For children to become strong readers, they need to learn a huge number of words--at least 100,000 by the time they get to eighth grade. It is impossible to teach that much vocabulary directly; children gain most of their vocabulary indirectly, as their knowledge of the world expands. This article discusses how much of this learning happens…

Families are children's first and most important teachers. However, their ability to support children's learning and development at home varies due to knowledge, skills, and confidence. Family interventions aimed at increasing parents' skills are labour-intensive and expensive. In contrast, text messages are low-cost and scalable. Text messages…

This literature review examines the main factors in a child's life that directly impact the development of emergent literacy skills. The literature in this review was collected from several peer-reviewed articles and government-certified websites. As discussed in the literature, the development of emergent literacy skills is dependent upon a…

The acquisition of cultural capital can only be understood in the light of the formation of habitus, including the socialisation process, and in the context of the field in which any such capital has value. Yet, the relation between cultural capital and habitus is seldom discussed in research. Drawing on the data from focus groups with 96 students…

The study examined aspects of parent-child shared reading interactions of two Hebrew alphabet books, children's motivation to engage in early literacy activities, and how these variables relate to children's early literacy skills. Participants were 44 children (32 girls, 12 boys) aged 4.6 to 6.6 years (M = 5.6, SD = 0.54) and one parent (42…

Many children in developing countries do not acquire functional literacy skills despite being in school. We apply a cumulative risk (aggregate over a range of risk) and protection framework to assess Ghanaian kindergarteners' early academic skills (N = 1,852, M(age) = 5.3 years; 50.2% female), considering how family-level risk factors and…

This research attempts to reveal the views of the primary school teachers, having Syrian students in their class, on these students' Turkish and mathematics skills and the challenges they have confronted in the classroom. The research used a mixed research method and 347 primary school teachers who met the criterion of having Syrian students in…

Dialogic reading, in which parents engage children in discussion of books, is associated with long-term literacy success. Social media is an emerging platform for promoting behavioral change, but it has yet to be tested as a platform for engaging parents in use of dialogic reading strategies with their young children. This exploratory study was…

This study provided workshops for parents on either early literacy or socio-emotional learning to examine the impact on their children's reading and social skills development (n = 576 parents; n = 584 children). Parents of kindergartners were offered interactive workshops designed to help them identify everyday opportunities to support reading…

The aim of the present study was to investigate the associations between parental and teacher support and elementary students' academic skills during the COVID-19 pandemic. Building on data of an ongoing longitudinal study, we studied the roles of children's (N = 63) academic skills before the first COVID-19 lockdown in Germany (March-June 2020)…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the predominant factors contributing to low reading abilities of pupils at Elsie Lund Basic School in the Tamale Metropolis, Ghana. Purposive sampling technique was used to select twelve (12) classroom teachers of the Elsie Lund Basic School. The instrument used to collect data was one-to-one in-depth…

Public policy meant to improve educational outcomes has focused on within-school factors, even though it is known that factors within the home influence these outcomes more. This article suggests that some aspects of academic work are well enough understood that researchers can offer advice as to changes that parents might make in the home, so as…

This longitudinal study aimed at examining the relationship between children's task persistence, mothers' academic help, and the development of children's literacy skills (reading and spelling) at the beginning of primary school. The participants were 870 children, 682 mothers, and 53 class teachers. Data were collected three times--at the…

This study examined the relation of parental involvement with Korean adolescent academic achievement and self-efficacy, and the mediating role of academic self-efficacy in this relationship. We investigated the effects of parental involvement in both overall and domain-specific self-efficacy and academic achievement across three academic subjects…

Existing literature acknowledges the potential variances between home and school in the values, priorities, aspirations, and practices surrounding literacy. Some researchers have approached this dilemma by offering programs to educate parents in ways of the school. Other researchers suggest that schools need to be more inclusive of home practices…