Development of Early Literacy
In this project, we hypothesized that home literacy experiences would have a direct impact on language and early-literacy skills. Parents’ knowledge of children’s literature was related to children’s oral language skills, whereas the amount of teaching about reading and writing reported by parents was related to children’s acquisition of early-literacy skills. Furthermore, the impact of home literacy factors was mediated through the language and early-literacy skills in that storybook reading and parent teaching did not predict significant unique variance in reading at the end of Grade 1.
Our results provide support for a distinction between two different aspects of home literacy experiences in that such experiences appear to play different roles in the development of oral language and early literacy. Hence, home literacy experiences should not be considered a unitary construct. Rather, storybook reading and parent teaching may be independent experiences, with different links to early skills and, ultimately, to reading acquisition.
LeFevre, J. and Sénéchal, M. (1999), The Relations among Home-Literacy Factors, Language and Early-literacy Skills, and Reading Acquisition. In M. A. Evans (Chair), Home literacy practices: Precursors, dimensions, and outcomes in the early school years. Symposium presented at the biennial meetings of the Society for Research in Child Development, Albuquerque, NM.
Sénéchal, M., & LeFevre, J. (2002). Parental involvement in the development of children’s reading skill: A 5-year longitudinal study. Child Development, 73, 445-460.
EARLY FRENCH IMMERSION: HOME LITERACY EXPERIENCES
As a follow up to earlier work on home literacy in English speaking children, we explored the role of home experiences in the literacy and numeracy development of children in Early French Immersion. French Immersion is designed for children from Anglophone homes. Parents often wonder whether, for example, they should help their child learn to read in English. We followed children from Kindergarten to Grade 2. So far, our results support the two-process model of home literacy environments that we developed in earlier work (Sénéchal & LeFevre, 2002). Exposure to storybooks (e.g., through shared parent-child reading) facilitates children’s acquisition of vocabulary whereas direct instruction in the mechanics of word reading is related to acquisition of early literacy skills. The same patterns held for children in EFI learning French at school and English at home as for English-speaking children being instructed in English.
LeFevre, J. and Sénéchal, M. (2002). Learning to Read in a Second Language: Parent Involvement still Counts. Presented at: BBCS – Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science;
Vancouver, B.C. May 2002 and ISSBD – International Society for the study of behavioural development,
Ottawa, August 2002.
LeFevre, J. and Sénéchal, M. (2003). Stability and Change in Children’s Home Literacy Experiences
Presented at CPA, Hamilton, June 2003.
Trbovich, P., LeFevre, J. and Sénéchal, M. (2003). Cross-Language Transfer When Learning to Spell in a Second Language. Presented at ISSBD.
Funded by Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council