Poster #92 - Child Literacy Practices and Children's Literacy Skills: The Mediating Role of Children's Language Skills.

• In Event: 3-159 - Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Section - Family Context & Processes

Integrative Statement

Background: The frequency with which children engage in their own literacy practices at home (“child literacy practices”) has been associated with their language and literacy skills (Farver, Xu, Eppe, & Lonigan, 2006). Most studies, however, focused on urban samples (e.g., Bracken & Fischel, 2008) or nationally representative samples without a clear focus on rural areas (e.g., Baker, 2014). Given the importance of language skills on children’s later literacy competencies (Dickinson, Golinkoff & Hirsh-Pasek, 2010; Lee, 2011), this study examines the association of child literacy practices at 36 months and child literacy skills at prekindergarten, mediated by language skills at 36 months in a sample of families living in rural areas.
Participants: Participants for this study were drawn from the Family Life Project, a longitudinal epidemiological study designed to study low-income families residing in rural areas in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. The current study utilized a sample of 1,024 children and their families. Information about the demographic characteristics of these families appears in Table 1.
Method: The frequency of child literacy practices was reported by mothers using five items derived from the Family Activities Questionnaire (FAQ; Vernon-Feagans, Odom, & Panscofar, 2006). These items related to practices with which children engaged on their own in their homes, such as “Look at a book or magazine by himself/herself” (α = .56). Children’s language skills were measured at 36 months using the Expressive Communication subscale of the Preschool Language Scale (PLS-4; Zimmernam, Steiner & Pond, 2002). Children’s literacy skills were measured at prekindergarten using the Woodcock-Johnson Letter-Word Identification subtest (Woodcock-Johnson, Mathes & Schrank, 2004) and the phonological awareness subtest of the Test of Pre-K Early Language (TOPEL; Lonigan, Wagner, Torgeson, & Rashotte, 2007). A number of covariates, including child race, gender, and mental developmental index; maternal literacy skills and education; family income-to-needs ratio; and state-of-residence were included in the analysis.
Analysis: A path analysis in Mplus was conducted in order to test whether children’s language skills at 36 months mediated the relationship between child literacy practices at 36 months and children's literacy skills in prekindergarten.
Findings: Findings of this study suggested that child language skills at 36 months of age (as measured by PLS) mediated the relationship between child literacy practices at 36 months and child literacy skills at prekindergarten. In the presence of the mediator, the direct effect of child literacy practices on letter-word identification was not significant whereas the direct effect on phonological awareness remained significant (see Figure 1).
Conclusion: The results of this study shed light in the process by which child literacy practices at 36 months are associated with their later literacy skills, highlighting the importance of influencing their language skills first. Child literacy practices influenced children’s letter-word identification only through their language skills whereas they influenced children’s phonological awareness both directly and indirectly in a sample of ethnically and socioeconomically diverse families living in low-income rural areas.

Group Authors

Family Life Project Key Investigators

Authors

• Eleni Zgourou, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
  Presenting Author

• Mary Bratsch-Hines, UNC-Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Lynne Vernon-Feagans, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
  Non-Presenting Author

• Family Life Project Key Investigators, Frank Porter Graham Child Development Center
  Non-Presenting Author