacy and other child developmental socialisations.…”