Testing the Home Literacy Model: Parent Involvement in Kindergarten Is Differentially Related to Grade 4 Reading Comprehension, Fluency, Spelling, and Reading for Pleasure

TLDR

Parents frequently read storybooks to their children and occasionally taught them to read words. The study investigates how early home literacy experiences predict kindergarten literacy skills and later Grade 1 and Grade 4 reading outcomes. The authors assessed 90 French‑speaking children at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1, and 65 of them were followed through Grade 4. Regression analyses showed that kindergarten parent teaching directly predicted alphabet knowledge and Grade 4 reading fluency, while storybook exposure directly predicted kindergarten vocabulary and later reading‑for‑pleasure frequency, and indirectly predicted Grade 4 reading comprehension, thereby extending the Home Literacy Model.

Abstract

Abstract This study examines the longitudinal relations among early literacy experiences at home and children's kindergarten literacy skills, Grade 1 word reading and spelling skills, and Grade 4 reading comprehension, fluency, spelling, and reading for pleasure. Ninety French-speaking children were tested at the end of kindergarten and Grade 1, and 65 were followed until the end of Grade 4. Parents reported in kindergarten that storybook reading occurred frequently and that they sometimes taught their child to read words. The results of hierarchical regression analyses that controlled for parent education as well as concurrent and longitudinal relations among literacy behaviors reveal that parent teaching about literacy in kindergarten directly predicted kindergarten alphabet knowledge and Grade 4 reading fluency, whereas storybook exposure directly predicted kindergarten vocabulary and the frequency with which children reported reading for pleasure in Grade 4. Moreover, storybook exposure predicted Grade 4 reading comprehension indirectly. These findings extend the Home Literacy Model proposed by Senechal and LeFevre (2002).