Parent’s learning difficulties predict children’s reading and math skills
The study focused on parental reading and mathematical difficulties, the home learning environment and their predictive role in Finnish children’s reading and mathematical development through Grades 1–9.
As learning difficulties are known to be heritable, the researchers were able to identify children with family risk for similar difficulties by looking at parental reports on their reading and mathematical skills.
“Family risk research provides valuable insights into the precursors of learning difficulties before formal instruction at school takes place. Identifying the familial risk at an early age makes early interventions and timely educational support possible”, explains Daria Khanolainen, a Ph.D. student from the Faculty of Education and Psychology, University of Jyväskylä.
The Finnish study makes an important and unique contribution by looking at reading and mathematical difficulties at the same time, while taking into account existing evidence that numeracy and literacy development are highly interconnected processes. Number of previous studies have shown the comorbidity of reading and mathematical difficulties being common. In addition, the new study examines what role the home learning environment has in child development and how it relates to family risk.
Parents’ skills and education matters
The results reveal that parental reading difficulties predicted children’s reading fluency, whereas parental mathematical difficulties predicted the children’s reading comprehension and arithmetic fluency.
Parental learning difficulties were associated with neither formal nor informal home environment factors. This suggest that the association between parent’s learning difficulties and children’s skills was not due to differences in e.g. how often parent’s teach their children or read books with them but rather reflected the heritable risk.
Maternal education, however, was associated with both home environment factors and their learning difficulties. Lower levels of education among mothers predicted more time spent on teaching activities but less time spent on shared reading. At the same time, more shared reading predicted better reading comprehension up to Grades 3 and 4, whereas other components of the home learning environment were not associated with any assessed skills. It thus seems that maternal education may support reading comprehension development through more shared reading, which is known to be important for language development.
Reading comprehension can be supported at home
Home learning activities should be encouraged and supported for in every family. The new study highlights that more attention needs to be paid on how to support the home learning activities.
“Indeed, our findings suggest that all parents need to be encouraged to read together with their children. Previous research also showed that shared reading contributes to children’s vocabulary development, which in turn predicts stronger reading comprehension skills”, Khanolainen says.
Further Information:
Daria Khanolainen, Doctoral Student, University of Jyväskylä
tel: +358 40 6888664, email: daria.p.khanolainen@jyu.fi
Reference: Khanolainen, D., Psyridou, M., Silinskas, G., Lerkkanen, M. K., Niemi, P., Poikkeus, A. M., & Torppa, M. (2020). Longitudinal Effects of the Home Learning Environment and Parental Difficulties on Reading and Math Development Across Grades 1–9. Frontiers in Psychology, 11. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.577981
