Domain-specific and cross-domain effects of the home literacy and numeracy environment at 3 years on children's academic competencies at 5 and 9 years.

Abstract

This study examined whether children's formal and informal home literacy (HLE) and home numeracy (HNE) environments at 3 years old demonstrated domain-specific, and cross-domain effects on children's academic performance at 5 and 9 years old. Participants were 7,110 children (49.4% male; 84.4% Irish), recruited between 2007 and 2008 in Ireland. Structural equation modeling revealed that only the informal HLE and HNE demonstrated both domain-specific and cross-domain positive effects on children's language and numeracy outcomes but not on socioemotional outcomes, at 5 and 9 years old. Effect sizes ranged from small (β = 0.020) to moderate (β = 0.209). These results suggest that even casual cognitively stimulating activities that do not directly focus on active teaching may benefit children's educational outcomes. Findings bear implications for cost-effective interventions with far-reaching, and enduring, effects across multiple child outcomes. Public Significance StatementThis study suggests that informal home numeracy and literacy activities such as playing board games, card games, having access to books, and shared reading during toddlerhood may contribute to children's school performance during the preschool and early childhood years. These findings suggest that even home learning activities that are associated with fun and do not actively focus on teaching can positively influence children's skills across literacy and numeracy domains of development.

Research and Pedagogies for Early Math

“…Families influence children's earliest development of math [8,39,110,235,239,240], primarily through stimulating, informal, experiences developing foundational ideas [241,242] and more intentional formal activities developing symbolic competencies [243,244]. Parents' math talk with their children about number and spatial ideas are related to children's talk about and achievement in those topics [245], with prompts to talk about math more effective than statements [246].…”