Home Environment (Effects on Language and Literacy Development)

Over the past 30 years, increasing attention has been paid to the effects of home environments on children's language and literacy development. Home language environment generally refers not only to the home and [Page 265]the physical resources it provides (e.g., books, newspapers, and writing materials) but also to the social interactions and relationships that occur within home contexts. Various terms have been used to refer to the relationships among home literacy environments and children's literacy and language development including family literacy and language practices, home literacy environments, literacy in families, home-based literacy and language processes, literacy and language among family members, and home literacy experiences. Some researchers focus on specific dimensions of the home literacy and language environment, including parent-child joint book reading experiences or parent-child storybook reading.

Family literacy is perhaps the most common term used to reference the literacy and language practices that occur in children's homes. Denny Taylor originated the term in her dissertation; subsequently, Family Literacy became the title of the book she published in 1983. While the book did not present a formal definition of family literacy, it explored how literacy styles and values were practiced within families. She noted that family members were often minimally aware of these practices and their possible significance for children's language and literacy learning. As Taylor explained, literacy operated as a social process within everyday people's lives—a part of the very fabric of family life.

National policies and federally supported programs have historically identified family literacy as a potential solution to the economic and social disparities that divide diverse groups of people in the United States. During the late 1980s and early 1990s, various family literacy programs were established including Even Start, a federally sponsored intergenerational family literacy program designed to provide literacy services to low-income adults and children, and the Head Start Family Literacy Initiative, designed to help parents develop literacy skills that would enable them to act as their children's first teachers. While the early 2000s were characterized by a general shifting of social responsibility from the public sector to individuals by reducing public services for families, strong rhetoric continues to support literacy as a potential cure for poverty and social ills as evidenced in the following quote from Sharon Darling, “Certainly, one of the underlying causes of unemployment, underemployment, and poverty is low literacy skills.”

Among the scholars who focused on language and literacy learning in children's homes is Shirley Brice Heath. Heath conducted an ethnography of language and literacy practices in homes that has become the most widely cited text in the field of family literacy. Based on her longitudinal work in European American and African American working-class communities, Heath identified differing language and literacy practices and noted how the literacy and language practices in both of these communities differed from those found in the homes of white, middle-class students.

These qualitative, descriptive studies inspired quantitative researchers to identify causal variables and construct predictive models that draw on home environment practices to explain the differential school success of children from diverse backgrounds. Significant numbers of quantitative studies began to appear during the early 1990s. These studies generally relied on traditional measures of literacy achievement (i.e., Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-Revised [PPVT-R], Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities, Woodcock, Metropolitan Readiness, and the Stanford Achievement Test) to measure literacy and language development over time. Several of these prominent quantitative researchers highlighted relationships between storybook reading and later reading achievement in school.

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