Year: 2012
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: This dissertation focuses on the predictive relations between parental home-based involvement in children's schooling and the development of children's reading and math skills in kindergarten and in the first two years of primary school (i.e., elementary school).The dissertation investigates (1) the extent to which children's emergent literacy or emergent numeracy skills in kindergarten and in primary school would predict parental home-based involvement; and ( 2) to what extent parents' home-based involvement in their children's learning during kindergarten and during primary school would predict the subsequent development of their children's academic skills.Additionally, (3) the antecedents of parental involvement and the antecedents of children's academic skills were investigated.The present thesis is based on two data sets.The first of these stems from the Jyväskylä Entrance into Primary School study, in which 207 children and their parents were followed up during the children's transition from kindergarten to primary school.The second data set is part of the First Steps study, in which circa 2,000 children and their mothers and fathers participated.The mothers and fathers of both data sets completed questionnaires concerning their home-based involvement in the middle of their children's kindergarten year as well as during the subsequent first and second school year.Children's skills were assessed at the beginning and the end of kindergarten, Grade 1, and Grade 2. The results showed that parental home-based involvement was related differently to children's skills in kindergarten and primary school.(1) In kindergarten, the better word reading and math skills children showed, the more teaching of reading, shared reading and teaching of math their parents reported having given.However, in Grade 1, it was children's poor skills in reading and math that activated parents' teaching of reading, shared reading, and teaching of math.Similarly, the worse reading and math skills children showed at the beginning of Grade 1, the more monitoring and help parents reported to be giving later on.Overall, the results suggest that mothers and fathers adjust their teaching to the actual skill level of their children when their children enter primary school.The results show further that (2) of the reading-related activities, mothers' teaching of reading was the best predictor of the development of reading skills among kindergarten children.However, starting in Grade 1, parental involvement was less beneficial for the development of children's reading and math skills.The additional results showed that (3) the lower the socioeconomic status of mothers and fathers, the more teaching of reading and math they reported to be giving.Also, the results further demonstrate that girls (vs.boys), firstborns (vs.later-borns), and children with more highly educated mothers are more likely to become good readers by the end of the kindergarten year.
Author: Gintautas Šilinskas
Language: English
Subfield: Education
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
Funder: Jyväskylän Yliopisto
OpenAlex ID: W756387245