Poster #143 - Korean Children’s Home Literacy Environment, Parental Beliefs about Intelligence and Knowledge of Child Development

• In Event: 3-106 - Poster Session 11
  In Poster Session: PS 11 Section - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Integrative Statement

Parents play an important role in shaping children’s early experiences and subsequent development. Many studies have shown that home environment, especially as determined by the types and frequency of activities that parents engage in with their children at home (Payne, Whitehurst & Angell, 1994), is predictive of children’s language and numeracy development. Furthermore, parents’ beliefs about intelligence and their knowledge of child development have been shown to shape parents’ interactions with their children (Muenks, Miele, Ramani, Stapleton & Rowe, 2015; Rowe, 2008). While there is a growing body of research that examines the relations between these factors, the lack of studies regarding families from diverse backgrounds calls for a cross-cultural approach (LeVine, 2004). Thus, the present study examines the relationship between children’s home literacy environment and mothers’ beliefs and knowledge of development in South Korea.

Korean-speaking, middle-class mothers with 3 – 5 year-olds (N = 32) were recruited from three cities in South Korea. Children’s home literacy and numeracy environment was measured using a questionnaire that asked mothers to report the types and frequency of literacy and numeracy activities that they engage in with their children (e.g., reading together, counting numbers, studying the Korean alphabet). The mothers also answered a short questionnaire about their own theories of intelligence (Dweck, 1999), as well as their knowledge of child development (MacPhee, 2002).

On average, mothers reported engaging in literacy related activities (e.g., reading together, studying the Korean alphabet, practicing writing letters) 2 to 4 times a week, and engaging in numeracy related activities (e.g., writing numbers, counting numbers, measuring lengths) approximately once a week. Controlling for children’s age, mother-child dyads that reported reading together often were also more likely to study the Korean alphabet together (r = 0.39, p = 0.04), but were not more likely to practice writing letters together (r = 0.12, p = 0.54). Further, similar to past findings, mothers’ knowledge about child development was strongly and positively related to their level of education (r = 0.40, p = 0.027). On the other hand, mothers’ beliefs on intelligence were not related to their level of education (r = -0.26, p = 0.17). Interestingly, their knowledge about child development, as well as their beliefs about intelligence, was not directly related to the types or frequency of literacy and numeracy related home activities.

This study takes a cross-cultural perspective to add to the existing literature that examines the relations between factors facilitating children’s early language development. As young children’s early language and numeracy experiences predict their later academic achievement (Weizman & Snow, 2001), our findings compliment previous findings on the importance of parents’ role in children’s early experiences. In addition to the questionnaire data, we have also recorded mother-child play interaction and are currently coding the interactions to see whether these parent factors relate to the ways parents interact with their children.

Authors

• So Yeon Shin, Harvard Graduate School of Education
  Presenting Author

• Hyewon Park, University of Ulsan
  Non-Presenting Author

• Meredith Rowe, Harvard University
  Non-Presenting Author