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

Sheri-Lynn Skwarchuk, Heather Douglas, Abbie Cahoon, Jo-Anne LeFevre, Chang Xu, Emilie Roy, Victoria Simms, Judith Wylie, Erin A. Maloney, Helena P. Osana, María Inés Susperreguy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)
49 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

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.
Original languageEnglish
Article numbere513
JournalEducation Sciences
Volume12
Issue number8
Early online date26 Jul 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished online - 26 Jul 2022

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, grant # 435-2018-1463.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors.

Keywords

  • home literacy
  • home numeracy
  • early academic skills
  • grade 3 children
  • parental involvement
  • home mathematics environment
  • home activities

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Relations between the Home Learning Environment and the Literacy and Mathematics Skills of Eight-Year-Old Canadian Children'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this