The relation of home literacy environments to language and preliteracy skills in single-and dual-language children in Danish childcare.

The study investigates how reading activities at home can affect how good children are at speaking and reading. The researchers look specifically at children who have been in full-day kindergarten since they were around one to one and a half years old and investigate whether the correlations between reading activities at home and language and reading skills differ depending on when the children started kindergarten and whether they learn two languages.

The research questions are:

1) How do home-based reading activities affect children who attend full-day kindergarten?

1. Is this affected by the parents' mother tongue (mother tongue versus non-native speaker)?
2. Is this affected by when the children started kindergarten?

2) Among children with two parents who speak a mother tongue other than Danish, do the parents' Danish language skills and use affect the children's results?

1. Is this affected by parents' Danish language skills and use?

3) Among children with one parent who speaks Danish as their mother tongue and one who speaks another mother tongue, are the children's results affected by which parent speaks the non-native language?

1. Is this affected by the non-Danish parent's Danish language skills and use?
2. Is this affected by which parent speaks the non-native language?

The study shows that home-based reading activities have a positive impact on children's oral language and reading skills, regardless of whether they spend a lot of time in kindergarten or not. This also applies to children who grow up with one or two languages. For children from minority language homes in particular, home-based reading activities are of great importance, as they support the parents' use of the majority language. The study also reveals that parents who do not have the majority language as their mother tongue and their use of the majority language at home can be positive for their children's language skills.

The study included 5791 children aged four to six years old (47% girls) with different language backgrounds and their parents. The parents completed a questionnaire about the reading environment at home and the parents' mother tongue, their proficiency in and use of the Danish language.

Højen, A., Hoff, E., Bleses, D. & Dale, P. S. (2021). "The relation of home literacy environments to language and preliteracy skills in single-and dual-language children in Danish childcare". Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 55(2021):312-325.