Measures and References: Home Literacy Environment

Return to Home Literacy Environment factor page.

Measures

Numerous measures exist to gain a full picture of a student's learning strengths and challenges. Following are examples of measures used to assess this Learner Factor. These measures should be administered and interpreted by experienced professionals.

Home Literacy Checklist: A parent questionnaire that can help determine whether parents are providing a strong HLE for their children

References

Burgess, S. R., & Lonigan, C. J. (1998). Bidirectional relations of phonological sensitivity and prereading abilities: Evidence from a preschool sample. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 70(2), 117-141.

Cameron-Faulkner, T., & Noble, C. (2013). A comparison of book text and child directed speech. First Language, 33(3), 268-279.

Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5-51.

Crain-Thoreson, C., Dahlin, M. P., & Powell, T. A. (2001). Parent-child interaction in three conversational contexts: Variations in style and strategy. In J. Brooks-Gunn & P. Rebello (Eds.), Sourcebook on Emergent Literacy (pp. 23-38). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Davidse, N. J., de Jong, M. T., Bus, A. G., Huijbregts, S. C. J., & Swaab, H. (2011). Cognitive and environmental predictors of early literacy skills. Reading and Writing, 24(4), 395-412.

DesJardin, J. L., & Ambrose, S. E. (2010). The importance of the home literacy environment for developing literacy skills in young children who are deaf or hard of hearing. Young Exceptional Children, 13(5), 28-44.

Einziger, T., Zilberman-Hayun, Y., Atzaba-Poria, N., Auerbach, J. G., & Berger, A. (2019). How important is early home environment in the prediction of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder in adolescence? The protective role of early cognitive stimulation. Infant and Child Development, 28(5), 1-16.

Foy, J. G., & Mann, V. (2003). Home literacy environment and phonological awareness in preschool children: Differential effects for rhyme and phoneme awareness. Applied Psycholinguistics, 24, 59-88.

Justice, L.M, & Ezell, H.K. (2002). Use of storybook reading to increase print awareness in at-risk children. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology 11(1), 17-29.

Kaefer, T., Neuman, S. B., & Pinkham, A. M. (2015). Pre-existing background knowledge influences socioeconomic differences in preschoolers' word learning and comprehension. Reading Psychology, 36(3), 203-231.

Montag, J. L., Jones, M. N., & Smith, L. B. (2015). The words children hear: Picture books and the statistics for language learning. Psychological Science, 26(9), 1489-1496.

Niklas, F., & Schneider, W. (2013). Home literacy environment and the beginning of reading and spelling. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 38(1), 40-50.

Niklas, F., & Schneider, W. (2015). With a little help: Improving kindergarten children's vocabulary by enhancing the home literacy environment. Reading and Writing, 28(4), 491-508.

Puranik, C. S., Phillips, B. M., Lonigan, C. J., & Gibson, E. (2018). Home literacy practices and preschool children's emergent writing skills: An initial investigation. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 42, 228-238.

Senechal, M., Pagan, S., Lever, R., & Ouellette, G. P. (2008). Relations among the frequency of shared reading and 4-year-old children's vocabulary, morphological and syntax comprehension, and narrative skills. Early Education and Development, 19(1), 27-44.

van Steensel, R. (2006). Relations between socio-cultural factors, the home literacy environment and children's literacy development in the first years of primary education. Journal of Research in Reading, 29(4), 367-382.

Whitehurst, G. J., Arnold, D. S., Epstein, J. N., Angell, A. L., Smith, M., & Fischel, J. E. (1994). A picture book reading intervention in day care and home for children from low-income families. Developmental Psychology, 30(5), 679.

Zevenbergen, A. A., Whitehurst, G. J., & Zevenbergen, J. A. (2003). Effects of a shared-reading intervention on the inclusion of evaluative devices in narratives of children from low-income families. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 24(1), 1-15.