What can Parents' Self‐report of Reading Difficulties Tell Us about Their Children's Emergent Literacy at School Entry?

Abstract

Research has linked family risk (FR) of reading difficulties (RD) with children's difficulties in emergent literacy development. This study is the first to apply parents' self‐report of RD as a proxy for FR in a large sample (n = 1171) in order to test group differences in children's emergent literacy. Emergent literacy, the home literacy environment and children's interest in literacy and letters were compared across different groups of FR children around the school entry. The FR children performed lower in emergent literacy compared with not‐FR children. Furthermore, when comparing FR children with one parent reporting RD and children with both parents reporting RD, moderate group differences were found in Emergent Literacy. Finally, parents' self‐report of RD was a significant contributor of emergent literacy after controlling for the home literacy environment, children's gender, their interest in literacy and letters, months in kindergarten, vocabulary and parents' education. Our findings suggest that schools should monitor the reading development of children with parents self‐reporting RD closely – especially if both parents self‐report RD. © 2017 The Authors. Dyslexia published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.

Contribution of family risk, emergent literacy and environmental protective factors in children’s reading difficulties at the end of second-grade

“…A possible explanation for these inconsistent findings regarding associations between FR and the HLE is parental level of education and/or socioeconomic background (Esmaeeli et al, 2018;Hamilton et al, 2016). In the studies in which the HLE did not differ between FR and Not-FR groups, there were no differences between FR and Not-FR groups in parental education (Torppa et al, 2007) or maternal education (Elbro et al, 1998).…”

“…The association between FR and the HLE is less clear and data are limited (Snowling & Melby-Lervåg, 2016). Some studies report no differences in HLE between FR families and Not-FR families (Elbro et al, 1998;Torppa et al, 2007), whereas others studies report a relatively disadvantageous HLE for FR children compared with Not-FR children (Dilnot et al, 2017;Esmaeeli, Lundetrae, & Kyle, 2018;Hamilton et al, 2016). Dilnot et al (2017) found that FR children experienced more environmental adversities than Not-FR children.…”

“…Hamilton et al (2016) also reported group differences in storybook exposure between FR and Not-FR children. Moreover, Esmaeeli et al (2018) used parents' self-report of RD to identify FR and Not-FR children, and found a disadvantageous HLE in FR children. In their study, the differences in HLE were even larger when both parents reported RD.…”

“…Parents or adult's self-report of RD is a valid, reliable and time-saving tool to screen RD among parents and adults (Leavett, Nash, & Snowling, 2014;Lefly & Pennington, 2000;Snowling, Dawes, Nash, & Hulme, 2012), which has consequently and increasingly been used as a proxy for FR status (Carroll & Snowling, 2004;Esmaeeli et al, 2018). Snowling et al (2012) argued that self-report is valid, first, because of its strong relationship with directly assessed literacy skills of respondents (parents) and second, due to the association between the parents' self-reporting of RD and emergent literacy difficulties of their children.…”

Screening for Slow Reading Acquisition in Norway and Finland – a Quest for Context Specific Predictors

“…Familial risk was deemed to be present where parents had reported the existence of at least one close relative (mother, father or sibling) with RD. This self-report measure has previously proven to be a valid and reliable way of collecting information about parents' RD (Esmaeeli et al, 2018). Parents of 20.1 per cent of the students in the Norwegian sample reported that their child's mother, father or both had experienced RD.…”