Relationships Among Home Literacy Behaviors, Materials, Socioeconomic Status, and Early Literacy Outcomes Across 14 Low- and Middle-Income Countries

Abstract

Most research on reading acquisition is conducted in high-income countries, and the majority of the limited research from middle- and low-income countries focuses exclusively on school settings. We therefore know little about how home literacy environments (HLEs) relate to early reading skill acquisition in low-resource settings. This study uses baseline data from 18 Save the Children (SC) project sites across 14 countries in Central America, Asia, and Africa to address several questions. First, we examine the structure of HLE in the data set, with a particular focus on its relationship to socioeconomic status (SES). Second, we extend our measurement model to examine the relationship between HLE and early literacy skills across the sample of more than 14,000 first- and second-grade boys and girls (mean age: 8.4 years) from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds. We conclude that SES, home reading behaviors, and home reading materials are separate, though related constructs, and that materials in the home are a moderately strong predictor of early reading in these contexts. Our findings indicate that studies investigating literacy environments in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) should clearly and distinctly conceptualize SES, literacy behaviors, and literacy materials. In addition, the robustness of the relationships between the presence of reading materials in the home and children’s early literacy skills suggests that increasing access to these materials may enhance skill development in low-resource contexts.

Home Literacy Environment and Early Literacy Development Across Languages Varying in Orthographic Consistency

“…This implies that by providing more printed materials at home, parents may increase their children's opportunities to learn new words and this, in turn, can enhance their child's autonomy in accessing written materials as well as some active interest in learning new words (for a relevant discussion, see van Bergen et al, 2017). These findings, together with the findings of existing cross-cultural studies (Chiu et al, 2012;Arya et al, 2014;Araújo and Costa, 2015;Lenkeit et al, 2018;Zuilkowski et al, 2019), suggest that there might be value in revising the Home Literacy Model so that 'presence of reading materials at home, ' which can facilitate childdirected activities, is separated from the 'shared book reading' component and becomes part of a broader 'access to literacy resources' component.…”

“…Niklas et al (2015) in turn found the associations between home-based literacy activities and children's verbal and cognitive abilities in English-speaking Australian and German children. Moreover, cross-cultural studies based on international survey data [e.g., Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS); Program for International Student Assessment (PISA)] have consistently shown robust relationships between the amount of reading materials at home and children's early literacy skills across sociocultural contexts (Chiu et al, 2012;Arya et al, 2014;Araújo and Costa, 2015;Lenkeit et al, 2018;Zuilkowski et al, 2019).…”

“…Bronfenbrenner’s (1979 , 1995 ) ecological systems theory of human development emphasizes that in order to understand children’s development we need to consider multiple levels of analyses that encompass the child and both proximal, microsystem (e.g., family and school) and distal, macrosystem (e.g., language and culture) environmental factors. In light of this, it is not surprising that previous studies have shown a significant effect of home literacy environment (HLE) on children’s language and literacy development across a variety of languages and cultural contexts (e.g., de Jong and Leseman, 2001 ; Silinskas et al, 2012 , 2020 ; Niklas and Schneider, 2013 ; Inoue et al, 2018 ; Liu et al, 2018 ; Zuilkowski et al, 2019 ). However, despite a growing body of literature on the relations between HLE and children’s literacy skills, most existing studies on HLE have been conducted in a single language and cultural context, thereby focusing primarily on microsystem factors only.…”

“…Second, because many previous studies have assessed meaning-related HLE in terms of both frequency of shared book reading and access to literacy resources, it remains unclear whether it is the former or the latter that is driving the relation between meaning-related HLE and children’s vocabulary knowledge. In fact, recent studies have shown that access to literacy resources can be a separable construct from shared book reading (e.g., Dulay et al, 2018 ; Esmaeeli et al, 2019 ; Zhang et al, 2019 ) and plays a unique and important role in children’s literacy development over and above parent teaching and shared reading (e.g., van Bergen et al, 2017 ; Vasilyeva et al, 2018 ; Zuilkowski et al, 2019 ). Finally, the main focus of previous research on HLE has been on its relationship with reading (e.g., Chiu and McBride-Chang, 2006 ; Arya et al, 2014 ; Araújo and Costa, 2015 ), and there is a dearth of research examining the relationship between HLE and spelling development across languages.…”

An analysis of TIMSS 2015 science reading demands

“…Language issues are compounded in rural schools where learners have fewer opportunities to engage with science content and there is a lower probability that learners have a solid foundation in English that would allow them access to subject-related vocabulary and terminology. There can be systemic factors that negatively impact literacy development; for example, low family socioeconomic status (see Hemmerechts, Agirdag & Kavadias, 2017;Dowd, D'Sa, Noble, O'Grady, Pisani & Seiden, 2018;Zuilkowski, McCoy, Jonason & Dowd, 2019); poor education quality (see Harley, Woldie & von Gogh, 2019;Harris, Slate, Moore & Lunenburg, 2020) and a lack of available resources including African language use in published and online texts. In a South African context, the latter obstacle is exacerbated by the fact that South Africa has one of the highest linguistic diversities in the world with 11 official languages and many other indigenous languages that are not official, and the fact that a large percentage of rural English Second Language (ESL) learners have been shown to be "nonreaders in English".…”