Children at Family-Risk of Reading Difficulties:Modeling the Early Path of Emergent LiteracySkills and Home Literacy Environment (HLE) atSchool StartZahra Esmaeeli (National Reading Centre, Centrefor Reading Education and Reading Research,University of Stavanger, Norway), KjerstiLundetræ (National Reading Centre, Centrefor Reading Education and Reading Research,University of Stavanger, Norway), Fiona Kyle(School of Health Science, City UniversityLondon)Zahra.esmaeeli@uis.noIt is well established that reading difficulties runin family. Regarding children at family-risk (FR children), a consistent group deficit has beenfound in Emergent Literacy Skills. However,research on developmental dyslexia has alsoshown that combinations of various types –environmental and demographic factors alsoprovide important and meaningful insight intodevelopment of children’s Emergent LiteracySkills. The current study investigates the role ofHLE, parents’ education, gender, and years inkindergarten in Emergent Literacy Skills in FRand NOT-FR (Not family-risk) children.The sample includes children from the OnTrack Project including of FR (N = 214) andNOT-FR (N = 634) based on parents’ self-reportof reading difficulties. The participants wereassessed at first grade entry in Emergent LiteracySkills including Letter Knowledge, PhonemicAwareness, Vocabulary, and Word Reading.Parents answered a questionnaire regardingdemographics, HLE (parents’ reading habits,parent-child shared reading etc.). The dataare analyzed based on the modeling of theassociations between HLE and Emergent LiteracySkills within a SEM framework.Analyses showed that the FR children had poorEmergent Literacy Skills as compared to NOT-FRindividuals. In addition, a richer HLE was foundfor NOT-FR children. The results may suggesta greater risk of reading difficulties for the FRchildren. Furthermore, regression analyseswithin each group indicated that HLE, parents’education, gender, and years in kindergartenpredicted Emergent Literacy Skills in both FR andNot-FR children. These results are also discussedin relation to the modeling of the associationsbetween HLE and Emergent Literacy skills whilecontrolling for gender, years in kindergarten, andparents’ level of education in SEM framework.The results add to our knowledge of how familialrisk, HLE and demographic factors relates toEmergent Literacy Skills at school start.
