The Relationship between Parental Literacy Level and Perceptions of Emergent Literacy

Abstract

The study examined parental perceptions of young children's literacy development and explored the relationship between parental literacy level and perceptions of the importance of literacy artifacts and events/experiences in preschoolers' literacy development. One-hundred-eight parents of beginning kindergartners were interviewed and given a test of literacy level. The interview had two open-ended items asking about why some children are successful in reading and writing in school and others are not and about what parents of preschoolers might do to help them learn to read and write better later in school. Likert items gauged views of the importance of literacy artifacts and events and interactions in the home during preschool years for later success in reading and writing. Statistical as well as interpretive analyses were used. On the whole, parents were very positive about the notion that literacy learning can begin during the preschool years. There was, however, a significant negative relationship between parental literacy level and perceptions of the importance of literacy artifacts and events; parents with lower literacy levels thought literacy artifacts and events were even more important than did parents with higher literacy levels. Further, low-literacy and high-literacy parents tended to have different perceptions of what is important for early literacy development. The purpose of this study was to examine parental perceptions of young children's literacy development and to explore the relationship between parental literacy level and perceptions of the importance of literacy artifacts and events/experiences in preschoolers' literacy development. In this study, literacy refers to reading and writing. Recent research on emergent literacy clearly indicates that literacy acquisition may begin during the preschool years, when children may acquire concepts of literacy, learn about the functions and conventions of print, and develop an interest

Spelling Acquisition in Two Social Groups: Mother-Child Interaction, Maternal Beliefs and Child's Spelling

“…Thus, the mothers and children were highly concerned about the child's spelling errors and tried to work on it as much as they could during their mutual activity. However, these findings may also support the notion that whereas LSES parents use skill orientation in literacy events with their children, HSES parents try to foster literacy acquisition through meaning and understanding (Heath, 1983;Fitzgerald et al, 1991). Holding a more developmental approach, HSES parents work with their children -emphasizing the importance of text content, such as genre elements, while viewing spelling in the early years as a matter of child invention and exploration and part of a long process of mastering literacy (Kress, 2000;Reddy & Dauite, 1993).…”

“…Holding a more developmental approach, HSES parents work with their children -emphasizing the importance of text content, such as genre elements, while viewing spelling in the early years as a matter of child invention and exploration and part of a long process of mastering literacy (Kress, 2000;Reddy & Dauite, 1993). Our findings add to the extant body of literature which suggests that this type of behavior is relevant not only to the emergent reading of preschoolers (Fitzgerald et al, 1991;Stipek et al,1992) but also to parental writing activities with school beginners.…”

The Effects of Explicitly Teaching Story Structure to Primary Grade Children

“…The adults in lower-income homes tend to have less well developed literacy skills in comparison to their higher-income peers. As a result, these adults see reading as a discrete set of skills (Fitzgerald, Spiegel, & Cunningham, 1991), and when storybooks are read they tend to focus on basic skills such as decoding and word meaning, with significantly less discussion of the structure and comprehension of the story (Baker, Scher, & Mackler, 1997). Given this, it is not surprising to find that nearly 40% of the variance of disadvantaged children's low academic performance in elementary school can be attributed to the quality of the home learning environment (Smith, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1997).…”

Caractéristiques et perception de la littératie chez les parents ayant de faibles compétences en lecture et en écriture

“…D'autres éléments tels que la culture, les traditions, le niveau socio-économique, l'environnement social, les caractéristiques spécifiques de leur enfant de même que leurs caractéristiques personnelles contribuent aussi au développement de leurs perceptions envers l'acquisition de la littératie (Powell, 1996). Fitzgerald, Spiegel et Cunningham (1991) ont étudié les perceptions des parents envers le développement de la littératie de leur enfant en relation avec leur niveau de compétence en lecture et en écriture. 108 parents ayant un enfant à la maternelle ont participé à une entrevue et ont répondu à un test pour déterminer leur niveau de compétence dans ces domaines.…”

“…D'autres parents ont des croyances plus traditionnelles. Des chercheurs soutiennent que les parents ayant de faibles compétences en lecture et en écriture ont souvent des croyances traditionnelles vis-à-vis l'acquisition de la littératie (Fitzgerald, Spiegel et Cunningham, 1991). Est-ce le cas pour tous ces parents ?…”