Parents' Beliefs About Young Children's Literacy Development And Parents' Literacy Behaviors

This research examined parents' literacy beliefs and their self-reported behaviors of how they help their children learn to read and to write. There were 35 parents of preschool-age children involved in this study. Parents were interviewed about their beliefs and behaviors using the Parents' Perceptions of Literacy Learning Interview Schedule(PPLLIS; Anderson, 1995a Anderson, J. 1995. Listening to parents' voices: Cross cultural perceptions of learning to read and to write. Reading Horizons., 35: 394–413. [CSA] [Google Scholar]). There were significant relationships between parents' literacy beliefs and their self-reported literacy behaviors. Descriptive analysis seemed to suggest that parents with more holistic beliefs engage in more encouragement activities than parents with more skills-based beliefs. This research highlights the importance of examining parents' beliefs about young children's literacy development.