The role of the traditional and digital home literacy environment in Chinese Kindergartners’ language and early literacy

Abstract

In this study, we examined whether a digital home literacy environment could be distinguished from a traditional literacy environment in Chinese context and the relationship between parental literacy expectations, traditional and digital home literacy environment, and children's language and early literacy skills. In addition, we explored whether the relationship between HLE and children's language and early literacy would be affected by parental perceived abilities with home literacy activities. One hundred and seventy kindergarten-2 children (82 boys and 88 girls; mean age = 55.15 months) and their parents participated in the study. Parents filled out a questionnaire on the home environment (i.e., parental expectations, home literacy activities, and parental perceived abilities in home literacy activities), and the children were assessed on language skills (vocabulary and grammatical skills) and early literacy (i.e., syllable and tone awareness). Results showed that a digital home literacy environment (DHLE) could be distinguished from a traditional home literacy environment (THLE). Chinese traditional home literacy environment consisted of three distinct aspects (Chinese speaking, Chinese writing, and informal literacy activities). Furthermore, there were no direct or indirect effects of (aspects of) the home literacy environment in predicting language skills, whereas an indirect effect of parental literacy expectations on early literacy was found, via the DHLE only. Finally, there was a positive relationship between DHLE and children's early literacy for parents who experience difficulties in providing the conditions for DHLE. Overall, these findings suggest that the DHLE has already become an important part of the Chinese home literacy environment. In addition, when it comes to children's early literacy skills, the use of digital learning tools may partly compensate for parent's difficulties in digital home literacy education.