The Contribution of Home Literacy Context to Preschool Academic Competencies for American Indian and Alaska Native Children

Abstract

Despite rich cultural, lingual, and tribal assets, American Indian and Alaska Native (AIAN) children experience suboptimal educational outcomes that start before kindergarten entry. Evidence suggests that home literacy activities may be supportive of developmental outcomes within this population, but these home literacy activities have not been substantially investigated with AIAN populations. This study examined how the overall home literacy context and individual home literacy indicators (i.e., frequency of shared book reading, singing songs, telling stories, and the number of books in the home) relate to AIAN children’s preschool reading and math skills. This study comprised data from the ECLS-B, which included a nationally-representative sample of 10,400 children born in 2001 and a deliberate oversample of AIAN children. Hierarchical regression analyses were conducted to investigate the relationships between home literacy and preschool reading and math skills with an analytic sample of 650 AIAN children. Overall home literacy context was supportive of AIAN children’s reading and math skill development, and the particular import of shared book reading was found in improving reading skills. Findings support the value of what parents do with their children (i.e. participate in home literacy activities) above and beyond relatively static economic or social characteristics (e.g., maternal education, income-to-needs ratio).