Parent-child Joint Writing in an Online Preschool Forum

• In Event: 2-130 - Early Writing Assessment and Intervention

Integrative Statement

Introduction: Parents and preschoolers participate in a variety of home literacy activities (e.g., book reading, reading signs and labels) including joint writing. Parents encourage their children to spell words before they formally learn to read and write (e.g. Hindman & Morrison, 2012; Neumann, Hood & Ford, 2012). Activities involving screens and keyboards (computer, smartphone, tablet) are commonplace in the lives of preschoolers in Western societies (e.g., Janisse et al., 2018; Neumann, 2018). Technology is an important learning environment (Takacs, Swart, & Bus, 2015), in which writing (using a keyboard) becomes more accessible for preschoolers and increases their motivation for writing (Aram & Elimelech, 2016). In the present study we combined children’s everyday screen activities and interest with parental home literacy support and created closed internet forums within preschools. In these forums, we guided parents how to efficiently support their children’s writing and to encourage the children to write at least one new post and one response to a friend’s post every week.

Hypotheses: The study hypothesized that parent-child participation in these online forums would predict children's interest in early literacy and early literacy skills.

Study Population: Participants were 174 preschoolers (M=65.57 months) and their parents from eight preschools.

Methods: Parents in each preschool participated in a 3-hour workshop where they learned about effective, developmentally appropriate writing supports and ethics in online forums (e.g., respect and empathy). Each preschool’s closed forum was online for ten weeks. We evaluated children’s early literacy skills (letter knowledge, phonological awareness, word spelling and active vocabulary) before and after the intervention within the preschools. Children’s self-regulation was assessed before the intervention. At home, parents completed a questionnaire of children’s interest in literacy and particular literacy activities.

Results: The results indicate that the extent of children’s participation in the forums (number of words) predicted growth in their early literacy skills (letter knowledge, word spelling and active vocabulary), while controlling for the family’s SES, child gender, self-regulation, interest in literacy before the intervention and the child’s pre-test score on each literacy measure, supporting our hypothesis. Children’s participation in the forums also predicted growth in their literacy interest beyond the family’s SES, child gender, self-regulation and literacy interest before the intervention. The number of responses that children received from their friends in response to their posts predicted the volume of their participation in the forum, while controlling for the family’s SES, child gender, self-regulation and literacy interest before the intervention.

Conclusions: The implications of this study inform parents’ ability to promote their children’s early literacy skills and interest, which play a key role in predicting children’s reading and writing achievements (NELP, 2008). The internet offers a productive environment to enhance early literacy at home; when parents are involved the internet can be a safe and meaningful learning space. Programs that involve parents in the literacy curriculum in preschools, while enabling parents to receive tools in order to promote their children in their home setting, are valuable approaches to family literacy.

Authors

• Coral Shachar, MLA College, Or Yehuda; Tel Aviv University
  Presenting Author

• Dorit Aram, Tel Aviv university
  Non-Presenting Author