Relations Among Children’s Early Language Experiences and School Readiness

• In Event: Socioeconomically Diverse Families Contain Multitudes: Strengths-Based Approaches to Cognitive Development

Abstract

Children are expected to enter school with some degree of school readiness (SR), including pre-literacy knowledge, math abilities, executive functions, and knowledge about categories (e.g., colors, animals; Snow, 2006). SR at kindergarten entry predicts later academic success, yet there are large discrepancies in young children’s SR, often related to socio-economic status (SES; Hoff, 2013). Exploring how adults talk with their young children may provide insight into how conversations help prepare children for success in school (Rowe, 2008).

The current study explores whether how parents talk with their children at 24-months relates to school readiness at 36-months. All participants in the sample were experiencing poverty. Although language abilities have been associated with SES, there is large variability within families of similar SES backgrounds (e.g., Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). This study utilizes a strength-based approach (Kuchirko, 2019) by examining the variability within a low SES group using a subset of 39 mothers and their toddlers (17 males, M= 25.3 months, Range = 23.7- to 29.5-month) randomly selected from the NICHD SECCYD database.
At 24-months, the mother-child dyad was asked to engage in a semi-structured procedure using the three-boxes-task—boxes included a book, toy stove, and toy house—for 15 minutes (M =15.1 minutes, SD = 0.91, Range = 10.7-16.6). Maternal language input was categorized by the speech acts generated by applying a combination of coding schemes (e.g., Rowe et al., 2005; Wu & Gros-Louis, 2015). Eight speech acts were used to identify the speaker’s pragmatic intent: prohibiting, directing, labeling, describing, affirming, playing, requesting, and clarifying. At 36-months, children’s school readiness was measured using the Bracken Basic Concept Scales (BBCS-R; Bracken, 2002).

To control for the variability in mothers’ overall talk, the proportion of the use of a specific speech-act was divided by total utterances for each participant. Results revealed that mothers used descriptions, requests, and directives most frequently when interacting with their child (Table 1). Affirmations, prohibitions, and clarifications were not included in subsequent analyses due to low usage (percentages < .01). Controlling for maternal education, a regression with the five speech acts mothers used at 24-months as predictor variables, and children’s performance on the BBCS-R at 36-months as the outcome variable, accounted for 48.4% of the variance in children’s school readiness, F(6, 32) = 4.996, MSE = 54.03, p <.001 (Table 2). The proportion of play-related talk had the highest predictive value of the five speech acts (β = .336, SE = 16.80, p = .04). Additionally, the proportion of questions was a significant predictor of school readiness (β = .334, SE = 21.90, p = .04).

Results from this study enhance our understanding of how children’s early language experiences improve school readiness in a sample of families experiencing poverty. Findings suggest that increasing requests may help parents foster their children’s school readiness through everyday talk. These findings support the literature on the role of requests for building language and conceptual information (e.g., Rowe et al., 2016) because requests require children to be active and formulate responses.

Authors

• Alexus Ramirez, University of Delaware
  Presenting Author

• Brenna Hassinger-Das, Pace University

• Kathy A Hirsh-Pasek, Temple University

• Roberta M Golinkoff, University of Delaware