Relation of Home Literacy, Parental Support, and Child Initiation of Reading to Emergent Literacy in Head Start Preschool Children

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the links among home literacy environment, parental emotional support, child initiation of book reading, and emergent literacy in Head Start preschool children. Participants in the study included 245 primary caregivers and their three- to four-year-old preschool children from Head Start centers located in north-central Oklahoma. Parents completed a modified version of the Parenting Behavior Questionnaire-Head Start (PBQ-HS). Each child was evaluated using both the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III and the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities. Correlations and regression analyses were used in testing the two hypotheses. In support of hypothesis 1, child initiation of reading partially mediated the relation between parental teaching of reading and children's McCarthy verbal scores. The mediator explained 28% of the variance (p = .024) in the path from teaching reading to McCarthy verbal scores. Child initiation of reading also significantly partially mediated between books in the home and McCarthy verbal scores. However, it did not mediate between books in the home and PPVT-III scores. Contrary to hypothesis 2, the results indicated that child initiation of book reading did not significantly mediate between encouraging/explaining consequences and child emergent literacy. Child initiation explained 18% of the variance in the path from encouraging/explaining consequences to McCarthy verbal scores but this was not significant. Instead, encouraging/explaining consequences significantly predicted verbal scores. Parents who verbally encourage their children to think about the consequences of behavior and who verbally explain behavioral consequences have children with higher receptive and expressive vocabularies.