Home Literacy and Numeracy Environments in Asia

Abstract

The home learning environment includes what parents do to stimulate children’s literacy and numeracy skills at home and their overall beliefs and attitudes about children’s learning. The home literacy and numeracy environments are two of the most widely discussed aspects of the home learning environment, and past studies have identified how socioeconomic status and parents’ own abilities and interest in these domains also play a part in shaping children’s learning experiences. However, these studies are mostly from the West, and there has been little focus on the situation of homes in Asia, which captures a large geographical area and a wide diversity of social, ethnic, and linguistic groups. Therefore, this paper aims to review extant studies on the home literacy and numeracy environments that have been conducted in different parts of Asia, such as China, the Philippines, India, Iran, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates. Specifically, we explore how parents in these places perceive their roles in children’s early literacy and numeracy development, the methods they regard as effective for promoting young children’s literacy and numeracy learning, and the frequency with which they engage their young children in different types of home literacy and numeracy activities. We also examine studies on the relationship of the home literacy and numeracy environment with young children’s developmental outcomes, and the effectiveness of parent training programs to improve the home literacy and numeracy environments in these contexts. By examining potential trends in findings obtained in different geographical areas, we can initially determine whether there are characteristics that are potentially unique to contexts in Asia. We propose future research directions that acknowledge the role of cultural values and social factors in shaping the home learning environment, and, by extension, in facilitating children’s early literacy and numeracy development.

Relationship between Parents’ Beliefs in Early Mathematics and Learning Environment Provision at Home

“…Parents who consider skills in early mathematics as important for children to master before Standard 1 tend to provide more early mathematics activities at home (Cheung et al, 2021). Saban et al (2018) also found that parents with a high level of belief are more sensitive in providing a learning environment at home compared to parents with medium and low levels of belief.…”

“…In addition to parents' beliefs, the learning environment at home is one of the factors that influences children's mathematics mastery (Cheung et al, 2021). Home is the first learning environment for children.…”

Factors associated with early literacy and numeracy development among children under five years in Bangladesh: multivariate two-level mixed effect approach

“…There is still a lack of knowledge among many parents on how to take proper care of children to develop literacy and numeracy skills which can cause a nation to fall behind. In Asian countries, family reading and writing education has received relatively little attention (Cheung et al. , 2021).…”

“…There is still a lack of knowledge among many parents on how to take proper care of children to develop literacy and numeracy skills which can cause a nation to fall behind. In Asian countries, family reading and writing education has received relatively little attention (Cheung et al, 2021). In Bangladesh, due to lack of reading and arithmetic skills, 30% of firstgrade children drop out of school before they acquire practical literacy and arithmetic skills, and many children who stay in school do not learn much (Diazgranados et al, 2016).…”

Analysis of the Characteristics of the Ethnoscience-Based Numeracy Test Instrument Using the Rasch Model

“…The scope of numeracy is the ability to apply mathematical concepts and rules in real everyday situations when the problems are often unstructured (Mellyzar et al, 2022;. In general, numeracy activities have a positive relationship with children's numeracy skill (Cheung et al, 2021). Important numeracy skills are mastered to reduce the risk of students' difficulties in mathematics (Dessemontet et al, 2020;Hellstrand et al, 2020).…”