Date of Conferral

2021

Degree

Ph.D.

School

Psychology

Advisor

Lucille Esralew

Abstract

AbstractMany children struggle with developing their reading skills at the point of starting formal elementary school. Parents contribute to their children’s literacy development through early home reading engagement aimed at improving their children’s reading skills. Parental styles of literacy interactions are associated with their beliefs and perceptions regarding literacy development of children. Therefore, there was a need to understand parental perceptions regarding (a) the importance of child’s readiness for reading interactions, (b) the quality of parent-child reading activities, and (c) the importance of parental preferences regarding specific reading materials. The research questions focused on parents’ lived experiences regarding the values of parent-child home literacy activities. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory was used to guide this qualitative phenomenological study. A total of eight mothers who experienced home literacy engagement with their preschool children participated in this phenomenological qualitative study via a one-on-one Zoom and phone interview. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis, which resulted in eight themes. Results referred to parents’ perceptions in which early home literacy had positive influences on children’s social-emotional competence, behavior, strengthened the parent-child bond, and promoted school readiness by increasing children’s confidence to express their feelings with parents and teachers. The insight from this study may promote positive social change by providing useful information to assist researchers and educators to develop strategies for families who have children with or without special needs to have effective literacy engagement.

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