Abstract
RationalePhonological awareness, letter knowledge, oral language (including sentence recall) and rapid automatised naming are acknowledged within-child predictors of literacy development. Separate research has identified family factors including socio-economic status, parents’ level of education and family history. However, both approaches have left unexplained significant amounts of variance in literacy outcomes. This longitudinal study sought to improve prospective classification accuracy for young children at risk of literacy failure by adding two new family measures (parents’ phonological awareness and parents’ perceived self-efficacy), and then combining the within-child and family factors.MethodPre-literacy skills were measured in 102 four year olds (46 girls and 56 boys) at the beginning of Preschool, and then at the beginning and end of Kindergarten, when rapid automatised naming was also measured. Family factors data were collected at the beginning of Preschool, and children’s literacy outcomes were measured at the end of Year 1 (age 6–7 years).ResultsChildren from high-risk backgrounds showed poorer literacy outcomes than low-risk students, though three family factors (school socio-economic status, parents’ phonological awareness, and family history) typically accounted for less Year 1 variance than the within-child factors. Combining these family factors with the end of Kindergarten within-child factors provided the most accurate classification (i.e., sensitivity = .85; specificity = .90; overall correct = .88).ImplicationsOur approach would identify at-risk children for intervention before they began to fail. Moreover, it would be cost-effective because although few at-risk children would be missed, allocation of unnecessary educational resources would be minimised.
Highlights
Many children fail to acquire literacy skills despite adequate intelligence and opportunity
Parallel tests were run with the requirement that at least two out of three robust test results confirmed the pattern revealed by the initial analysis before accepting that outcome
The present longitudinal study examined the effects of familial and child risk factors in children from four to six years of age by firstly, comparing children at high and low risk based on familial risk factors on their preliteracy and early literacy skills; secondly, by establishing the combination of child and familial risk factors that would be most useful in predicting literacy skills; and determining if a combination of child and familial factors would identify children likely to perform poorly in early literacy tasks more accurately
Summary
Many children fail to acquire literacy skills despite adequate intelligence and opportunity. Recent national literacy testing indicated that 25% of Australian Year 9 students achieved at or below the benchmark for minimum achievement in reading [1]. The identification of such children before they begin to struggle at school is a matter of significant concern to educators and policy makers as well as to parents. Understanding the factors that contribute to children’s early literacy skill development is of critical importance for researchers, policy makers, and educators [2]. While a large body of research has detailed several important early predictors of later reading achievements, many studies focus solely on within-child factors (e.g., phonological skills) or, alternatively, on environmental or genetic contributions, but not the interactive contribution of both child and family factors
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