Home literacy environments and Chinese preschool children's literacy trajectories: Examining the unique contributions of fathers versus mothers

The home literacy environment (HLE) is critical to children's language and literacy development. Most prior research has not investigated different facets of HLE or considered both maternal and paternal influences on children's language and literacy skills. This study examined the relationships between multiple aspects of HLE and children's language and literacy growth trajectories. Two-hundred-and-twenty-six Chinese preschool children and their fathers and mothers participated. Results showed that the frequency of mother-child literacy teaching activities was associated with the initial level, linear growth, and quadratic growth of children's word reading skills. Paternal expectations were associated with the initial level of word reading skills. Paternal attitudes were associated with the linear growth of children's word reading skills. However, none of the studied HLE factors was associated with the initial level or growth rates of children's receptive vocabulary. These findings underscore the unique contributions of different HLEs offered by fathers and mothers to children's literacy development.

Educational relevance statement

Understanding the unique contributions of different aspects of home literacy environments offered by fathers and mothers to preschool children's language and literacy development can inform the design of effective language- and literacy-related interventions for these children. Our findings suggest that mother-child literacy teaching activities contribute uniquely to the initial performance and growth of, but slower acceleration in growth rates in, children's word reading performance. These findings suggest that literacy teaching resources can be offered to facilitate parent-child literacy teaching activities, especially those between mothers and children so as to enhance children's reading skills. However, caution should be raised about the long-term effectiveness of formal home literacy activities. Our results reveal that paternal expectations for their children's literacy development and paternal attitudes towards reading are predictive of children's word reading performance. Educators and researchers can devote efforts to enhancing parental literacy-related expectations and attitudes, particularly among fathers, while being aware of the excessive expectations which may increase pressure on children.