Relationships, individual differences, and children's use of literate language

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Research in children's oral language and early literacy learning currently stresses the facilitative role of social context. Social context in this literature is typically treated on a macro-level, e.g., mother-child interaction or peer interaction. We present a more differentiated model of peer influences on children's learning one oral language register, 'literate language'. Literate language, which predicts school-based literacy, is defined as talk about language and literacy. We suggest that children's temperament and their close relationships, in the form of friendships, play important roles in literate language learning. We present separate models for friends and nonfriends and posit that literate language is learned more effectively between friends because of the emotional tenor of this relationship. When they are with friends children, even those that might be considered 'difficult', disagree, resolve disagreements, then express emotions indicative of social understanding. Reflection upon emotion states, in turn, leads to literate language. The sample comprised 33 males and 23 females attending American kindergarten classes, with a mean age of 65 months. Dyads of same gender and race were observed 12 times across the school year during which time samples of oral language were taken. Measures of children reading and writing were also collected. The data support our model, and the friendship model accounting for more of the variance in literate language (R2 = .69) than did the nonfriend model (R2 = .43). Children with friends engage in the sort of conceptual conflict and resolutions which maximise use of literate language. This context seems particularly important for 'difficult' children. Future research should continue to examine the interface between individual and group levels variables.