The unique role of home literacy environment and executive functioning skills in preschool children’s reading development

Abstract

<p>Executive functioning skills (EF), defined broadly as the ability to regulate mental functions and engage in goal-directed behavior, has been suggested to be a significant unique predictor of children's reading skills. Previous work has identified working memory and inhibitory control as the primary contributors to children’s academic achievement. Yet, the lack of consistency in the measurements of EF, using either behavioral tasks or questionnaires reported by parents or teachers, may lead to a lack of inconsistency in our understanding of EF’s contribution to children’s reading development. The present work aimed to closely examine the unique role of EF in Chinese children’s reading development through both behavioral, parent and teacher rating assessments of EF while controlling for reading-related linguistic factors and environmental factors such as home literacy environment (HLE) and socioeconomic status (SES). Chinese children in Hong Kong (N = 197; <em>M</em>_age = 6.00 years) were recruited to participate in the study and were assessed on their EF skills, word reading abilities, and cognitive-linguistic skills. Parents also completed questionnaires on SES, HLE, and EF, and teachers completed a questionnaire on reading behavior and EF. After controlling for IQ, age, SES, teacher-rated reading ability, and cognitive-linguistic skills, regression analysis showed that HLE and teacher-rated EF skills significantly predicted word reading. Our findings suggest that EF and HLE uniquely predicted Chinese children’s early reading performance regardless of their SES and reading behaviors. This result underscores the protective roles of the home-learning environment and executive functions in Chinese preschool children’s reading ability.<br></p>