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Emergent literacy differences in Latino and African American children: Culture or poverty?

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Emergent literacy differences in Latino and African American children: Culture or poverty?

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Content EMERGENT LITERACY DIFFERENCES IN LATINO AND AFRICAN
AMERICAN CHILDREN: CULTURE OR POVERTY?
Copyright 2003
by
Stefanie Eppe Chamberlain
A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTERS OF ARTS
(PSYCHOLOGY)
May 2003
Stefanie Eppe Chamberlain
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UMI Number: 1416539
UMI
UMI Microform 1416539
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UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
THE GRADUATE SCHOOL
UNIVERSITY PARK
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695
This thesis, written by
S tetpivie- . e?PE.
under the direction o f hgJf_ thesis committee, and
approved by all its members, has been presented to and
accepted by the Director of Graduate and Professional
Programs, in partial fulfillment of the requirements fo r the
degree of
Date May 1 6 . 2 0 0 3
Thesis Committee y
Chair
x '■ /V .. / ■
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
List of Tables______________________________________________ iii
Abstract___________________________________________________ iv
Introduction________________________________________________ 1
Methods___________________________________________________ 15
Results____________________________________________________ 18
Discussion_________________________________________________ 26
Bibliography________________________________________________ 31
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LIST OF TABLES
Table 1. Sample Description__________________________________ 16
Table 2. Factor Analysis of the LRS____________________________ 19
Table 3. Variable Means for Individual Ethnic Groups_______________21
Table 4. Correlations among SES, Oral Language, and Home Literacy
Environment______________________________________________ 22
Table 5. Home Literacy Environment Variables as Predictors of
Children’s Oral Language Scores_______________________________ 24
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ABSTRACT
This study investigated how culture and socioeconomic status (SES) are
associated with the oral language skills and home literacy environments of Latino
and African American children. Participants were 214 African American and 102
Latino preschoolers and their mothers. Mothers completed a Home Literacy
Environment questionnaire; children’s receptive vocabulary was measured using the
PPVT-R. Results showed higher language scores for Latino children. Latino home
environments had higher levels of reading exposure, reading engagement, library
program participation, and parents’ leisure reading, while African American families
reported higher levels of book ownership, print-related activities, and earlier mother-
child reading onset ages. SES was not associated with home environments or
children’s language scores. Reading exposure and engagement predicted children’s
oral language scores. An interaction between reading engagement and ethnicity
significantly contributed to the variance explained. The findings suggest that certain
cultural practices may persist across SES, and be of relevant predictive value.
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INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this study was to investigate how culture and socioeconomic
status (SES) are associated with the oral language skills and home literacy
environments of Latino and African American preschoolers. This study addressed
the SES-culture confound that is prevalent in the psychological literature by
analyzing the independent contribution, as well as the effects of the interaction of
SES and culture, on children’s oral language skills and aspects of their home literacy
environments. The study was developed to address the following research questions:
(1). How are culture and SES associated with aspects of the home literacy
environment ? (2). Are culture and SES associated with children's oral language
scores? (3). How are aspects of home literacy environments associated with
children's oral language scores? (4). Does SES make an independent contribution to
the variance in children's oral language skills when controlling for culture?
Understanding literacy-related phenomena by analyzing the contribution of
poverty and culture independently, and in interaction, has important theoretical
implications which can help in developing culturally appropriate assessments and
interventions for young children.
1. SES, Culture and Literacy
Minority and low socioeconomic status have been repeatedly linked to
deficiencies reported in studies of children's emergent literacy skills, reading
difficulties, and low academic achievement. Minorities and culturally diverse groups
have consistently demonstrated disproportionate academic underachievement in
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mainstream American schools (Weisner et. al, 2001). The National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP)(National Center for Educational Statistics, 1999)
reported that Latino students perform below their non-Latino peers in reading,
writing, mathematics and science by age nine. Furthermore, data from NAEP’s
(NCES, 2001) long-term assessments indicate that African American students’
average reading scores remain lower than those of white students across time. These
disparities can be appreciated as early as kindergarten and remain stable through age
17. Likewise, children from low-income families for whom standard English is not
their first/primary language have deficiencies in oral language skills (Edmaston,
1984; Juel, Griffith & Gough, 1986; Lonigan & Whitehurst, 1998; Whitehurst,
1996), and are at-risk for reading difficulties (Dubow & Ipolito, 1994; Juel, et al.,
1986; Smith & Dixon, 1995). Children growing up under poverty conditions have
disproportionately high rates of illiteracy and reading problems (Alexander &
Entwisle, 1988), and smaller vocabularies than do middle-class children (Ninio,
1980). Moreover, vocabulary size has been significantly associated with family SES
in studies of inner-city children as young as twenty-two months (Rescorla,1989).
The Linguistic Minority Research Group (Gandara, 1997) reported that 25%
of California’s K-12 students are limited English proficient, and have English
reading and writing skills that are 50% below those children with native English
proficiency. Additionally, reading and writing skills are the last in a hierarchy of
skills that these low income children develop. Stipek and Ryan (1997) found that
economically disadvantaged African American children scored lower on word
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knowledge, verbal fluency, and letter achievement tests than did their advantaged
counterparts. They also found that SES had a significant effect on Latino children’s
letter achievement scores, favoring advantaged over disadvantaged children. As
might be expected, family income was significantly correlated with parents’ level of
education and their reports of engaging in parent-child informal learning-related
activities in the home (i.e., reading to the child and talking about things they learned
at school).
Psychologists have tried to explain this pattern of SES/ethnicity differences
by examining a range of factors. Unfortunately these findings have been difficult to
interpret. Compounding this problem is that there are methodological flaws in much
of the existing research. The primary criticisms are problems with linguistically- and
culturally-biased assessments/ tests and the lack of control for bilingual language
proficiencies (Gonzalez & Schallert, 1999). Some studies have focused on poverty-
related issues such as availability of printed materials (McCormick & Mason, 1986),
or the specifics of preschool program environments (McCartney, 1984; Scarr &
McCartney, 1988), while a growing number of studies have focused on differences
in young children's home environments. Examining the quality of children’s home
learning environments may provide a clearer understanding of how poverty affects
children’s early language development (e.g., Hart & Rizley, 1995; Walker,
Greenwood, Hart & Carta, 1994) However, it is still unclear whether differences in
the home environment are a product of the interaction of SES and culture, or whether
these differences can be attributed to income, or culture independently.
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Home Environment and Emergent Literacy
The emergent literacy approach views literacy as part of a developmental
continuum that begins in the early life of the child; rather than with initial school
attendance (i.e., kindergarten/first grade). Emergent literacy is composed not only of
conventional forms of reading and writing, but also of the skills, knowledge,
attitudes, and environments that support these developmental precursors to literacy
(Sulzby, 1989; Sulzby & Tale, 1991; Teale & Sulzby, 1986; Lonigan, 1994;
Whitehurst & Lonigan, 1998). During the emergent literacy period, children have
opportunities not only to acquire knowledge about letters, words, and books but they
also begin to develop beliefs, attitudes, and practices regarding literacy. Although
children receive direct instruction in these skills in school settings, many theorists
and practitioners believe these skills develop in supportive home environments and
that children derive their attitudes towards literacy from their parents' models.
Therefore, prior studies on the effects of home environments on emergent literacy
have typically examined how broad factors such as parent education, socioeconomic
status, and family dynamics influence parents' beliefs and attitudes toward literacy,
and how they influence children's decoding skills. For example, Connors (1994),
found that adults’ positive attitudes toward education and their level of engagement
in literacy tasks led to an improvement in children’s literacy skills. Some research
also suggests that the amount of basic literacy knowledge children acquire prior to
formal education depends on how much exposure they have to literacy artifacts,
experiences, and their interests and abilities. That is, the extent to which children are
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provided early learning opportunities in the sociocultural context of the home,
establishes much of what may be learned, how and when it will be taught, and the
rate of their learning (Heath, 1989; Hart et al, 1995).
Recent researchers have documented the influence of home environment
factors, such as print exposure, parent-child joint book reading, and the age at which
parents report that they began reading to their child on relatively advantaged
children’s emergent literacy skills.
For example, aseries of longitudinal studies by Senechal and her colleagues
(Senechal & LeFevre, 2001; Senechal & LeFevre, 2002) examining parental
involvement in the development of children’s reading skills in 168 middle- and
upper-middle class Canadian children, found that children’s book exposure was
related to the development of vocabulary and listening comprehension skills, which
in turn were related to children’s reading skills 3 years later. They also found that
parental involvement in teaching children about reading and writing words was
related to the development of early literacy skills, which were predictive of
children’s reading in third grade.
Similarly, in a study of Mexican-American children, Okagaki, Frensch, and
Gordon (1995) found that parents of high-achieving children modeled literacy
activities in the home (i.e., reading magazines, checking for information in a book),
more often than did the parents of low-achievers; these effects remained robust after
controlling for maternal education. These studies seem to indicate that the learning
process that leads to fluent reading have their roots in children’s early experiences
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within their home environments. There is still much to be understood about
differences that exist between environments, and where these may originate.
Home Literacy Environments. SES and Culture
In order to better understand the effects of home environments on children’s
literacy outcomes, researchers have begun to examine differences in aspects of the
these environments as related to cultural and socioeconomic variables such as family
literacy practices, beliefs, and expectations. Some studies suggest that the variance in
children's oral language skills is related to cultural differences in home literacy
practices, such as shared book-reading (Ninio, 1980). The White House Initiative on
Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans (1999) reported that while three to
five year-old children may start school better prepared to learn if they are read to,
only 65% of the Latino children are read to, compared to 75% of the African
American children, and 90% of the White children. Other studies have also found
that home book reading is a relatively uncommon activity in Latino households
(Godina, 1997; Teale, 1986).
Other home environment factors that have been implicated are parental
beliefs, values, and language use (Delgado-Gaitan, 1987; Christenson, Rounds, &
Gomey, 1992; Suarez-Orozco & Suarez-Orozco, 1995; Gibson, 1997). Some of
these studies propose there is a ‘cultural mismatch,’ wherein they attribute
minorities’ academic deficits to cultural discontinuities between the home and school
environments (Gallimore, Boggs, & Jordan, 1974; Datcher-Loury, 1987; Azmitia et.
al., 1994, Greenfield, Quiros & Raeff, 2000). The discontinuity model is exemplified
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in the Kamehameha Elementary Education Program (KEEP), a 23 (+) year research
and intervention program. This project was developed and carried out to improve
the school literacy achievement of native Hawaiian students by providing “culturally
responsive instruction [that would allow] students to achieve academic goals through
means consistent with the values and standards of behavior of the home culture” (Au
& Asam, 1997, p. 689). KEEP implemented culturally responsive instruction by
incorporating learning interactions and classroom management styles that were in
line with the families’ emphasis on the ability of working together for the well-being
of the extended family, rather than the schools’ more typical emphasis on individual
achievement. Such aspects of the program built on students’ preferences for
cooperative group activities as opposed to competitive, individualistic ones, which
seemed to more naturally reinforce children’s and teachers’ involvement in literacy
activities.
Some studies have more directly examined the effects of parental beliefs and
expectations as part of the home literacy environment. Galper, Wigfield, and
Seefeldt’s (1997) conducted a study which assessed the beliefs and expectations of
124 ethnically diverse parents of Head Start children, and how these were related to
children’s attitudes toward school, and their reading performance. The study found
that parents’ beliefs were related to children’s own expectations, test performance,
and attitudes towards school, and were predictive of the children's vocabulary test
scores.
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Other studies which examined parents' goals for their children have reported
that compared to African American and White parents, Latino parents were less
confident that their children would get a good education. Most of the immigrant
Latino families tended to emphasize their children's moral development and "good"
behavior (i.e., bien educado) and de-emphasized preschool academic learning
opportunities in the home (Goldenberg & Gallimore, 1995). Why these differences
exist, and how they may affect children’s outcomes remains unclear. Ortiz-Colon's
(1985) study of low-income Puerto Rican families compared parents' and teachers'
beliefs about children's school behavior and goals for their education. These results
showed that mothers valued and encouraged obedience, rule following, and
conformity in the classroom, whereas, their children’s Anglo-American teachers
valued and encouraged independence, verbal expressiveness, and self-directed
activities. It was also noted that while teachers and mothers generally agreed on the
desired goals (e.g., preparing children to defend themselves in life), Latino mothers
operated from a traditional Puerto Rican set of values, whereas teachers behaved in
line with mainstream American beliefs. Similarly, Zayas and Solari’s (1994) review
of early childhood socialization in Latino families concluded that ".. .parents
socialize children to behave in ways important to the family’s culture, whether or not
it is in accordance with the norms of the dominant culture..." (p. 203). Moreover,
they reported differences between the Latino and Anglo-American families'
conceptualizations of an “intelligent child,” and predominant maternal teaching
behaviors. Latino parents, for example, viewed the development of social skills in
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children as equal or as more important than cognitive skills, whereas Anglo-
American parents reported the reverse. Additionally, Latino mothers used teaching
behaviors based on modeling, visual cues, and directives, while Anglo-American
mothers used verbal inquiry strategies and praise. In accounting for these differences,
the authors argued that research is needed to identify differences within and between
Hispanic subgroups, and to better understand the relative effects of other factors such
as parenting stress, social support, acculturation, education, and socio-economic
status which could explain this pattern of results.
The results of these studies seem to indicate that culture may play a role in
the development or maintenance of important differences in home environments.
Such differences and their possible effects, though, need to be more clearly
understood before the ‘cultural mismatch’ between home and schools is evaluated as
negative, or causal of children’s academic deficits. One aspect that needs to be more
closely examined is families’ socioeconomic status. Although many studies
acknowledge socioeconomic status as a potentially significant factor in
understanding children's literacy development (Garcia, 2000; Goldenberg &
Gallimore, 1995; Galper, Wigfield, & Seefeldt, 1997), few have actually controlled
for this variable or have examined it in any systematic fashion.
Most research has been conducted with low-income families, which in the
U.S. is confounded with ethnicity or minority status. With few exceptions (e.g., Hart
& Risley, 1992; 1995), studies have not been able to control for the effects of
poverty or to examine SES as a primary variable. These methodological limitations
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have made the results difficult to interpret and the conclusions from the
discontinuity models questionable. As Weisner et. al (2001) point out, the cultural
discontinuity model assumes that “.. .if students are not performing on par with their
middle-class peers, then culturally diverse homes must not be providing children
with the attitudes, experiences, and language usage associated with school
achievement...” (p. 21). This statement, in itself, illustrates a major limitation in
literacy research: the poverty-culture confound.
The SES-Culture Confound
The characteristics of minority children’s home literacy environments and
practices, and the effects of SES need to be better understood. Unfortunately, this has
been particularly difficult because there is an overrepresentation of cultural/ethnic
minorities in the lower socioeconomic classes. We know, for example, that the
school enrollment of Latino children increases with increases in family income. Yet,
Latinos have a median family income of $28000, which is well behind the median
income of $39,000 for the larger U.S. population. Thirty-six percent of Latino
children live in poverty in the U.S., yet only 26% attend Head Start programs, which
were developed to remedy the effects of poverty on educational achievement.
Furthermore, Latinos under age five are less likely (20%) to be enrolled in early
childhood education programs than are African American (44%) or White (42%)
children (The White House Initiative Report, 1999). Not surprisingly, high school
dropout rates tend to be higher for Latinos than for non-Latinos, and for children
living in urban versus suburban areas (NCES-COE, 2000).
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According to the National Center on Education and Economy (1990), the
poverty rate for African American families is about three times that of White
families. Although African American children are more likely than Latino or White
children to participate in center-based early childhood care and education programs,
African American children living in poverty are still less likely to attend such
programs than are those above the poverty line. Even with the benefits of early
intervention, studies indicate that children from low SES families begin school with
poorer academic skills than more advantaged ones, and experience serious difficulty
catching up (Bryant, Burchinal, Lau, & Sparling, 1994; Goldenberg, Reese, &
Gallimore, 1992).
Stipek and Ryan’s (1997) comparison of economically advantaged and
disadvantaged preschoolers found significant SES main effects within African
American and Latino children's cognitive tests scores (including numbers, letters,
and reading). The nature and degree of such differences varied for each ethnic group,
however, the associations between ethnicity and cognitive skills remained unclear
because SES was confounded with ethnicity.
The aforementioned study of early childhood socialization in Latino families
carried out by Zayas and Solari (1994) attempted to understand how Latino parents'
socialization values differed from mainstream parents' socialization values. The
study relied on the premise that “parents from ethnic and racial minorities use
distinct beliefs and behaviors determined largely by their cultural and socioeconomic
situation” (p. 200). The authors concluded that while education and social class
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appeared to account for some of the differences in parental behaviors (e.g. teaching
methods) the body of research on Latino child socialization is too small to
specifically identifying and account for differences within and between Hispanic
subgroups.
2. Early Literacy Skills, Oral Language, and Predicted Reading Success
Oral language skills form the basis for early reading and is a critical emergent
literacy skill. A strong continuity between children’s early reading skills and later
academic performance has been well established. For example, children who learn to
read early and well tend to read more and acquire more knowledge in other domains
(Cunningham & Stanivich, 1998; Morrison, Smith, & Dow-Ehrensberger, 1995),
while children who experience early difficulties in learning to read are likely to
continue to face reading problems throughout the school years (Baydar, Brooks-
Gunn, & Furstenberg, 1993; Felton, 1998; Stevenson & Newman, 1986;
Tromontana, Hooper, & Selzer, 1988) and into adulthood (Bruck, 1998). It is
estimated that one out of three children has difficulties learning to read, will
therefore receive less practice reading (Allington, 1984), experience less
opportunities to develop reading comprehension strategies (Brown, Palincsar, &
Purcell, 1986), often encounter reading material that is too advance for their skills
(Allington, 1984), and may acquire negative attitudes about reading itself (Oka &
Paris, 1986). Children with such poor reading skills encounter difficulties learning in
other academic areas and fall further and further behind their more literate peers
(Stanovich, 1986). Under certain circumstances, children as young as preschool-age
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may already be falling behind before even ‘officially’ learning to read and write at
school.
Individual differences in children's oral language skills and later differences
in reading abilities are highly correlated (Butler, Marsh, Sheppard & Sheppard,
1985; Scarborough, 1989; Share, Jorm, MacLean & Mathews, 1984). Children who
have larger vocabularies and better understanding of oral language, have higher
reading scores (Bishop & Adams, 1990; Pikulski & Tobin, 1989), and those who
read more frequently, in turn develop larger vocabularies (Cunningham & Stanovich,
1998). The significance of vocabulary size as an influential oral language skill has
been recognized by The National Research Council (Snow, Bums, & Griffin, 1998),
which maintains that most reading problems could be prevented by, among other
things, increasing children’s oral language skills (Snow, Bums, & Griffin, 1998).
The National Reading Panel (NICHD, 2000b) also supported these conclusions by
stating that “vocabulary is critically important in oral reading instruction.” Therefore,
the present study used children’s oral language as the outcome variable.
Although significant associations between SES and children’s language
abilities have been repeatedly reported (Duncan, Brooks-Gunn, & Klebanov, 1994;
Walker, et al., 1994), few studies have attempted to understand the mechanisms by
which SES and culture influence children’s literacy outcomes. The current study
attempted to provide a better understanding of how these variables interact, and
examined whether ethnic differences in home environments were observable across
social class.
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Based on the literature reviewed above the following research questions
were developed:
(1.) How are culture and families' SES associated with aspects of the home literacy
environment as measured by parents' responses to a home literacy experiences
questionnaire, (e.g., items regarding child’s reading and print exposure, reading
engagement, mother’s positive and negative beliefs about reading).
(2.). Are SES and culture associated with children's oral language scores (as
measured by the PPVT- R)?
(3). How are aspects of home literacy environments associated with children's oral
language scores (as measured above)?
(4). Does SES make an independent contribution to the variance in children's oral
language skills when controlling for culture?
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METHODS
This study analyzed an existing dataset collected in two larger studies that
investigated emergent literacy skills in young children (Lonigan & Farver, 2001).
Participants
This study analyzed an existing dataset collected with families in two U.S.
cities. The data were collected in two large studies that investigated emergent
literacy skills in young children (Lonigan & Farver, 2001). Participants were 316,
four year old (M= 47.01, SD=630) children (134 boys, 182 girls) and their mothers.
One hundred and two were Latino and two hundred fourteen were African American
families from diverse social class backgrounds. Families were recruited from
preschool programs. Mothers were compensated $15 for completing the surveys and
allowing their children to participate in the study.
Measures
Demographics
Parents responded to questions about their ethnicity, educational level,
current job, family income, and number of siblings living in the home. Families' SES
was determined using the Hollingshead 4-Factor Index (1975). Families' SES ranged
from 1.00 to 4.00. The Hollingshead Index provides a social class score (1-5) based
on both parents’ level of education, occupation, current work status, and household
composition. In the current study the social class scores were converted to a scale of
1 (low social class) to 4 (high social class). See Table 1. for a description of the
sample.
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Tablet. Sample Description (N= 316)
Variable N Range M SD
Ethnicity
African American
Latino
214
1 0 2
Gender
Boys
Girls
134
182
Age in months 33.00to 62.00 47.01 6.30
Social Class
(1= Low to 4= Hi)
1.00 to 4.00 1.97 1.05
Home Literacy Environment
Mothers completed a Language and Reading Survey (LRS) (Lonigan, 2001),
to assess aspects of home literacy environments. The survey was available in English
and Spanish. The questionnaire was independently translated by three bilingual
psychology graduate students with diverse linguistic and geographic backgrounds
(U.S., Mexico, Central America). Discrepancies among the translators were
discussed and jointly resolved according to the target population. The mothers
responded to questions about their child’s reading exposure, availability and access
to literacy-related materials, print background, their own literacy activities, beliefs
about reading, etc. See appendix for complete questionnaire.
Oral Language
Children’s oral language skills were assessed using the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test-Revised (PPVT-R; Dunn & Dunn, 1981), or the Spanish language
version, the Test de Vocabulario en Imagenes Peabody (TVIP; Dunn, Padilla, Lugo,
& Dunn, 1986). This measure was used with culturally diverse populations and the
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Spanish version was standardized and tested for validity and reliability (Lugo &
Dunn, 1986). Bilingual children’s language strengths/preferences were obtained
from parents, teachers, and the children themselves in order to decide in which
language to carry out the PPVT-R. If conflicting information was received, testers
determined language of administration by informally assessing the child’s language
capabilities by holding a short casual conversation in both English and Spanish prior
to testing.
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RESULTS
Preliminary Analysis
To reduce the number of variables contained in the LRS, a factor analysis
was conducted on items which were rated similarly on a 1 to 5 point likert scale. The
principal component analysis with varimax rotation yielded seven factors with
eigenvalues higher than 1. Variance explained by the individual items ranged from
2.9 % to 14.9%, with item loadings ranging from 0.38 to 0.88, and all crossloadings
less than 0.20, cumulative variance explained was 44%. The internal consistency of
alphas for the different subscales ranged from 0.702 to 0.835, with item-total
correlations between 0.29 and 0.79. See Table 2 for the composite variables and their
loadings.
Items not significantly associated with each other, SES, ethnicity, or the
outcome measure were disregarded and no longer considered in further analysis.
Such items included how often parents reported lack of time to engage in home
literacy activities, complexity of children’s verbalizations, mother reading skills,
frequency of child asking word meanings or trying to learn rhymes, and number of
letters and words known by child.
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Table 2. Factor Analysis of the LRS
FACTOR ITEMS LOADINGS
Parents leisure -Mother reads for fun .650
reading -Child sees mother reading for fun .761
Positive reading -Reading together teaches language .834
beliefs -Reading together helps child learn to read .738
-Reading together builds imagination skills .681
-Reading together is fun
-Reading together gives child real-world
.649
knowledge .625
Negative reading -Mother is not interested in reading to child .878
beliefs -Reading is not important .772
-Family lacks resources for reading activities
-Child is not interested in being read to by
.745
mother .605
Child TV watching -Tv hrs. of educational programs watched
during weekend days
.714
-Tv hrs. of educational programs watched .705
during weekdays .663
-Hours of TV watched during the week
-Hours of TV watched during weekends
.588
Child’s reading -Child asks to be read to .757
exposure -Mother reads to child .641
-Child looks at books by self .618
-Child enjoys reading .430
-Others in home read to child .364
-Child visits library .337
Child reading -Child loses interest during reading .728
engagement -Reading takes place at bedtime
-More than one book is read during reading
.663
activities .660
Child print exposure -Mother teaches letters to child
-Mother points out words and meanings to
.671
child .616
-Child plays with alphabet games .574
-Child plays rhyming games .543
-Child tries to write words .470
Results presented here are based on principal axis factoring and varimax rotation
Only highest factor loadings for each item are reported
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Culture and Home Literacy Environments
How is culture associated with aspects o f the home literacy environment? Is culture
associated with oral language scores?
To address whether there were differences in Latino and African-American
children's home literacy environments a Multivariate Analysis of Variance test was
carried out to compare mothers' responses to items on the LRS.
The results showed that several aspects of the home environment were
significantly different between the two ethnic groups. Latin mothers reported reading
as a leisure activity significantly more than African American mothers (F(l, 314) =
23.30,p < .001), and more strongly agree with positive beliefs about reading (F(l,
314) = 12.46,/? < .001). Latino children also had significantly higher levels of home
reading exposure (F(l, 314) = 15.26,/? < .001) and reading engagement (F(l, 314) =
426.91 ,p < .001). More Latino children had participated in library or reading
programs (F(l, 314) = 10.89, p< .005). On the other hand, more African American
than Latino families reported owning picture and alphabet books (F(l, 314) = 9.28,
p< .005; F (l, 314) = 3.99,p < .05 respectively). African American mothers also
tended to begin reading to their children at an earlier age than the Latino mothers
(F(l, 314) = 13.10,/?< .001), and engaged in print exposure activities with their child
more frequently than did Latinas (F(l, 314) = 8.31, p < .005).
Comparisons between ethnic groups also showed significantly lower SES
levels (F(l, 314) = 8.67, p< .005) for Latino families. Despite this, Latino children
20
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had significantly better oral language skills than the African American children
(F(l, 314) = 5.51,p < .05). See Table 3. for means and standard deviations.
Table 3. Variable Means for Individual Ethnic Groups
Variable Latino African American
M SD M SD F
SES 1.72 .966 2.09 1.07 8.67**
Oral language skills 82.73 18.91 77.85 16.43 5.51*
Parents’ leisure reading 5.20 1.56 4.31 1.51
2 3 3 ***
Positive Reading Beliefs 4.81 .33 4.61 .55 12.46***
Negative Reading
Beliefs
1.47 .79 1.60 .91 1.67
Child’s TV watching 2.45 .78 3.16 .89
Child’s reading
exposure
4.11 1 . 1 0 3.61 1.03
15 26***
Child’s reading
engagement
1.93 .44 .6 8 .53 426.91***
Child’s print exposure 4.92 1.31 5.33 1.09 8.31**
Family owns picture
books
1.63 .84 2.13 1.47 9.82**
Family owns alphabet
books
2.69 2.58 3.31 2.58 3.99*
Family owns alphabet
games
1.17 .38 1.16 .37 .08
Child writes own name 1.63 .48 1.64 .48 . 0 0
Child knows any
letter(s)
1.16 .37 1.14 .39 . 2 2
Child knows any
word(s)
1.71 .45 1.70 .46 .07
Age when mother began
reading to child
10.65 8.23 7.52 6.64 13.10***
Participation in
library/reading program
1.84 .36 1 . 6 6 .47 10.89**
* = p<.05
** = p<.005
*** = p< . 0 0 1
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SES, Home Literacy Environments and Oral Language
Are SES and home environments associated with children's oral language scores?
Pearson Correlations were conducted to address whether SES and home
literacy environments were associated with oral language skills. The results showed
there were no significant associations between SES and oral language scores. The
results also revealed that oral language scores were associated with parents' leisure
reading activities, children’s reading exposure, numbers of picture books the family
owned, and parents’ agreement with negative beliefs about reading. See Table 4 for
correlation coefficients.
Table 4. Correlations among SES, Oral Language, and Home Literacy Environment
Variable SES Oral Language Skills
Home Environment Variables
Child Reading Exposure .016 .261**
Child Reading Engagement -.107 .261**
Child Print Exposure -.038 -.047
Child TV Watching .018 -.029
Child Participation in Library
Program
-.103 -.008
Family owns Picture Books .106 .129*
Family owns Alphabet Books .051 -.015
Family owns Alphabet Games -.054 -.005
Parent Leisure Reading .019 .145**
Parent Positive Reading Beliefs -.006 .090
Parent Negative Reading Beliefs .028 -.183**
Parent-Child Reading Onset Age -.018 -.052
Parenting Stress -.185** . 0 0 1
Child Knows Words -.082 -.059
Child Knows Letters -.061 .084
Child Writes Name -.031 -.027
* * = p < . 0 1
* = p < .05
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How are aspects o f home literacy environments associated with children's oral
language scores?
Does SES make an independent contribution to the variance in children's oral
language skills when controlling for culture?
A simultaneous regression analysis with four steps was conducted to examine
how aspects of home literacy environment were associated with children’s oral
language scores, and address whether SES makes an independent contribution to the
variance in oral language scores when controlling for culture (see Table 5). The four
potential control variables for the regression included child age, child gender, SES,
and culture. Child age and gender were entered in the first step, SES and culture on
the second step. The Home Literacy Environment variables of interest were entered
on the third step. These included positive and negative reading beliefs, child reading
engagement, child reading exposure, and child print exposure. The third model
showed that Home Literacy Environment explained a significant 14.5% of the
variance in children’s oral language skills. Child reading exposure, and child reading
engagement independently contributed significantly to the variance explained after
controlling for child age, gender, SES, and culture. While negative reading beliefs
neared significance, it did not contribute to the variance explained. Child print
exposure and positive reading beliefs did not independently add to the amount of
variance explained.
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Table 5. Home Literacy Environment Variables as Predictors of Children’s Oral
Language Scores _________ ___________ _________ _________ _____
Predictor Variables Beta t Rsq Rsq
Change
F
Step 1
Child age -.170 -3.056***
Child gender .057 1.024
.031 .031 5.033**
Step 2
Ethnicity -.108 -1.891
SES .019 .331
.042 .011 3.424**
Step 3
Positive Reading
Beliefs
-.014 -.256
Negative Reading
Beliefs
-.107 -1.957
Child’s Reading
Exposure
.196 3.462***
Child’s Reading
Engagement
.295 3.502***
Child’s Print Exposure -.044 -.807
.145 .103
5 789****
Step 4
NRB x Ethnicity .281 1.092
NRBxSES .167 1.131
CRExp x Ethnicity -.054 -.198
CRExp x SES .105 .421
CREng x SES .016 .118
CREng x Ethnicity -.478 - 2 . 0 1 0 *
.167 . 0 2 2 4 012****
* = p< .05
* * = p < . 0 1
*** = p< .005
* * * * = p < Q Q J
24
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How is the interaction between SES and Culture associated with oral language
scores?
In order to assess potential interaction effects of SES and Culture on
children’s oral language scores, interaction variables for SES and ethnicity with the
HLE variables that significantly added to the model (i.e., Child reading exposure x
SES, Child reading exposure x ethnicity, child reading engagement x SES, and child
reading engagement x ethnicity) were entered (see Table 5). Interaction variables
were also included for negative reading beliefs due to its approximation to
significance (i.e., negative reading beliefs x SES, and negative reading beliefs x
ethnicity). Of these variables, only the reading engagement x ethnicity interaction
variable significantly contributed to the variance explained after controlling for the
previously entered items. The negative association seems to indicate that reading
engagement significantly contributes to the prediction of children’s oral language
skills for African American families. The last model significantly explained 16.7%
of the variance in children’s oral language skills.
25
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DISCUSSION
In the present study, the complex relations between home literacy
environments, culture, SES, and preschool children’s oral language scores were
examined in an economically diverse Latin and African American sample. Home
literacy environment was associated with culture; not only did Latino and African
American families differ in the frequency in which they engaged in literacy
activities, but also in the kinds of activities they tended to focus on. Contrary to what
has been suggested by other studies (Godina, 1997; Teale 1986), these results
indicate that Latino mothers frequently engage in reading activities with their
preschool-age children, and believe that such activities are desirable, important, and
valuable for their children, regardless of their socioeconomic status. Given these
results, it was not surprising to find that Latino children had more frequently
participated in a library or reading program by age four or five, than did African
American children. Additionally, Latino mothers more frequently read for pleasure
than African American mothers, which points out to the relevance of modeling
literacy-related behaviors in the home.
These findings in no way indicate that African American mothers did not
value or engage in literacy activities with their children though. Not only did African
American families own more picture and alphabet books than Latino families, but
they also began reading to their children at a much earlier age, which other studies
(Eppe et. al, 2001) have found to be significantly associated with other literacy
activities and children’s verbal scores. While African American mothers did not
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engage in reading activities as much as the Latino mothers, they more frequently
engaged in print-related activities than their ethnic counterparts. These findings
suggest that African American families more strongly focus on formally trying to
teach their children letters of the alphabet, words and word meanings. African
American children also more frequently play alphabet and rhyming games, and
attempt to write words.
Socioeconomic status was not associated with any of the home environment
aspects, indicating that such differences may be an effect of culture, regardless of
possible poverty effects. Socioeconomic status was not related to children’s oral
language skills either. While the expected effects may surface in samples including
the more extreme, upper SES levels, those are rare within the U.S. inner-city ethnic
groups considered here. The present sample included a wide enough range of SES
levels for the minorities considered, and may be a more realistic representation of the
population of interest without that extreme subgroup. Although psychological
research has repeatedly found the negative effects of poverty to be relevant across
ethnicities, the results of this study suggest that such effects may be too commonly
assumed, and used to ‘explain’ inconsistent, unexpected, or complex results in
studies including minority samples. These findings are particularly relevant for at
least two reasons. First, it points out to the notion that certain cultural traditions and
beliefs may be stronger, and more persistent than the influence that socioeconomic
status may have within minority families in the US. Second, it indicates that
important differences do exist between minority groups, across SES levels, and such
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differences should not be ‘grouped’ as minority- or poverty-effects, but examined
separately. Additionally, aspects that differ between cultures may be associated to
the same outcomes in significantly different ways; that is, an activity that may be
predictive of an outcome for one ethnic group, may not be associated to that same
outcome in a different ethnic group. Children may achieve the same outcomes
through culturally different behaviors and beliefs. Cross-cultural studies should
therefore carefully examine within-group associations before appropriate, conclusive
between-group comparisons can be conducted.
While Latin children had significantly higher oral language scores than
African American children, the results indicate that specific aspects of the home
literacy environments, not SES, or ethnicity itself, should be attributed for such
differences. Reading exposure (e.g. how often mothers or other family members read
to children), and reading engagement (e.g. how regularly, for how long, and how
long the child remains interested in the activity) were predictive of children’s oral
language skills across cultures, while print exposure (i.e. teaching letters, words, and
playing rhyming or alphabet games) was not. The finding that early book exposure in
the home predicts children’s oral language skills contributes to the existing literature
by showing that the relation holds after controlling for ethnicity, and socioeconomic
status. It is important to note that the positive effects of these home reading activities
were significant in spite of higher poverty levels, higher parenting stress, and
possible acculturation and bilingualism difficulties the Latin families were or may
have been experiencing. These results are in line with previous findings (Senechal &
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LeFevre, 2002), that formal (e.g. teaching letters) and informal (e.g. storybook
exposure) literacy activities in the home, are not only uncorrelated, but associated
with different outcomes. Print-related experiences in the home, while unrelated to
oral language skills, have been shown to be concurrently and longitudinally
associated with formal emergent literacy skills, such as print awareness, alphabet
knowledge, and spelling (Senechal & LeFevre, 2002). Because measures of such
emergent literacy skills were not included in this study, and the children were only
tested concurrently, we cannot examine whether such associations hold across
different cultures and socioeconomic status. Future studies should include such
questions within longitudinal models.
An interaction effect between reading engagement and culture was
found to be associated with children’s oral language scores, suggesting that
increasing the time spent and the number of books African American mothers use
during reading interactions with their children, as well as maintaining their interest
for longer periods of time, may improve African American children’s oral language.
While this interaction needs to be more fully examined before such an intervention is
considered, it provides an example of how different cultural groups may achieve
equal outcomes through different behaviors.
This study contributes findings that are not only important for cultural,
comparative, and poverty-related issues, but begins to more clearly define and
examine home environments as influential aspects in children’s development. With a
growing number of ecologically-ffiendly studies analyzing home environments, it is
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imperative that we begin to identify which aspects of the home environments are
relevant, and which may not make a difference. The present study indicates, for
example, that simply owning books, or having positive beliefs about reading, while
desirable, is not enough to make a difference. Interventions seeking to improve
children’s oral language should therefore go beyond simply providing books, or
lecturing parents about the importance of reading; they should be developed
according to the existing associations within the target cultural group, modeling and
reinforcing reading interactions that target culturally appropriate, and effective
activities. That is, deficiencies in minority children’s emergent literacy outcomes,
should not automatically be understood and approached as a general, equal,
phenomena attributable to poverty, minority, or inner-city, “non-white” status. This
study provides a starting point in a long process of understanding that cultural
differences are more than ‘deficits’, and ‘being different’ than the mainstream, white,
average person, and that such complexities need to be carefully examined before
truly appropriate, effective, long-lasting interventions can begin to realistically
improve children’s outcomes.
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Asset Metadata

Creator Eppe Chamberlain, Stefanie (author)

Core Title Emergent literacy differences in Latino and African American children: Culture or poverty?

School Graduate School

Degree Master of Arts

Degree Program Psychology

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag Black studies,education, early childhood,education, language and literature,OAI-PMH Harvest,psychology, developmental

Language English

Contributor Digitized by ProQuest (provenance)

Advisor Farver, JoAnn (committee chair), [illegible] (committee member)

Permanent Link (DOI) https://doi.org/10.25549/usctheses-c16-303712

Unique identifier UC11342246

Identifier 1416539.pdf (filename),usctheses-c16-303712 (legacy record id)

Legacy Identifier 1416539.pdf

Dmrecord 303712

Document Type Thesis

Rights Eppe Chamberlain, Stefanie

Type texts

Source University of Southern California (contributing entity), University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses (collection)

Access Conditions The author retains rights to his/her dissertation, thesis or other graduate work according to U.S. copyright law. Electronic access is being provided by the USC Libraries in agreement with the au...

Repository Name University of Southern California Digital Library

Repository Location USC Digital Library, University of Southern California, University Park Campus, Los Angeles, California 90089, USA