HOME LITERACY - OPPORTUNITY, INSTRUCTION, COOPERATION AND SOCIAL-EMOTIONAL QUALITY PREDICTING EARLY READING-ACHIEVEMENT

IN THIS prospective study home literacy is considered a multifaceted p henomenon consisting of a frequency or exposure facet (opportunity), a n instruction quality facet, a parent-child cooperation facet, and a s ocial-emotional quality facet. In a multiethnic, partly bilingual samp le of 89 families with 4-year-old children, living in inner-city areas in the Netherlands, measures of home literacy were taken by means of interviews with the parents and observations of parent-child book read ing interactions when the target children were ages 4, 5, and 6 years. Ar age 7, by the end of Grade 1, after nearly 1 year of formal readin g instruction, vocabulary, word decoding, and reading comprehension we re assessed using standard tests. Vocabulary at age 4 and an index of the predominant language used at home were also measured in order to b e used as covariates. Correlational and multiple regression analyses s upported the hypothesis that home literacy is multifaceted. Home liter acy facets together predicted more variance in language and achievemen t measures at age 7 than each of them separately. Structural equations analysis also supported two additional hypotheses of the present rese arch. First, the effects of background factors (SES, ethnicity, parent s' own literacy practices) on language development and reading achieve ment in school were hilly mediated by home literacy, home language, an d early vocabulary. Second, even after controlling for the effects of early vocabulary and predominant home language, there remained statist ically significant effects of home literacy, in particular, opportunit y, instruction quality, and cooperation quality.