DIFFERENTIAL-EFFECTS OF HOME LITERACY EXPERIENCES ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE

WE EXAMINED whether storybook exposure and the amount of teaching in r eading and writing skills reported by middle class parents were relate d to the oral-language skills (receptive vocabulary, listening compreh ension, and phoneme awareness) and the written-language skills (concep ts about book reading, alphabet knowledge, reading CVC words, and inve nted spelling) of children in kindergarten (n = 110) and Grade 1 (n = 47). Hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for parents' pri nt exposure and children's age and analytic intelligence showed that s torybook exposure explained statistically significant unique variance in children's oral-language skills but not in their written-language s kills. In contrast, parent teaching explained statistically significan t unique variance in children's written-language skills but not in the ir oral-language skills. These findings are consistent with the hypoth esis that storybook exposure may enhance children's oral-language skil ls whereas additional support in the form of teaching may be necessary to enhance written-language skills. At the end of Grade 1, children's oral and written language performance accounted for 20% of the varian ce in word reading, but storybook exposure and parent teaching did not account for additional statistically significant unique variance. The se findings suggest that the association between early home literacy e xperiences and later reading skills may be mediated through children's oral-and written-language skills.