Parental Literacy Predicts Children's Literacy: A Longitudinal Family‐Risk Study

Abstract

This family-risk (FR) study examined whether the literacy skills of parents with dyslexia are predictive of the literacy skills of their offspring. We report data from 31 child-parent dyads where both had dyslexia (FR-D) and 68 dyads where the child did not have dyslexia (FR-ND).Findings supported the differences in liability of FR children with and without dyslexia: the parents of the FR-D children had more severe difficulties in pseudoword-reading and spelling accuracy, in rapid word recognition, and in text-reading fluency than the parents of the FR-ND children. Finally, parental skills were found to be significant predictors of children's Grade 3 reading and spelling. Parental skills predicted children's reading and spelling accuracy even after controlling for children's preschool skills. Our findings suggest that the literacy skills of a parent with dyslexia might be valuable in assessing early on their child's liability to dyslexia.

Late-Emerging and Resolving Dyslexia: A Follow-Up Study from Age 3 to 14

“…show that parental rapid naming is predictive of their offspring's naming and reading fluency (Torppa et al, 2011;van Bergen et al, 2014b). It thus supports the notion that parental skills are informative of their offspring's liability for dyslexia (van Bergen et al, 2014b).…”

“…The risk for dyslexia has been reported to range from fourfold (Puolakanaho, et al, 2007) to tenfold (van Bergen, de Jong, Plakas, Maassen, & van der Leij, 2012) for children with family risk compared to children without such risk. Family risk has predicted children's reading development over and above children's skills in the key cognitive precursors, such as phonological awareness, rapid naming, and letter knowledge (Puolakanaho et al, 2007;Torppa, Eklund, van Bergen, & Lyytinen, 2011). Furthermore, studies predicting children's skills with parent's skills have suggested that specific parental skills may be informative in assessing children's liability for dyslexia beyond their own cognitive development (Torppa et al, 2011;van Bergen et al, 2014a).…”

How Does Parental Reading Influence Children’s Reading? A Study of Cognitive Mediation

“…Despite the substantial impact of children's underlying skills on reading, parental skills explained additional variance (previously also found by Torppa et al, 2011;van Bergen et al, 2012;in family-risk studies). In fact, half of parents' effects bypassed and half operated through children's underlying skills.…”

Genetic transmission of reading ability

“…A Dutch and a Finnish familial risk study showed a moderate correlation between parents' and children's reading fluency (Torppa, Eklund, van Bergen, & Lyytinen, 2011;van Bergen, de Jong, Plakas, Maassen, & van der Leij, 2012). A recent Dutch family study (based on an unselected sample) reported a parent-offspring correlation for reading fluency of .35 (van Bergen, Bishop, van Zuijen, & de Jong, 2015).…”