Relations between the Home Learning Environment and the Literacy and Mathematics Skills of Eight-Year-Old Canadian Children

• Published in: Education sciences Vol. 12; no. 8; p. 513
• Main Authors: Skwarchuk, Sheri-Lynn, Douglas, Heather, Cahoon, Abbie, LeFevre, Jo-Anne, Xu, Chang, Roy, Emilie, Simms, Victoria, Wylie, Judith, Maloney, Erin A., Osana, Helena P., Susperreguy, María Inés
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01-08-2022
• Subjects: Academic achievement; Age groups; Child Health; Children & youth; Cognition & reasoning; Curricula; early academic skills; Early literacy; Educational attainment; Educational Environment; Emergent Literacy; Extracurricular activities; Families & family life; Grade 2; grade 3 children; Grade 6; home literacy; home mathematics environment; home numeracy; Learning; Learning Activities; Mathematics; Mathematics Achievement; Mathematics Skills; Number systems; Parent participation; parental involvement; Parents & parenting; Preschool children; Preschool education; Reading comprehension; Skill development; Socioeconomic factors; Students; Success; Teaching Methods; Thinking Skills; Young Children
• ISSN: 2227-7102; 2227-7102
• DOI: 10.3390/educsci12080513

The home learning environment includes parental activities, attitudes, affect, knowledge, and resources devoted to supporting children’s development, including literacy and mathematics skills. These factors are related to the academic performance of preschool children (aged 3 to 6 years), before formal schooling and possibly beyond. In the present research, we examined the home learning environment of Canadian families as reported by either the mother (n = 51) or father (n = 30) of their Grade 3 child (n = 81; Mage = 8.7 years; range 8 to 9 years of age). Importantly, mothers’ and fathers’ reports of the home learning environment for school children were similar. For literacy, parents’ knowledge of children’s books and attitudes toward literacy were related to children’s vocabulary skills; home literacy was not related to word reading skills. For mathematics, parents’ reports of the frequency of activities such as practicing arithmetic facts and their attitudes toward mathematics were related to children’s arithmetic fluency. Other aspects of the home learning environment (time spent helping with homework, parents’ math anxiety) were not related to children’s performance. These results suggest some continuity between home learning environments and academic skills after children’s transition to school.