Getting Preschoolers Ready for School: Parents’ Perceptions of the Home Learning Environment

• In Event: Relations between parent and teacher factors and children’s school readiness skills

Abstract

The academically related activities children do at home during their preschool years are associated with their early and subsequent educational development (McCormick et al., 2020; Sonnenschein & Sawyers, 2018; Watts et al., 2014). For example, the frequency of reading different types of books is positively associated with the development of children’s reading skills (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002; Serpell et al., 2005). A similar relation holds for mathematics activities and skill development (Blevins-Knabe, 2016).
Despite the large body of research on parent influences on children’s early academic development, there are still some important gaps in our knowledge (Baker & DeWyngaert, 2018). One, what are parents’ views of the importance of the home for fostering children’s reading and mathematics skills? Prior research, much of it done over 10 years ago, shows that parents emphasize reading. This study extends prior research on this topic by providing a more current sample than has been used in the past. Given an increased societal emphasis on the development of mathematics skills in the past 10 years, parents’ attitudes and practices may have changed.
Most studies that assess the frequency of children’s engagement in activities do not consider how much actual time children spend in activities. We asked about frequency and actual time spent engaging in reading and mathematics activities
Two, how confident do parents of preschoolers feel to assist their children with reading and mathematics activities? There is limited information on this topic. But, for parents to engage in these activities with their children, they need to feel confident that they have the skills to do so.
Three, what information about reading and mathematics activities do parents report receiving from the children’s teachers and what information do they want to receive? Although there is much theoretical support for the importance of such communication between parents and teachers, there is relatively little, if any, empirical documentation on the topic.
We used an online survey (N=126 preschool parents) distributed via social media to examine parents’ views of their children’s home-based reading and mathematics engagement, parents’ confidence to support their children’s reading and mathematics development, and the information they received and would like to receive from their children’s teachers (Tables 1 and 2).
Key findings:
(1) parents prioritized children’s reading (M = 4.83, SD = 0.47) over their mathematics (M = 4.55, SD = 0.72) development, t (122) = 5.07, p <.001.
(2) the difference in children’s engagement in such activities may come from parents lacking confidence how to foster their children’s mathematics skills: 35% were not confident about assisting their children with reading; 44% were not confident about assisting with mathematics, t (125) =4.45, p<.001.
(3) The majority of parents wanted to receive more information about mathematics (64%) and reading (61%) from their children’s teachers.
Preschool teachers play an important role in supporting home learning of reading and mathematics. Even highly educated parents may lack the confidence to support their young children’s academic growth, particularly in mathematics, and so the support teachers provide to parents is critical.

Authors

• Susan Sonnenschein, University of Maryland - Baltimore County
  Presenting Author

• Michele Stites, University of Maryland - Baltimore County
  Non-Presenting Author