The Association Between Home Learning Environment, Parental Belief, and Children’s Reading Abilities

Factors of the home learning environment have been recognized as important influences on a child’s reading development. Of those, types of parent involvement have been robustly researched and found that parent-child activities and parent reading beliefs are influential in early literacy development. But what about the parent who actually reads for themselves? While research has focused on emergent literacy and school readiness, it is plausible that the type of parent involvement will change over time specifically after the child enters school. The present study aimed to examine the relationship between parent reading beliefs and parent modeling on early reading skills. A series of regression analyses were conducted. Results indicated parent reading behavior was associated with vocabulary and reading comprehension, and in exploratory analyses, parent reading behavior was associated with vocabulary beyond parent education. These findings highlight the importance of the home learning environment on early reading skills after the child enters school.