Home Literacy and Numeracy Interact and Mediate the Relationship Between Socio-Economic Status and Early Linguistic and Numeracy Skills in Preschoolers.

Paola Bonifacci,Benedetta Peri,Alexandra Affranti,Diego Compiani

doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2021.662265

Abstract

This longitudinal study aimed at evaluating the relationships between socio-economic status (SES) and early literacy and numeracy skills, testing home literacy and home numeracy as mediators. It also investigated the interaction of home literacy and numeracy on early literacy and numeracy skills. The study involved 310 preschool children attending the second and the third year. Parents completed questionnaires on SES and home literacy and numeracy. In the first session, children were administered language measures and non-symbolic numeracy skills and, in the second wave, tasks of early literacy and symbolic numeracy skills. Structural equation models (SEMs) showed that SES was predictive of early language and literacy skills and non-symbolic numeracy skills. In addition, home literacy and home numeracy significantly mediated the relationships between SES and children’s skills. Finally, home literacy and home numeracy showed a significant negative interaction on symbolic numeracy skills. Implications for research and educational settings are discussed.

Highlights

The role of the home environment in early literacy and numeracy development has received progressively increasing attention, according to theoretical models such as Neuroconstructivism (Westermann et al, 2007), that emphasize the role of environmental variables on children’s cognitive development
We evaluated measures that were thought to be adequate for the age range, and that first emerge in the developmental trajectory of literacy and numeracy skills
socio-economic status (SES) was significantly related to both home literacy and numeracy and with all measures in the linguistic domain

Summary

Introduction

The role of the home environment in early literacy and numeracy development has received progressively increasing attention, according to theoretical models such as Neuroconstructivism (Westermann et al, 2007), that emphasize the role of environmental variables on children’s cognitive development. Children who grow up in families with low socio-economic status (SES) often exhibit delays in school readiness. Information Information regarding the parents’ socio-EL and occupation was collected and scored, according to the Four Factor Index of Social Status (SES) (Hollingshead, 2011), to achieve a composite score for each child’s SES. There were four questions on home numeracy activities, two related to direct (formal) activities [“How often do you and your child read or write numbers”; “How often do you and your child use games (even on Tablet or PC) that involve numbers”?] and two related to indirect (informal) activities [“How often do you and your child count objects?”; “How often do you and your child do simple calculations (2 + 1 = 3) in games or during other daily activities?”].

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