Relations between socio‐cultural factors, the home literacy environment and children's literacy development in the first years of primary education

Abstract

This paper deals with the relation between children's home literacy environments (HLE) and their literacy development in the first phase of primary school. On the basis of a broad conceptualisation of the HLE, we identified three home literacy profiles (rich, child-directed and poor HLE). Firstly, we related these profiles to socio-cultural factors (more specifically, ethnicity and socio-economic status [SES]). We found an association between the HLE and ethnicity/SES, indicating that (Dutch) majority children and children from high SES families had, in general, the most stimulating HLEs. On the other hand, we observed considerable variability in HLEs within ethnic minority and low SES groups. Subsequently, we related the HLE profiles to literacy outcomes in kindergarten, first and second grade. We found that, after controlling for relevant background characteristics, the HLE had an effect on children's vocabulary scores in first grade, and their general reading comprehension both in first and second grade.Children's experiences with literacy do not begin with formal reading and writing instruction: most children become acquainted with the nature and functions of written

A Influência de fatores sociais, individuais e lingüísticos no desempenho de crianças na leitura em voz alta de palavras isoladas

“…Os autores concluíram que todo modelo compreensivo para a aquisição da leitura deve considerar as variáveis peculiares ao país, à família, à escola e às características individuais (como a motivação para a leitura). De maneira análoga, Steensel (2006) mostrou que uma medida do envolvimento do ambiente familiar no letramento causou um efeito no vocabulário da criança e na compreensão da leitura. Enfim, Duncan e Seymour (2000) mostraram que crianças escocesas de baixo nível socioeconômico tiveram um atraso na aquisição da habilidade de leitura em relação aos seus pares de alto nível socioeconômico.…”

Home Literacy Environment and English Language Learners’ Literacy Development: What Can We Learn from the Literature?

“…I maintain that a HLE consists of a number of activities that children observe at home and activities in which parents participate actively. A HLE also includes parental beliefs regarding literacy, the parental education level, the family socioeconomic status, the number of books at home, and daily life activities in the social domains (Auerbach, 1989;Teale, 1986;van Steensel, 2006).…”

The Role of Open Educational Resources (OERs) in Primary Education in Developing Nations: A Case Study of India

“…Children that manage to attend government schools make poor progress and eventually drop out because of low literacy levels (Button & Johnson, 1997;Bus, Van Ijzendoorn & Pellegrini, 1995;Mol, Bus & De Jong, 2009), lack of teacher support (Morrow, 2001;Van Steensel, 2006), underrepresentation in schools (Jones & Ramchand, 2016;Olgun, Gumus & Adanacioglu, 2010) and the lack of pedagogic attention to language acquisition (Gelda, 2013;Nambeesan, 1996;Shanbhag, 2016).…”

“…As the findings of this research revealed, children cannot progress and complete primary education without acquiring basic literacy. School curriculum, resources and teachers play an immense role in ensuring the progress of children, because of which the development of literacy skills in early childhood education is of utmost importance (Morrow, 2001;Van Steensel, 2006 OER curation "offers cheap and simple ways for small-scale open education projects to be effective and sustainable" (Rolfe, 2016, p.297). Scholarly works suggest that in a rapidly changing sphere, curation is becoming an indispensable filtering step for OER providers as it can save users from having to go through laborious manual filtering and selection processes over the internet (Perryman & Coughlan, 2014;Porcello & Hsi, 2013;Atkins, Brown & Hammond, 2007).…”

“…Without literacy, a child cannot progress in class, making the completion of education difficult to achieve. Teachers, school curriculum and resources play a substantial role in ensuring students' progress, with the development of literacy and numeracy skills in early childhood education being of utmost importance (Morrow, 2001;Van Steensel, 2006). India's adult literacy rates are one of the world's lowest, with one-forth of its population illiterate (Katiyar, 2016).…”