PARENTAL PRINT EXPOSURE AND YOUNG CHILDRENS LANGUAGE AND LITERACY SKILLS

We examined the relations of parental print exposure, SES, and educati on to young children's language and literacy skills. Thirty-nine 5- an d 6-year-old children in their first year of school were given vocabul ary, printing performance, and phonemic awareness tests. Patents compl eted Stanovich and West's (1989) checklist measures of print exposure. Phonemic awareness was correlated with the print exposure of both par ents, as well as with mothers' and fathers' education and family SES. Vocabulary test scores correlated with mothers' print exposure and did not correlate with parental education or family SES. Printing perform ance was correlated with mothers' and fathers' print exposure and moth ers' education. Stepwise multiple regression analyses suggested that p arental education and print exposure are related to early language and literacy skills and that SES does not account for individual differen ces in these measures.